stainless steel rat: Hi-Lo vs Zen

[stainless steel rat]

> Sorry but your history is off. First
> computer I used was 39 years ago at tiny
> Haverford College. I wrote an heuristic
> checker program 38 years ago on an IBM 7040
> at U of P. 36 years ago I was hired by a guy
> with a PHD in CS. Obviously there were
> classes before that 36 years ago I had
> already used the following computers: IBM
> 7040, IBM 7044, IBM 1130, IBM 1800, IBM
> 360/40, IBM 360/20, Monroe Mark IV, LGP-30
> (General Precision), RPC-4000 (Royal
> Precision), SDS 940 (Scientific data
> systems), and DEC PDP-8. I was also familiar
> with the GE 635, RCA Spectra, Xerox Sigma,
> Univac 1106 & CDC 6600. This stuff goes
> back farther than most people realize.

Yes it does. My current department had its "25th year celebration" about 10 years ago. Southern Mississippi beat that by 4-5 years, we had a 20 year celebration before I left in 1985.

Our first campus computer was a 1620, followed by a 360/40 (small world it seems). SDS became XDS (Xerox Data Systems) which sold us a sigma-9 to replace our aging 360/40. When I was in junior college, in 1966, my calc teacher was a card counter and was visiting USM on weekends to run FORTRAN sims for his blackjack card-removal studies (I have posted about him in the past). I believe that was the year USM installed the 360/40 for undergrad CIS program, prior they had shared a 1620 with the data processing center. DPC got a 360/30 at the same time.

My computer chess program played its first legal move in 1968, running on that 360/40. It has not yet played its last legal move.

It would seem prudent for some to do a little research rather than using made-up or imagined numbers. If someone would like to verify my degree dates and when I was hired as a CS faculty member, I'd be happy to have a known "3rd party" check the details and post the results. This part of the discussion was beyond stupid. I'd be more than pleased to show the poster just _how_ stupid it was...

In the spirit of BJ, maybe a small wager of (say) $10K about the following details:

BS CS 1970, USM.

Hired by USM as instructor of computer science, 1970.

MS CS 1983, USM.

Promoted to assistant professor 1983.

PH.D. CS 1988, current university.

Hired as assistant prof 1988, promoted to associate prof 1994.

Former multi-time world computer chess champion.

Etc...

Any takers???

Anyone that thinks there was no CS departments in 1970 is looking around with their head up an unpleasant body orifice. To even make such statements shows a level of ignorance of CS history that is astounding. For example, the first paper "How to program a computer to play chess" was written by Claude Shannon in 1949. That is 56 years ago. To put things into perspective.

[Norm Wattenberger]

> Our first campus computer was a 1620,

Can't believe I forgot that. The computer at Haverford was a 1620. Digital memory with variable word length.

> followed by a 360/40 (small world it seems).
> SDS became XDS (Xerox Data Systems) which
> sold us a sigma-9 to replace our aging
> 360/40.

Gotta tell one story. When Xerox came out with the Sigma series in the 60s, they had to convert their own inhouse computers. Can't very well compete with IBM while using IBM machines yourself. They had a crash project to convert and were looking for consultants. They offered me a huge increase in income to join. But one condition. They were a conservative company and I would have to cut my hair. I said no. They called every day with various offers. One morning, the intermediary woke me up and said he'd give me $1,000 that day to cut my hair. A fair amount of money in the 60s. I just laughed and hung up.

Now I'm certainly not saying it was my lack of participation in the project; but the project failed. I admit to having taken some pleasure in that

[Parker]

> I am a novice and have just gotten BS down.
> Now I would like to figure out what would be
> the best system to use. I am not quick with
> numbers so the simplest counting system
> would be the way for me to go. Any
> suggestions?

KO is simpler to learn and use than Hi-lo because no true-count conversion is required. Go with KO or consider Fred Renzey's KISS count, which is even simpler than KO. This is discussed in his excellent book, Blackjack Bluebook II, available from our online catalog (direct link below).

The KO vs. Hi-lo topic has been discussed at some length on this forum. Scroll down the page or use the search function at the top of the index page to read more.

Blackjack Bluebook II

[Parker]

> They offered me a huge increase
> in income to join. But one condition. They
> were a conservative company and I would have
> to cut my hair. I said no. They called every
> day with various offers. One morning, the
> intermediary woke me up and said he'd give
> me $1,000 that day to cut my hair. A fair
> amount of money in the 60s. I just laughed
> and hung up.

