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Thread: Estimate how many hands you play during your blackjack career.

  1. #1


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    Estimate how many hands you play during your blackjack career.

    I log my play by hours and not the amount of hands I play. Since I am using my mind to do deck estimation and index deviations. I don't really keep track of how many hand I play. Does anybody know a method to count the amount of hands played. I need that information to see how many more hand I need to play to get into the long run.

  2. #2


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    Hi,
    I also log my play by hours for the same reason. I use an estimate based on how fast or slow the session was. If it was a slow session overall, I'll use 60 Rounds Per Hour. A medium speed session is 75 Rounds Per Hour. A fast session is 90 Rounds Per Hour. Heads up play with a good dealer and I use 100+ Rounds Per Hour.
    I use Rounds Per Hour (I don't attempt to convert to Hands per hour) since N0 is calculated that way.
    I hope this helps.

    SiMi
    Last edited by SiMi; 10-25-2014 at 12:41 AM.

  3. #3


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    Quote Originally Posted by SiMi View Post
    Hi,
    I also log my play by hours for the same reason. I use an estimate based on how fast or slow the session was. If it was a slow session overall, I'll use 60 Rounds Per Hour. A medium speed session is 75 Rounds Per Hour. A fast session is 90 Rounds Per Hour. Heads up play with a good dealer and I use 100 Rounds Per Hour.
    I use Rounds Per Hour (I don't attempt to convert to Hands per hour) since N0 is calculated that way.
    I hope this helps.

    SiMi
    How close or accurate will the estimation be? I don't want to be off too much.

  4. #4


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    I log the number of shoes or partial shoes per session. Then use an average of 3 other players and an average penetration for my games to estimate rounds per shoe, then multiply by the number of shoes for estimated rounds played.

    For myself, keeping track of the number of shoes played is simpler and more accurate than by time played.

  5. #5


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    Hi, again

    Your estimate is probably going to be off quite a bit because you're just estimating all kinds of things. There are so many variables. I don't know how to do any better so it's what I do. I also don't think it's necessary to be super-accurate for N0 purposes.
    The typical N0 number is quite a big number and N0 assumes that you play every round under the exact, same conditions including rules, penetration, strategy, bet ramp, etc. This is simply not possible in the real world.
    Further, even if you could play every round under the same conditions, N0 (at 1 SD) simply tells you that you have an 84% chance of NOT being behind. You still have a 16% chance of being behind.
    To me, N0 is a gauge you can use to have a feel for whether you're on the right track with your plan.
    For example, if your typical game has a Standard Deviation of 2.0 and an EV of 1.5%, N0 would be:

    N0 = (SD^2) / (EV^2) or
    N0 = (2.0^2) / (.015^2) or
    N0 = 4 / .00025 or
    N0 = 17,778 Rounds

    So, at about 18,000 Rounds, you have about an 84% chance of not being behind. That leaves about a 16% chance of being behind. If you're behind at that point, you might want to re-check your game and your skills.

    If you can average about 100 Rounds per Hour at this game, you'll need 180 hours of proper play at this game to hit N0. At 75 Round per Hour, you'll need 240 hours. At 60 RPH, you'll need 300 hours and so on.
    If you can get in 20 hours per week at this game and can get 75 RPH, it will take you 12 weeks (almost 3 months) of continuous play at this game to hit N0. Nothing is going to be super-accurate at that point, even if you can do it.

    If you've only played a bit over 4,000 Rounds of this same game, you've got about a 69% chance of not being behind. That still leaves a 31% chance that you could be behind, even if you're doing everything right. So, if you were behind a bit at that point, it would not be as troubling as it would be if you were still behind at N0.

    I don't think of N0 as a precise number you need to hit and then everything will be OK. Rather, it's more of a concept to help you understand the discipline and time it takes to have a decent chance of being ahead. It's also a way to compare games for desirability. IMHO, it's ok to estimate the number of Rounds Per Hour you're getting in looking at N0.

    Again, I hope this helps!
    SiMi
    Last edited by SiMi; 10-24-2014 at 03:36 PM.

  6. #6


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    I totally agree with all SiMi said, but I also think we should try to gauge as precisely as possible every aspect of the game PRECISELY because we are always estimating. All these estimations add up... A LOT.

    Say you estimate you played 4 shoes when you actually played 3. So you overestimated your rounds played by more than 30%. Then you estimate that the average number of people on the table was 3, when in fact the average would be 4, so again you overestimated your rounds played by around 25%. Then you estimate that you had a 1.5 cut-off when in fact you only had a 1.8 cut-off, so you overestimated your rounds played by around 7%. So, now, to calculate how many rounds you actually played you make the following multiplication:

    (52*nDecks*cutoff / 2.7*nPeople) * shoes per hour

    So, in this extreme case, you are going to be overestimating your rounds per hour by more than 40% (sorry if the math is wrong, I did this really quickly).

