JT: Number of hands to get advantage

[JT]

In a 6-deck shoe game, is there a minimum number of hands (or cards) played into a new shoe that will give a skilled hi-lo/illustrious 18 player their long-term positive expectation. Obviously, it takes some time for the count to go positive enough to increase betting/apply deviations. However, intuitively, it seems that you're just as likely to hit an advantage 3 decks in as 4 decks in, after which the count could go back to neutral/negative. A general or approximate answer is fine, as I'm guessing there are many variables.

Thanks again!

JT

[Covenut 43]

> In a 6-deck shoe game, is there a minimum number of
> hands (or cards) played into a new shoe that will give
> a skilled hi-lo/illustrious 18 player their long-term
> positive expectation. Obviously, it takes some time
> for the count to go positive enough to increase
> betting/apply deviations. However, intuitively, it
> seems that you're just as likely to hit an advantage 3
> decks in as 4 decks in, after which the count could go
> back to neutral/negative. A general or approximate
> answer is fine, as I'm guessing there are many
> variables.

> Thanks again!

> JT

See the articles in BJA re time to leave. Basically, the count is the count, within some limits, whenever it occurs. However, tolerance for negative counts varies with pen.

[Dog Hand]

JT,

Welcome to the wonderful world of advantage play!

To provide a partial answer to your question, I ran two simulations of a 6D, S17, DA2, DAS game with 5/6 pen for a heads-up HiLo counter spreading 1:15 and playing all. For the first sim, I looked ONLY at rounds that began on or after card 208: in other words, only those rounds played from Deck #5 (and a bit from Deck #6, of course). In the second sim, I looked ONLY at rounds that began BEFORE card #53: thus, only Deck #1 (and a bit from Deck #2, naturally). Below are the results:

For the 5th deck, the player played a total of 85,275,621 hands. Of these, 35,650,778 hands were played at a TC of +1 or more (and, thus, with a player's advantage). This means that the player had an edge on 41.8% of his hands.

For the 1st deck, the player played a total of 82,488,861 hands. Of these, 6,931,464 hands were played at a TC of +1 or more (and, thus, with a player's advantage). This means that the player had an edge on 8.4% of his hands.

In fact, with such a small fraction of advantageous hands, the "1st deck" player did not have an overall edge: he was losing at a rate of 0.0821 units/hr. On the other hand, the "5th deck" player was making 1.9216 units/hr.

Another way to look at these results: the "1st deck" player played exactly 22 hands with a TC of +5, and none with higher TC's. The "5th deck" player played 11,658,848 hands with a TC of +5 or more.

This is why penetration is so important to us card counters.

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

[Don Schlesinger]

Congratulations on some very lovely work.

Now you realize why the title of one of the most well-known sections of Peter Griffin's book is: "Opportunity Arises Slowly in Multiple Decks" (p. 117).

Don

[JT]

It does.

Many thanks!!

JT

[JT]

Thanks again! (or for the first time if this message was posted instead of my brief, earlier one)

It has also occurred to me that even if the first couple of decks w/in the shoe contained a wealth of high cards, you wouldn't know it, would potentially wind up with a substantial negative count very soon and be betting the minimum, possibly leaving the table outright (unless you stick around while you're winning more of those minimum bets than you're losing, which I guess you should be).

JT