Argument with Teammate over return on investment

[Blackjackzcx]

Hi All,


I have been arguing with a partner whom I’ve been counting with for 18 months in regards to the result of some simulations. We are currently negotiating with investors and I think that he has undersold us, I could be wrong that’s why I’m looking for your feedback. I have attached our simulation results, I’ve calculated the accumulated return in the table below, he however thinks that this is inaccurate and that calculating it simply is the way that the sim was made($261.14x576 hours of game play= $150,416...to me I thought that this would imply that the profits were taken out after every session I do understand that there would be losing sessions and my suggestion is that we re-calculate our bankroll and our betting to operate at the same risk of ruin.


The main problem is if I am completely incorrect the type of Investment we are looking would have competing projects that could return much more. I’m not saying that I would like to lie or exaggerate figures and I understand there would be problems to overcome like betting X amount with heat.


I just would like to represent our project fairly while emphasizing profitability and acknowledging it’s weaknesses like any sales pitch should.


Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

Bankroll	Weekly Return %	Week Return Figure	Risk of Ruin	Week
$75,000	12%	$6267.36	4.2%	Week 1
$81,267.36	12%	$9,752.08	4.2%	Week 2
$91,019.44	12%	$10,922.33	4.2%	Week 3
$101,941.77	12%	$12,233.01	4.2%	Week 4
$114,174.78	12%	$13,700.97	4.2%	Week 5
$127,875.75	12%	$15,345.09	4.2%	Week 6
$143,220.84	12%	$17,186.50	4.2%	Week 7
$160,407.34	12%	$19,248.88	4.2%	Week 8
$179,656.22	12%	$21,558.74	4.2%	Week 9
$201,214.96	12%	$24,145.79	4.2%	Week 10
$225,360.75	12%	$27,043.29	4.2%	Week 11
$252,404.04	12%	$30,288.48	4.2%	Week 12
$282,692.52	12%	$33,923.10	4.2%	Week 13
$316,615.62	12%	$37,993.87	4.2%	Week 14
$354,609.49	12%	$42,553.13	4.2%	Week 15
$397,162.62	12%	$47,659.51	4.2%	Week 16
$444,822.13	12%	$53,378.65	4.2%	Week 17
$498,200.78	12%	$59,784.09	4.2%	Week 18
$557,984.87	12%	$66,958.18	4.2%	Week 19
$624,943.05	12%	$74,993.16	4.2%	Week 20
$699,936.21	12%	$83,992.34	4.2%	Week 21
$783,928.55	12%	$94,071.42	4.2%	Week 22
$877,999.97	12%	$105,359.99	4.2%	Week 23
$983,359.96	12%	$118,003.19	4.2%	Week 24
$1,101,363.15	12%	$132,163.57	4.2%	Week 25
$1,233,526.72	12%	$148,023.20	4.2%	Week 26
$1,381,549.92	12%	$165,785.99	4.2%	Week 27
$1,547,335.91	12%	$185,680.30	4.2%	Week 28
$1,733,016.21	12%	$207,961.94	4.2%	Week 29
$1,940,978.15	12%	$232,917.37	4.2%	Week 30
$2,173,895.37	12%	$260,867.44	4.2%	Week 31
$2,434,762.81	12%	$292,171.53	4.2%	Week 32
Total end BR $2,726,934.34

[ZenMaster_Flash]

Kudos to Tthree for his informative reply.

******************************************

4.2% R.O.R. ? Yikes !

I dislike 1% -- but I have a massive CASH bankroll.

[Brock W]

If this is a BJ counting play rule of thumb is about 1/5th of your max bet per hour if you can keep playing. Limits and heat will quickly become a problem. Also saying you can play with 4% ROR and actually living the swings are 2 different things. Just my 2 cents

[seriousplayer]

How do you get a 12% weekly return? I never seen any professional blackjack team that count cards with 12% advantage unless it is Hole carding play. Even the most famous MIT Blackjack Team play with a 2.5% advantage.

[UK-21]

How do you get a 12% weekly return? I never seen any professional blackjack team that count cards with 12% advantage unless it is Hole carding play. Even the most famous MIT Blackjack Team play with a 2.5% advantage.

My question as well - where does 12% come from? And from your projection that's a net 12% - net of negative and positive session results for each week? Any investor worth his/her salt will do two minutes research on card counting and no doubt discover that a max advantage of 2.5% to possibly 3% is achievable with ideal (and theoretical) conditions. From your figures it seems you're claiming that a bankroll of $75,000 can be transformed into one of $2.7m in 32 weeks - a return of 3,600% on the original %75K? Are you on drugs?

[Tom]

This reminds me a lot of day trading calculations....."theoretically" you can take $10,000 to over $150,000 in less than a year with an average 600 pips (points) per month, which is not difficult if you trade often (I make about 300 pips in a few trades). How many people have actually done it? I can't even name one.