    I believe record-keeping is one of THE most important aspects of our strategy toward the game. I learned that in practice in my recent trip to Vegas. I took too long to realize that, but eventually I saw that doing as ohbehave suggested is very important, you need to know how many shoes you played IN ADDITION to how long you played. Also you need to try to gauge table fullness and, of course, session elapsed time. But I don't think it is necessary to simplify things and assume an average penetration because this is probably the most important factor when you are scouting games, so you ought to have a very decent estimate of penetration, although its actual effect in number of rounds played is not that large.

    Below is an excerpt of a post I made in the subscribed area about this subject, regarding my trip to Vegas.


    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


    I played 43 sessions for a total of 39.5 hours (of actual play including time when I wonged out, but left the chips on the table and came back, but excluding any other time between sitting down at a table). Based on the few times I actually recorded time elapsed, number of shoes played and number of players, I was able to come up with a very rough empirical model to predict hands per hour based on dealer speed and table fullness.

    My final estimate is 4,516 hands, which is around 14% a greater estimate than using the "default" of 100 hands per hour. Since this is just the result of VERY FEW hands if we consider the long-term, the model may well converge to 100 hands per hour in the future, but, nevertheless, I think it is a good idea to try to have a better model to gauge your short-term trip results. As I get to play more, I intend to feed and adjust the model with more data so as to make it more accurate.

    Below is the image of this very simple linear model I created based on my experience. I classified dealer speed subjectively (but parameterized by the few data points I had) into 5 classes, being 5 the fastest one; and I classified table fullness also into five classes, being 5 corresponding to heads-up play. I tried to make notes of table fullness by writing, for instance, 1-3-5-3, which corresponded roughly to the "come-and-go" pattern of players while I played and, in this case, ended up being associated with a class 3 table fullness.

    Just to give you some insight about the model, the extreme values are 40 hph for a full table with a slow dealer and 268 hph for heads-up play with a fast dealer; my mean value was 118 hph and the median 102. All this is also probably somehow dependent on shift, table min and location, which would give a much more precise model. Just for the sake of it, I give my numbers regarding theses variables:

    - Shift:
    * 21% day;
    * 51% shift;
    * 28% grave.

    - Table min:
    * 16% $5;
    * 53% $10;
    * 23% $15;
    * 7% $25.

    - Location:
    * 81% Strip;
    * 19% Downtown.



    I hope it contributes to discussions.

    Best!
    Skull.
    Life's true face is the skull.” - Nikos Kazantzakis

  7. #7


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    I forgot to say.... please consider both HANDS per hour and ROUNDS per hour interchangeably.
    Life's true face is the skull.” - Nikos Kazantzakis

  8. #8
    Senior Member Bodarc's Avatar
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    I don't especially look for rounds per hour, I look for a dealer with good penetration and rules. I also don't worry about the long run other than reducing it with cvcx, I just worry about whether or not my bank roll is increasing. The long run will either come or it won't.
    Play within your bankroll, pick your games with care and learn everything you can about the game. The winning will come. It has to. It's in the cards. -- Bryce Carlson

  9. #9
    Senior Member Bodarc's Avatar
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    xx
    Last edited by Bodarc; 10-25-2014 at 07:39 PM. Reason: double posted
    Play within your bankroll, pick your games with care and learn everything you can about the game. The winning will come. It has to. It's in the cards. -- Bryce Carlson

  10. #10
    Senior Member bigplayer's Avatar
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    I base EV estimates on time played and speed. I have two speeds, Fast and Slow (Fast is heads up or 1 other player, Slow is more than 1 other player) I never play full tables. So fast is about 150 hands per hour, slow I have at 80 hands per hour. Then I just plug in the time and the speed code and game (Bad, Normal, Good) and the numbers just fall into place automatically. I use a very conservative estimate so over the long haul I should be able to match or exceed EV if I'm playing strongly. I does take a long time for your results and EV to start to track each other...a very long time. In between there's a ton of noise.

  11. #11


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    Quote Originally Posted by bigplayer View Post
    I base EV estimates on time played and speed. I have two speeds, Fast and Slow (Fast is heads up or 1 other player, Slow is more than 1 other player) I never play full tables. So fast is about 150 hands per hour, slow I have at 80 hands per hour. Then I just plug in the time and the speed code and game (Bad, Normal, Good) and the numbers just fall into place automatically. I use a very conservative estimate so over the long haul I should be able to match or exceed EV if I'm playing strongly. I does take a long time for your results and EV to start to track each other...a very long time. In between there's a ton of noise.
    What do you mean by a very long time in terms of years? I don't think a proficient card counter will take 20 years to surpass EV. If it does than the count might be doing something wrong.

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