Younger readers may find this somewhat bizarre. What they don't understand is that back in the 60's, long hair on males was not merely a fashion, it was a public statement regarding one's lifestyle and core beliefs. Hard to believe nowadays, but it also made one virtually unemployable in many fields. In high school, I was barred from team sports because of the length of my hair.

[mdlbj]

Thank you Mr Parker, orderd a copy of Blackjack Bluebook II.

> KO is simpler to learn and use than Hi-lo
> because no true-count conversion is
> required. Go with KO or consider Fred
> Renzey's KISS count, which is even simpler
> than KO. This is discussed in his excellent
> book, Blackjack Bluebook II, available
> from our online catalog (direct link below).

> The KO vs. Hi-lo topic has been discussed at
> some length on this forum. Scroll down the
> page or use the search function at the top
> of the index page to read more.

[stainless steel rat]

> Can't believe I forgot that. The computer at
> Haverford was a 1620. Digital memory with
> variable word length.

> Gotta tell one story. When Xerox came out
> with the Sigma series in the 60s, they had
> to convert their own inhouse computers.
> Can't very well compete with IBM while using
> IBM machines yourself. They had a crash
> project to convert and were looking for
> consultants. They offered me a huge increase
> in income to join. But one condition. They
> were a conservative company and I would have
> to cut my hair. I said no. They called every
> day with various offers. One morning, the
> intermediary woke me up and said he'd give
> me $1,000 that day to cut my hair. A fair
> amount of money in the 60s. I just laughed
> and hung up.

> Now I'm certainly not saying it was my lack
> of participation in the project; but the
> project failed. I admit to having taken some
> pleasure in that

I worked as a consultant to xerox, and later Telefile after they took over the Sigma product line when xerox got out of the computer business. I did quite a bit of work on UTS and later CP-5 (the operating system that followed UTS) for Telefile, primarily in handling telecommunications with a front-end computer.

Small world...

BTW, students loved the 1620. Program crashed, red light came on labeled "Check Stop". No error messages, no nothing.

[pm]

Not a problem; after reading yours and SSR's posts, I knew that's probably what you were thinking but weren't going to say. Weird that it came to the point where it had to be stated, since almost everyone on these boards is probably aware of it already.

[pm]

First, let me echo bfb and say that I don't mind your posts at all; I just have to scratch my itch here.

So a couple of points:

1) This thing about you not being in error. You were in error. Your rebuttals actually did make it sound like you were correct, but when we (once again) bring the focus back to the original question that you were answering, we see that you were indeed in error.

The original question was "Can anyone tell me if it is worth while to use a level 2 count over a level 1?" Now, let me point out the obvious here: this question is not at all a novel one, it's one that's been beaten to death (it's almost the same question as "Which system should I use?"). The reponse to this question is always broken down into two parts:

a) how much more profitable is the more complex system, and

b) how much harder is it to use the more complex system.

Point b) was never really discussed much in this particular thread, so we can forget about that; the entire debate arose from point a). In order to evaluate point a), the example of Zen vs. Hi-Lo was brought up. In order to compare the two, you ran a sim with these conditions:

a) DD game, S17, DAS, LS, 66% pen, spread 1-8

b) a forced unit (i.e. a non-optimal one, but one that you used in play)

c) no LS indices on Zen (i.e. how it would perform right out of the book)

First of all, you only compared the two for one particular game. That makes no sense. If you're attempting to answer the question "Is an L2 better than an L1?" via the exmaple of Zen vs. Hi-Lo, you have to compare results across a range of games. Using only one game is far from a complete answer. That was a mistake because it provided a very skewed answer to the question "Is an L2 better than an L1?"

Second, you forced the unit. Did the original question specify optimal play vs. realistic play? No, so when you post your results based on the realistic forced unit, you need to mention that, especially since the de facto standard for system comparison is to use optimal units (and we know that that's true since the SCORE method is the de facto system comparison method, and that uses optimal units). Mistake #2: you went against the de facto standard and didn't mention that you were doing that. Since we're trying to evaluate if "an L2 is better than an L1," not mentioning that is a mistake.

