Hi-lo/Ten count

[BlackHead]

Hello everyone and thanks in advance. I've been a reader for some time here and on blackjackinfo and managed to pickup enough pointers to make some money at my local Seminole casinos.

I'd like to address some duo team play action. Me and my spouse both use the hi-lo at the same table but, recently I've picked up the insurance ten count to improve are IC. Now what I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to also improve our PE by maybe adding some indices to the ten count and or a side count. The games down here in south Florida are pretty much 6 to 8 deck H17 no LS we do a good amount of wonging and spread 1-16.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ZenKinG]

Don't worry about PE in shoe games. Hi lo and ten count would be a very effective strategy though. Insurance is the best index play one can make, so having perfect insurance is a good strategy if you can do it.

[Three]

Don't worry about PE in shoe games

Why not. PE just gets you more money at no cost. Only a fool would not want a raise for doing the same thing.

Insurance is the best index play one can make, so having perfect insurance is a good strategy if you can do it.

IC is another category for playing decisions. The gain from all the other playing decisions is more than the gain from IC. Insurance is just the most profitable individual playing decision. What really frustrates me is the people that look at parts of their game individually rather than the game as a whole. An increase in PE may only be worth 5% in shoe games if you bet the same in both parts of the comparison but if you make optimal bets to the same BR and RoR your bets won't be the same for the lower PE and higher PE approach. The higher PE approach will gain from higher bets and increased PE.

HILO I18 and Fab4, heads up S17, DAS, LS, 6 deck, 52 cut off, 13.7% RoR $100K BR:
Spread 143 to 2288, EV $581.37/100 rounds, N0 17357

HILO full indices, heads up, S17, DAS, LS, 6 deck, 52 cut off, 13.7% RoR, $100K BR:
Spread 153 to 2448, EV $646.42/100 rounds, N0 15592

That an 11.1% EV increase or the whole for using a higher PE with the same count not to mention an 11.1% decrease in N0 (11.3% increase in SCORE).

Now if we adjust the RoR to make the same bets at full indices we made at I18 and Fab4 it looks like this at an 11.9% RoR:
Spread 143 to 2288, EV $604.2/100 rounds, N0 15594.

That is only a 3.9% EV increase but still gets the 11.1% decrease in N0 (11.3% increase in SCORE).

So you see the person that doesn't look at the big picture only sees about a 1/3rd (35.1%) of the gain in EV that increasing PE can garner if they used the gain to the most advantage. Of course there is value to lowering RoR as the same 11.3% increase in SCORE from the lowering of your N0 indicates for either use of the increase in PE.

Just a pet peeve I have for those who are not looking at the big picture to see the actual value of what you gain. I know I am not going to turn down an 11+% raise at my job because it is too small. Hell you invest and hold a penny stock and a 10% return on your investment is huge.

[Pierce]

Why not. PE just gets you more money at no cost

Absolutely, blackjack is a game of small edges, knocking bits off that edge here there and everywhere is senseless.

The 'Hobbyists 18' lives on...

[mofungoo]

Why not. PE just gets you more money at no cost. Only a fool would not want a raise for doing the same thing.


IC is another category for playing decisions. The gain from all the other playing decisions is more than the gain from IC. Insurance is just the most profitable individual playing decision. What really frustrates me is the people that look at parts of their game individually rather than the game as a whole. An increase in PE may only be worth 5% in shoe games if you bet the same in both parts of the comparison but if you make optimal bets to the same BR and RoR your bets won't be the same for the lower PE and higher PE approach. The higher PE approach will gain from higher bets and increased PE.

HILO I18 and Fab4, heads up S17, DAS, LS, 6 deck, 52 cut off, 13.7% RoR $100K BR:
Spread 143 to 2288, EV $581.37/100 rounds, N0 17357

HILO full indices, heads up, S17, DAS, LS, 6 deck, 52 cut off, 13.7% RoR, $100K BR:
Spread 153 to 2448, EV $646.42/100 rounds, N0 15592

That an 11.1% EV increase or the whole for using a higher PE with the same count not to mention an 11.1% decrease in N0 (11.3% increase in SCORE).

Now if we adjust the RoR to make the same bets at full indices we made at I18 and Fab4 it looks like this at an 11.9% RoR:
Spread 143 to 2288, EV $604.2/100 rounds, N0 15594.

