Little Tom: HI OPTII sans Ace v Zen in 6d?

[Little Tom]

I often hear that any system with betting correlation of around .91 is a waste of time in the shoe game. I do not recall whether the SCORE chapter in Mr. Schlessinger's book includes HI-OPTII no Ace comparisons. But I remember that the Hi-OptII ace reckoned version outperformed all others, and that Zen was virtually identical, though slightly better except when Wonging and employing large bet spreads in shoe games, with Revere PC. This later systems, along with Halves, is a favorite of many a shoe player.

I'm a semi weekend mostly shoe player using Hi-Lo and looking to upgrade. I was considering going with Revere PC (practice had shown that side counting is much more difficult for me than going to level 2), but in light of the above I am uncertain. Opinions, please. Is there an error on the verite site or is the simulation valid.

My apologies if question does not belong in the beginners section.

Blackjack Data Repository - Optimal Result Calcula

[Norm Wattenberger]

1. Keep in mind that while Zen has a quite respectable betting correlation, it is only half Ace-reckoned.

2. By Full Indexes, I mean all of the indexes published by the author. Hi-Opt II has about eight times as many indexes as '98 Zen. While indexes certainly have less importance in shoes and many of the Hi-Opt II indexes are downright silly, they do make some difference.

3. Zen '98 is a great simplification over the original Zen. Not only are there a fraction of the original indexes, but a composite set of indexes is used instead of separate index tables for different rules. Also, the betting is simplified by using True Edge. True Edge while easier to use does not optimize quite as well and all of the tables at the Optimal Results Calculator use optimal betting ramps.

4. My personal preference is RPC. But, were I to start over, I would probably change the divisor to full decks. I have not tested this, but I would expect slightly better results as a 'more optimal' (forgive the modification of an absolute) betting ramp could be calculated with a full deck divisor.

regards,
norm

[Don Schlesinger]

> 4. My personal preference is RPC. But, were
> I to start over, I would probably change the
> divisor to full decks. I have not tested
> this, but I would expect slightly better
> results as a 'more optimal' (forgive the
> modification of an absolute) betting ramp
> could be calculated with a full deck
> divisor.

Can you explain this last point, Norm? If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that, it's hard to understand how being "smarter," or more precise, can actually harm you. In light of this, what you've written above doesn't make much sense to me, unless you're rounding bet sizes to integral values or using other such approximations. But, if you're claiming that a pure SCORE will be better with whole-deck division, I can't grasp the point you're making.

Don

[Norm Wattenberger]

If you use half-decks as a divisor, you compress the TC range. This gives you fewer TCs to which you can assign betting values during optimal bet calculations. I would guess that the resulting ramp is somewhat less close to optimal than when you have a larger range of TCs. As an example, assume you used tenths of a deck as a divisor. Your TC range would be so small that you could only bet min or max.

regards,
norm

[zengrifter]

ZEN w/full indices should outperform HO2 full indices but no ace-sidecount. zg

> I compared Hi-OptII (full indexes with no
> side Ace) with Zen 98 (full indexes) on the
> Casion Verite Blackjack data repository site
> and HI-OptII came out on top under all
> conditions, icluding 6D H17 DAS LS and
> spreading 1-12. The site claims to use
> proprietary indexes with authors' consent. I
> ran the same comparison on SBA 5.0 with
> similar results, though less pronounced.

> I often hear that any system with betting
> correlation of around .91 is a waste of time
> in the shoe game. I do not recall whether
> the SCORE chapter in Mr. Schlessinger's book
> includes HI-OPTII no Ace comparisons. But I
> remember that the Hi-OptII ace reckoned
> version outperformed all others, and that
> Zen was virtually identical, though slightly
> better except when Wonging and employing
> large bet spreads in shoe games, with Revere
> PC. This later systems, along with Halves,
> is a favorite of many a shoe player.

> I'm a semi weekend mostly shoe player using
> Hi-Lo and looking to upgrade. I was
> considering going with Revere PC (practice
> had shown that side counting is much more
> difficult for me than going to level 2), but
> in light of the above I am uncertain.
> Opinions, please. Is there an error on the
> verite site or is the simulation valid.

> My apologies if question does not belong in
> the beginners section.

[Don Schlesinger]

> If you use half-decks as a divisor, you
> compress the TC range. This gives you fewer
> TCs to which you can assign betting values
> during optimal bet calculations. I would
> guess that the resulting ramp is somewhat
> less close to optimal than when you have a
> larger range of TCs. As an example, assume
> you used tenths of a deck as a divisor. Your
> TC range would be so small that you could
> only bet min or max.

No, this can't be right. You may be looking at this from a purely EV standpoint. But, when you try to make the optimal bets using whole deck division, you are actually losing accuracy, not gaining accuracy. Something suffers, perhaps causing SD to increase.

Run some sims, but be very careful about how you set them up. And, if whole deck division wins out over half-deck division, according to SCORE, I'll be very surprised.

Don

[Norm Wattenberger]

You lose a bit of accuracy in playing but I believe gain accuracy in betting. Thus, I would think RPC would gain in shoes. I will run the sims when I get some time, but I've been putting them off as they're a bit of a pain.

[Little Tom]

Thanks. I never considered the large disparity between the number of indexes that come with different systems.

I figured if HI-OPTII sans ace produced roughly the same results in shoes (or even slightly worse) it be the one to go with given its ease of use and upside if side ace is later taken up.