Third, you weren't using LS indices for Zen. You weren't aware of that at the time, and when it came to light, two schools of thought emerged: 1) utulizing a system to its full potential by using software to generate indices, and b) utilizing a system as it is described in its book, since not everyone has access to the required software. Let's pretend, for the moment, that you were aware that you didn't use LS indices for Zen. Here's the problem: nowhere in the question did gazman specify which school of thought he subscribed to (software vs. book). You simply "picked" the book approach and never mentioned that you were doing that (you couldn't have mentioned that, because you didn't know that that was the case). So here's mistake #3: you "picked" the book approach and never mentioned that that's what you were doing. Once again, since we're trying to evaluate if "an L2 is better than an L1," not mentioning that is a mistake.

And you know, SSR, the thing that makes your mistakes so egregious is that fact that once all of these issues were pointed out to you, you didn't say "Holy s---, sorry about that guys. I had posted sim results that showed Hi-Lo outperforming Zen in an attempt to help gazman decide if an L2 was better than an L1, but it turns out that the comparison I made was not even CLOSE to comprehensive; I compared the two for only a VERY VERY VERY specific set of conditions (when gazman didn't even mention any conditions in his question AT ALL), and what's even worse is that I wasn't even able to fully describe what those very specific conditions were."

You know what you did say? "That's how I play." That's fine, but then don't try to use those stats as an answer to the question "Is an L2 better than an L1?"

2) So now I've shown you that your intial response was not correct; the initial results you posted were harboring ALL SORTS OF assumptions (most of them hidden), and hence your entire response was unacceptable. It was a terribly inaccurate answer to the question "Is an L2 better than an L1?" Once again, that wouldn't have been a big deal, because you didn't see all those hidden assumptions at the time. Hell, it was a while before Parker finally pointed out that the Zen sims were being done without LS indices. But you know what's really amazing? As each of your assumptions came to light, you just kept saying "That's okay, that's okay, that's okay." No, man, it was NEVER okay; each one of your assumptions that was brought to light showed more and more how your response to "Is an L2 better than an L1?" was COMPLETELY incomprehensive.

Why do you do that? Why is it so amazingly difficult for you to follow the chronology of events for yourself and see how you f----- everything up? I'm literally having to spell out for you, word by word, what is so obvious to me, what is so PAINFULLY obvious to everyone else, and what you are simply not able to comprehend, for some reason. You've done this so many times and still you haven't come to the realization that you need to question yourself before you question the experts. If that's not obtuse, I don't know what is.

3) Why do you continuously cite your CS credentials? They're meaningless here. If you joined a discussion with a group of aeronautical engineers, would you propose ideas and then cite all your CS accomplishments to lend credibility to your arguments? No, because that would be stupid. NOBODY else on these boards sits there and gives continuous orations of how distinguished they are in their fields; Don's one of the most distinguished people in the field under question here, the freakin BLACKJACK field, and HE doesn't even do that, even when someone challenges him. What's the matter with you? You need to stop that.

4) If you feel persecuted and ostracized and you're almost at the point where you no longer want to post here, then that's your fault. You were making all sorts of mistakes all along, and you continuously stood firm in your conclusions vs. the experts' conclusions, and you came off as having an abrasive personality because of that. My friend, it's not up to others to accept an abrasive personality; it's up to you to make yourself less abrasive. Use this whole debate as a guide to figure out why you're coming off as abrasive, and make some adjustmenst accordingly.

[stainless steel rat]

> First, let me echo bfb and say that I don't
> mind your posts at all; I just have to
> scratch my itch here.

> So a couple of points:

> 1) This thing about you not being in error.
> You were in error. Your rebuttals actually
> did make it sound like you were correct, but
> when we (once again) bring the focus back to
> the original question that you were
> answering, we see that you were indeed in
> error.

> The original question was "Can anyone
> tell me if it is worth while to use a level
> 2 count over a level 1?" Now, let me
> point out the obvious here: this question is
> not at all a novel one, it's one that's been
> beaten to death (it's almost the same
> question as "Which system should I
> use?"). The reponse to this question is
> always broken down into two parts:

this is my last post on this topic. Here is my original post, since it seems to have been greatly mis-quoted or mis-read:

------------quote on----------------
> Can anyone tell me if it is worth while
> using a level 2 count over a level 1

Parker's response is dead on. I would only add this. The difference between a L1 and L2 counting system is not as large as you might guess. From a discussion about this with Don from a few weeks back, this is an approximation of what you can do with L1 vs L2:

L1 has a very high betting correlation. 98% or so of the time you will bet big when you have an advantage. You might geto to 99% with a L2/L3 system, maybe. So for betting, there is essentially no difference.