The returns that your chart proposes are simply not realistic....you are giving a "positive-expectancy only" scenario and any investor with financial sense will see that. What happens if you get barred at every casino in the world?

[seriousplayer]

Tthree,

I partially understand what you are saying. You have stated that :"If your bankroll was $125,000 that would be a 12% return." From the data above the starting bankroll was $75,000 not $125,000. Betting 5 times your bankroll in total will you give you a huge swings your bankroll. How will a bankroll of $125,000 withstand all negative fluctuation?

[Blackjackzcx]

Hi All,

Thanks for you replies,

The point I’m trying to make is that if you constantly change your betting in proportion to your bankroll that you will make a significant amount more and although using N will yield more conservative results than using a session by session figures it will be vastly inaccurate as it will presume that the bank roll will jump from 75k to it’s long term result instantly...I may be wrong but that’s how I perceive it.

KJ you are correct, it is actually 8.3% however I should have explained where the return was coming from and that the difference would be taken out for ‘running costs’ 12% return a week would be merely a goal. Which would involve around 36 hours of play a week.

Zen, I realize the ROR is high and I don’t want it that high however we are just playing around with theoretical figures until we find something we are happy with.

The strategy in practice isn’t something that I’m concerned with currently, however is there a function in a simulation program that allows all return to be put back into the project? Or is this implied?

Thanks again.

[Koz84]

Tthree, with a 0.76%HE game (8 decks, 3:2, H17, SP3, nRSA, NS, D9-11, DAS, OBBO), 1.5/8 pen on average, do you see a $75,000 project getting to $2,726,934.34 in 32 weeks, with or without a decision tree structure?

[Blackjackzcx]

Koz -.-, it doesn’t matter what anyone sees getting to where. It matters what actually happens and is possible. I just want a formula to calculate this with if anyone has one,

[Blackjackzcx]

Thanks Tthree for all your feedback. How would I go about doing it?

[UK-21]

Thanks Tthree for all your feedback. How would I go about doing it?

If you're having to ask how to calculate your hourly return, based on the initial EV of the game(s) you will be tackling, then you need to do more reading - all of the classic books will provide you with everything you need. Here are some building blocks for your calculatons:


% of hands played at different (pos and neg) TCs - most will, or course be at TC zero (refer to Prof BJ by Wong or BBiBJ by Schneider).
- based upon an estimate that each TC increases/decreases the HE by half a percent, you can determine the advantage/disadvantage at each TC?

Determine your unit value, based upon your bankroll ($75,000) - which will also inform your RoR calcs. If you'll be playing with others' money I would respectively suggest dividing the bankroll by 1,200, giving a unit value of $62.50 (which you could round down to $50, thereby avoiding playing with black chips).

Determine your betting ramp (for a 6 deck game, 1-12 is really the minimum I would think; 1-6 results in an about breakeven game).

Determine how many hands per hour you're likely to play with your team.

Determine how many hours per week you're likely to play.


I can't think you need anything else to determine your EV (per hour/per 100 hands etc) or win rate.


Once you've all of this you can dump it into a spreadsheet and the sums become relatively easy. If you're following a Wong Out strategy you can set the amount bet at neg TCs to zero, which has quite a significant impact on what falls out of the bottom.

Building a spreadsheet to calculate all of this is your learning curve - embrace it and learn, and you'll quickly understand why your initial calculations were very silly.

Oh . . . and good luck when you hit the tables.

UK-21

[simple man]

I've been wrestling with the notion of team bank management myself as of late, though I am most decidedly a solo player. Simply, I find the task of "mapping" a team/bank one of insight and clever data compilation, ultimately lending itself to a greater understanding of perhaps already "mastered" concepts, like NO, standard deviation, the oft-misunderstood E.V., and the increasingly misused SCORE (as initially defined by Schlesinger).

My advice is simply to gather the proper tools and study the game. The game of 21, as the name suggests, is ENTIRELY ONE OF MATHEMATICS, of FACT and THEORY, and some facets of possible applications utilize abstract mathematics. Unlike hitting a ball with a bat, you can't simply map your bank's 'trajectory' based on how you will approach the mechanics of your 'swing', at least with sufficient accuracy to be as difinitive as it seems you would like, OP. But many figures ARE attainable, and a projection of value to your situation is realistic, with effort. Tools that could help your cause may be: simulation software, but don't cheap-out - the best is such for good reason(!); on-line forum archived threads, blogs, and websites could, with adequate perusal, yield effective information organization methods, alternate reporting methodologies, realistic expectations and/or ranges of results, and possibly even yield useful pre-existing reporting templates; publications, periodicals, or any other written source of topic-related information; and finally, networking.

You have options. Don't be lazy; anything worth it takes time and effort!

Happy hunting, hope I was helpful