The easiest way to calculate the damages from antes is to estimate how many hands you are getting per our and multiplying that by the per hand ante. Then subtract the product frmo your theoretical hourly win rate. In most cases, the difference will be negative.
For wonging, wouldn't it be best to base it on your BR/bet size/ramp/EV? With a $.50 ante, if the TC = 2 (adv = ~.5%) and your bet ramp calls for a $100 bet, well your EV from your $100 bet is $.50, so you're basically playing a breakeven game. Not worth it. Therefore, theoretically as long as your EV on any given hand (based on your bet size * adv) is greater than the ante, you should play.
If that's the case, I assume you'd need a large bankroll, tolerance for big bets by the casino, and serious wonging to make it worth playing a game with an ante.
No one in their right mind should be playing "Oklahoma style"! This is not rocket science to figure out that if you are banging out 100 hands per hour in good ol' Okielahoma at .50 ante per hand then you are basically up against the house edge of the game plus $50 an hour or so. Your ass is kicked even before your ass is kicked with a game like this--- Stay away! Don't play that sort of garbage unless you like passing out money and couldn't care less about losing.
I heard about this .50 ante in Oklahoma years ago and we've had previous discussions about the futility of playing blackjack in Oklahoma. Obviously they get a few "takers" because they still offer this crappy game to a gullible public all these years later. I've driven through Oklahoma but never stopped to see this spectacle or play in any of their casinos... for good reason.
I know all the arguments AGAINST and i AGREE whole heartedly. With an infinitesimally small BR, no travel $, no other option, and one is NEW and desperate for live experience, one plays. NOT to make a huge profit, mostly for the hours of experience, refining of the act, how to wong a rama ding dong, and collect some SD cash. In the LR it is a HUGE loser, no argument, hands down, NATURALLY(so to speak) your correct. Considering the aforementioned, it has small merit. If the BR improves my action will move with it, but until then you gotta do what u gotta do. SD is roughly up to $500/hr. so one has to take that when it comes and minimize losses to keep the offset. Not playing for LR just for the SD.
Suburbs, you're close to right on this, but I'd argue that having a positive EV isn't enough. You need to ensure that your CE (CE = E - V/2kB) is positive too. When your EV is small and you give up some of it to an ante, you end up taking on a lot of variance for a small amount of EV, which means your CE is small or even negative. This doesn't mean you can't get a positive CE out of this game with aggressive wonging, but you may have to push your wong-in/out point up higher, which will result in a very small hourly rate. It's almost never worth playing against an ante with a small BR, and rarely with a large BR.
They should spread the cards when they change decks. Watch them change the cards, and that should answer your question. I think it's unlikely there's anything weird going on, but that's the easy way to find out for sure.
interesting stuff Nyne.
certainty equivalent right?
care to explain that concept a bit in laymans terms, sorta thing? especially in light of the abstracted part of your post (sans ante) above, regarding a small ev, sorta thing.
reason i ask, is i've been considering playing some bj where my ev would be relatively low and it sounds like it would be good to use this certainty equivalent concept with respect to considering such a venture, if i could just understand it, lol.
Last edited by sagefr0g; 11-18-2012 at 03:52 PM.
Paying like it's supposed to? No, I don't think so. Combine the fact that you only win 43% of hands on average with the fact that the advantage in plus counts is due solely to successful splits and double downs as well as receiving more naturals (SDD&Ns), and I think you will come up with the situation that you are winning fewer plus counts moneywise than the dealer, but winning more money overall due to the SDD&Ns. If you have plus counts devoid of SDD&Ns (and to me this should be the chief bane of all card counters), chances are you will lose money. Maybe, someone will check out with a sim and more precise language, but maybe I am wrong and the card counter will not only win more money overall, but also the majority of his plus counts, although that has not been my experience. Still, if he does, it is only due to receiving those all important SDD&Ns. I hope someone can add to this, or refute it, as the case may be.
Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 - 8/23/10... “Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Interesting Aslan. My question automatically is how are we only winning 43% of hands when the dealer has a FIXED set of options where we can choose our plays on H16 or any Hard hand 16 and under? I guess it just doesnt make sense to my pea brain that we should lose that many when the dealer ALWAYS hits a 16 (S or H) and we get the option to play or stay. In my book, that alone should increase our win %. While the wheels are turning...could/would someone please run a sim to give the exact House Adv. with this set of rules? S17, DAS, Split up to 4, Split A up to 4, Double any 2 cards, 3:2, NS, 6 decks, $.50/hand ante. I have a sim program but havnt figured how to write code to make it add in the ante. I hear alot of people poo poo the ante but in my calculations it turns a .38 house edge to .78 or so. Overcome at a 2 count...i could be way off base however.
HE on an ante game would depend on your bet size. For sims penetration is an important input. The ante is less significant if you are playing black than red. It is still a drag of $50/100 hands played (about an hour of play give or take). Smaller betting systems probably expect to win less than this. If they back off most big action they make the game unplayable to APs. It is either not profitable or the profit is so small so as to make it not worth the trouble.
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