L2 has a better playing efficiency. First, about 80% of the time, you play pure BS, so the playing efficiency comes into play on the last 20% where BS departures are recommended. Hi-Lo is about 50% efficient, meaning that for the remaining 20% of the total hands played, where BS isn't good enough, Hi-Lo will get about 1/2 of those right. In short, with simple Hi-Lo counting, you will play correctly 90 out of every 100 hands. The best Non-L1 count around has a playing efficiency of about .67, which means that of that same 20% where BS is not correct, you get 67% or for every 100 hands, you play correctly 93 times. So 3 better plays per 100 hands. You decide whether the work is worth it.

Finally a good L2 (or better) count will help on insurance decisions, since you want to know what the probability of a dealer 10 down is. Hi-Lo tells you the probability of the dealer having a 10 or A down, which is not as useful...

I prefer the KISS principle (not the KISS count) which simply means keep it simple...

I had thought about moving to a stronger count system until I understood what playing efficiency really meant after a discussion with Don. I quickly decided Hi-Lo was good enough.

Far more important that playing efficiency is "playing accuracy". Hi-Lo tends to excel there because it is easy...
--------quote off-------------

Those are _my_ words exactly. Please show me exactly where I said that a L1 is better than a L2. Also please read parker's response which I mentioned as the very first sentence. You said something to the effect that difficulty was not mentioned much. It seems to be a significant part of what I wrote above.

I believe my comments represent reality. But the thread got hijacked solely because of my reference to PE. Yet I'll be happy to point you to more than one web site that compares counting systems solely based on PE, BC and IC. So it is still being done, and regardless of what anyone wants to believe, while SCORE is clearly the better way to compare systems, the majority of new counters probably look at the web-available information that I mentioned above.

Was all this acrimony _really_ worth it over that _one_ paragraph on PE? Was it _really_ worth it?

I didn't think so. I think the rest of what I wrote, and the reference to Parker's post was pretty clear, pretty accurate, and was reasonable advice to someone that is _obviously_ a counter-to-be looking for the system to learn. Would you really want a brand new counter to start with zen, as opposed to Hi-Lo (or KO for the division-impaired)? Or KISS? or some other L1 count?

Of course not.

I doubt that poster cared much about even the PE discussion and whether PE or SCORE was the comparison. I didn't say L1 was better than L2 in any regard other than ease of use.

If you want to have a final word, feel free. I think this has dragged on way beyond any reasonable limit.

But feel free to point out where I said L1 is better than L2 in any thing other than simplicity of use... I clearly said L2 was better in PE and IC, and a very small bit better in BC.

So someone isn't reading everything... or is reading between the lines... or something.

[pm]

I guess if that was your last post on the discussion then it's done.

Interesting brouhaha that innocent little question turned into.

[Random Poster]

Then I apologize for misquoting history. The first computer I started using was a Commodore 64, so I had to rely on the testimony of others (middle school computer history textbooks and such). I remember my father pushing us to learn computer in the early 80's and his remorse for not having a computer department (as mentioned, the closest was EE) in the 60's when he was going through grad school..

> Sorry but your history is off. First
> computer I used was 39 years ago at tiny
> Haverford College. I wrote an heuristic
> checker program 38 years ago on an IBM 7040
> at U of P. 36 years ago I was hired by a guy
> with a PHD in CS. Obviously there were
> classes before that 36 years ago I had
> already used the following computers: IBM
> 7040, IBM 7044, IBM 1130, IBM 1800, IBM
> 360/40, IBM 360/20, Monroe Mark IV, LGP-30
> (General Precision), RPC-4000 (Royal
> Precision), SDS 940 (Scientific data
> systems), and DEC PDP-8. I was also familiar
> with the GE 635, RCA Spectra, Xerox Sigma,
> Univac 1106 & CDC 6600. This stuff goes
> back farther than most people realize.

[Random Poster]

It won't be necessary to go through the trouble. I've already scoped your homepage, your school, and your department when you changed your identity from Gorilla Player to Stainless Steel Rat, which brings me to one more question if you don't mind. I know why you changed your alias (privacy issues), but what I don't understand is, why didn't you delete the previous messages (especially the ones with your email) if you were so concerned? When you changed aliases in the middle of a thread, that was the thing that set off alarms in my head and caused me to do a search on the previous email you gave.

Perhaps you're right. Maybe I have a distorted view of professors, but none of my professors ever used the word "moron" regardless of context. They all tend to be very PC in and out of the classrooms. An occupational hazard transferred to habit, I suppose.