That is only a 3.9% EV increase but still gets the 11.1% decrease in N0 (11.3% increase in SCORE).

So you see the person that doesn't look at the big picture only sees about a 1/3rd (35.1%) of the gain in EV that increasing PE can garner if they used the gain to the most advantage. Of course there is value to lowering RoR as the same 11.3% increase in SCORE from the lowering of your N0 indicates for either use of the increase in PE.

Just a pet peeve I have for those who are not looking at the big picture to see the actual value of what you gain. I know I am not going to turn down an 11+% raise at my job because it is too small. Hell you invest and hold a penny stock and a 10% return on your investment is huge.

143-2288? 153-2448? You will not be using these spreads in any casino; they are completely unrealistic. If a reasonable 150-2400 spread is employed Ill18 yields 635.28 and full indices gives 681.65, a difference of 46.36. It could take millions of hands to realize that difference in EV in real life.

[Pierce]

143-2288? 153-2448? You will not be using these spreads in any casino; they are completely unrealistic. If a reasonable 150-2400 spread is employed Ill18 yields 635.28 and full indices gives 681.65, a difference of 46.36. It could take millions of hands to realize that difference in EV in real life.

You're happy to throw away $50 a session just so you dont have to learn some extra numbers?

[mofungoo]

You're happy to throw away $50 a session just so you dont have to learn some extra numbers?

I use 40 index numbers so I would not be "throwing away" nearly that in an hour.

I know all the numbers, but many are used so infrequently I would have to think a while to recall them. I would prefer to just play basic for those sorts of plays and move the game along, getting more hands per hour.

[Pierce]

I'd probably be "throwing away" more than that laying cover while making table max bets.

Sooo.....learn the indices and recover at least part of lost earnings on cover?

[Pierce]

I use 40 index numbers so I would not be "throwing away" nearly that in an hour.

I know all the numbers, but many are used so infrequently I would have to think a while to recall them. I would prefer to just play basic for those sorts of plays and move the game along, getting more hands per hour.

Thats fair enough, however my attitude towards it would be to work to make those numbers as second nature as your 16 and 15 v X indices.
At best you can hope for a 2% advantage with pure counting, so it seems senseless to me to discount any EV no matter how small.

[Three]

143-2288? 153-2448? You will not be using these spreads in any casino; they are completely unrealistic. If a reasonable 150-2400 spread is employed Ill18 yields 635.28 and full indices gives 681.65, a difference of 46.36.

The point was not to suggest a bet spread for use in the casino but to keep all rounding errors out of the comparison of optimal 16 to 1 spreads at the same BR and RoR for each PE with the same count. The way to be exact is to not tinker with the optimal spread suggested by CVCX for both scenarios and the parameters set. Why in the world would you want to introduce rounding errors that render results inaccurate? When you set a spread for casino use then you can round and cause suboptimal but practical results.

It could take millions of hands to realize that difference in EV in real life.

The results would be $50/100 hands more for however many hands it would take for the long run to occur. Just like in BJ it will take lots of hands for your results to fall inline with expectation. A million hands will get your results close to expectation for a counter. That is the point you will be $500K behind with the lower PE. That is 10000 hours at 100 rounds/hour. We are talking 10 to 30 years of play at 1000 hours/year (19 hours a week) to 334 hours/year (6.5 hours/week). To me a half million dollars is a pretty significant cut in pay to save some PE. If you are a red chipper at a $15 table it is only about $50K for those 10000 hours at 100 rounds/hour. That's about $5K a year at 1000 hour/year and 100 rounds/hour red chipping.

They like to say a Score of 50 is the minimal playable game you should enter. With the boost in PE the unplayable SCORE of 45 is now a playable SCORE of 50.1. So besides giving you a nice increase in pay it makes more games playable which is another boost to your expectation by making more games playable. It is about the big picture not seeing only the smallest aspect of the value of PE.

[mofungoo]

The point was not to suggest a bet spread for use in the casino but to keep all rounding errors out of the comparison of optimal 16 to 1 spreads at the same BR and RoR for each PE with the same count. The way to be exact is to not tinker with the optimal spread suggested by CVCX for both scenarios and the parameters set. Why in the world would you want to introduce rounding errors that render results inaccurate? When you set a spread for casino use then you can round and cause suboptimal but practical results.

Why not use the spread that will be used at the casino? The purpose of running a sim is to emulate reality as closely as possible so that one may have a better idea what to expect in real life.