> Yep. I started at the University of Southern
> Mississippi, and took my first computer
> science course in 1968. I believe the
> department was formed in 1966, which makes
> it one of the oldest in the country.

> Sorry, but the details are correct. I
> finished my BS in 1970. I was hired to stay
> at USM which I did until 1985. So fishy or
> not, it is true. If you subtract 1970 from
> 2005, you get approximately 35 years? If
> you are in the Birmingham area, I'd be happy
> to have you drop by my office, all three of
> my diplomas (BS MS and PhD) are hanging on
> my office wall. Dates are 70, 83, and 88
> respectively.

> I still have not resolved that. If you asked
> me to testify in court, I would _still_ say
> that to the best of my recollection, that
> was where I played the game. If you were to
> ask me "are you 100% sure?" I
> would have to say "no."

> If you want to email me offline, I'll be
> happy to provide some information that you
> can verify as to who I am and what I say I
> am. It is quite easy to verify by visiting a
> CS department web site I can point you to.

> You are free to believe what you want.

> Correct. Born in 1948, finished BS in CS at
> USM in 1970. Hired there and worked there
> until 1985. Can it get any simpler than
> that. There was _no_ grad program in CS at
> USM until about 1980 or so. We started with
> a BS only, and in 1980 added a MS degree.
> After I left they added a Ph.D. program.

> The university I am at now started with a
> Ph.D. program in 1970 or so, and much later
> added a BS/MS program. Programs grow up both
> ways.

> You can easily do a little research with the
> data I gave above to verify it.

> You have a _way_ distorted view of
> "professors", sorry. But again,
> believe what you want, or do a little
> research with the department I gave above.
> It is _trivial_ to determine whether my
> statements are true or not.

[stainless steel rat]

> It won't be necessary to go through the
> trouble. I've already scoped your homepage,
> your school, and your department when you
> changed your identity from Gorilla Player to
> Stainless Steel Rat, which brings me to one
> more question if you don't mind. I know why
> you changed your alias (privacy issues), but
> what I don't understand is, why didn't you
> delete the previous messages (especially the
> ones with your email) if you were so
> concerned? When you changed aliases in the
> middle of a thread, that was the thing that
> set off alarms in my head and caused me to
> do a search on the previous email you gave.

Actually I was not that concerned. I changed my email for a couple of reasons. (1) It ws suggested by several here as a "sensible" precaution. Perhaps it was; (2) there are too many "webcrawler/spider/etc applications that love to grab email addresses. When I started posting here, my daily SPAM content went up although it is impossible to say that something is gleaning emails from here directly, I don't know.

Had I been paranoid, I would have deleted the old posts. Probably should have. But, as the saying goes, what's done is done.

> Perhaps you're right. Maybe I have a
> distorted view of professors, but none of my
> professors ever used the word
> "moron" regardless of context.

I've never called a specific person a "moron". But many of us recognize that within a certain context, "morons" do exist. For example, take a computer chess message board many of us "old timers" set up to get out of the flame wars and personal vendettas that happen on the unmoderated newsgroups. One "moron" didn't like the fact that no matter who was serving as a moderator at the time, his profanity, insults, and generally disruptive posts were not allowed to remain. His response? He used anonymous remailers to register hundreds of different "handles" on the message board and almost succeeded in electing himself as moderator before we caught on. I'd call that kind of "anonymous person" a true moron...

It's a word that fits a certain class of person, and I am not talking about someone that has a low IQ or ability. This particular "moron" was actually quite bright it seems, just bent on making trouble to stay involved in flame wars perpetually...

> They all tend to be very PC in and out of
> the classrooms. An occupational hazard
> transferred to habit, I suppose.

I have worked at two major universities in the computer science departments. At the previous place where I worked, one of our professors used to give discussion (essay) exams, and when students would resort to the classic "if I can't dazzle him with my brilliance, I'll baffle him with my bullshit." So he had a rubber stamp "BULLSHIT" made, and on those answers that were just lots of words with nowhere near anything near the correct answer, he'd just stamp the answer with his BULLSHIT stamp.

As far as PC goes, my experience is 180 degrees counter to that. That's the purpose for "tenure" within the university setting, so that faculty are free to voice any opinion they want, without fear of reprisal from someone that doesn't agree. Faculty are the least PC sect in society, from my experience, which is considerable.