The results would be $50/100 hands more for however many hands it would take for the long run to occur. Just like in BJ it will take lots of hands for your results to fall inline with expectation. A million hands will get your results close to expectation for a counter. That is the point you will be $500K behind with the lower PE. That is 10000 hours at 100 rounds/hour. We are talking 10 to 30 years of play at 1000 hours/year (19 hours a week) to 334 hours/year (6.5 hours/week). To me a half million dollars is a pretty significant cut in pay to save some PE. If you are a red chipper at a $15 table it is only about $50K for those 10000 hours at 100 rounds/hour. That's about $5K a year at 1000 hour/year and 100 rounds/hour red chipping.

Once again, your numbers are not realistic. 1000 hours a year? Few amongst us will reach that number of hours in a year. Furthermore, even if you could play that many hours in a year, you would not be able to sustain that pace at the betting levels you specified without getting backed off, or more likely, trespassed. A counter making $2000+ bets can hurt a casino and they will not tolerate that sort of action for long.

Frankly, I would form or join a team if I really wanted to bet at high levels and clean out a casino's bankroll. If it were my team I think I would use the MIT approach: use Hilo and play basic strategy except for the insurance index. Sure, there would be money left on the table, but there would be much more money leaving the casino in our pockets.

[Three]

Why not use the spread that will be used at the casino? The purpose of running a sim is to emulate reality as closely as possible so that one may have a better idea what to expect in real life.

the purpose of the sim was to show the gain from a PE increase with the highest accuracy. Rounding error for practical bets would vary by the situation and be meaningless error. I am guessing you never worked in the math sciences. You would lose your job for introducing unnecessary error into a study. If you want to know the exact value of a PE increase you don't add in error to the process that would vary in all directions in the real world application. You eliminate that noise to get an accurate answer.

Once again, your numbers are not realistic. 1000 hours a year? Few amongst us will reach that number of hours in a year. Furthermore, even if you could play that many hours in a year, you would not be able to sustain that pace at the betting levels you specified without getting backed off, or more likely, trespassed. A counter making $2000+ bets can hurt a casino and they will not tolerate that sort of action for long.

Again the large betting levels are to allow for accurate estimate of what PE is worth. If you scaled everything down you would introduce rounding error that could all stack up in one direction. The increase in accuracy for the answer is the equivalent of why you don't use a 20,000 round sim. The error grows enough to make the results unreliable. To get the highest degree of accuracy you use billions of rounds and in this case you use a very large BR and whatever the calculated optimal bets are. Every deviation from that introduces more error to the answer of what the PE is worth. If you want an accurate answer you don't introduce error.

[mofungoo]

the purpose of the sim was to show the gain from a PE increase with the highest accuracy. Rounding error for practical bets would vary by the situation and be meaningless error. I am guessing you never worked in the math sciences. You would lose your job for introducing unnecessary error into a study. If you want to know the exact value of a PE increase you don't add in error to the process that would vary in all directions in the real world application. You eliminate that noise to get an accurate answer.

You must be a bean counter, right? Bean counters are famous in my world (design engineering) for only looking at numbers without understanding what they mean. Why not run a sim based on real world situations instead of setting up phony sims to get big numbers? Well, old bean, if you had set the sim for a 5% ROR and 200 rounds per hour (your original setup had you playing heads up, right?) with bankroll and game conditions the same, you would have gotten bigger EV numbers, and those numbers would be closer to the results you would get during actual play.

Again the large betting levels are to allow for accurate estimate of what PE is worth. If you scaled everything down you would introduce rounding error that could all stack up in one direction. The increase in accuracy for the answer is the equivalent of why you don't use a 20,000 round sim. The error grows enough to make the results unreliable. To get the highest degree of accuracy you use billions of rounds and in this case you use a very large BR and whatever the calculated optimal bets are. Every deviation from that introduces more error to the answer of what the PE is worth. If you want an accurate answer you don't introduce error.

This is about the most ridiculous thing I have ever read. If you want an accurate answer, you must set up the sim so that the sim is relevant to the real world situation you are simming. Otherwise the results you get are not accurate in the real world context. For me, the math is what I use to develop a winning strategy. It is not an end unto itself. For me, the only thing that matters is that I beat the casino. This is not about beating you at all; if you make more money than I do, that's perfectly fine. I can live with that.