pm: Still curious..

[pm]

Don, I hope you don't get mad at me, but I'm reposting this question just in case you didn't see it (I'm really curious about this, and I wasn't sure if it got skipped over during the variance discussion). It was in the "Unbalanced count backcounting question" thread.

If my thinking is wrong and the explanation of why it's wrong is too in-depth, not an issue..

(If reposting like this is inappropriate, let me know; I just wasn't sure if the question went under the radar or something.)

> Well, that's just the equivalent of a -2/3
> TC for, say, Hi-Lo, so you might leave, but
> the count isn't egregiously low.

> I can't say, definitively, because you're
> pretty close to the threshold for
> staying/leaving. I'd say, in this case, that
> it makes little difference.

> Don

When you put it Hi-Lo terms, it makes total sense, but the thing that was confusing me was to think that at a KO count of -10, the chapter 2 backcounter only has to see a surfeit of 6 small cards before they can start placing bets (i.e. to get to the -4 key count), whereas the chapter 13 backcounter who decides to leave will have to see a surfeit of 16 small cards and face a 3 minute lag before they can place another bet. Wouldn't that make the real life SCORE for the chapter 13 KO backcounter significantly lower than the chapter 2 KO backcounter's SCORE? It seems like if you are using an unbalanced count, there is (in theory) no upside to leaving a poor count in progress and finding a new shoe (as long as the count in progress is still greater than the IRC) instead of just waiting for the count to become advantageous in the current shoe (again, just theoretically).

(Just for the record, not trying to be challenging or anything here; I just had questions that I was unable to figure out for myself..)

[Don Schlesinger]

> When you put it Hi-Lo terms, it makes total
> sense, but the thing that was confusing me
> was to think that at a KO count of -10, the
> chapter 2 backcounter only has to see a
> surfeit of 6 small cards before they can
> start placing bets (i.e. to get to the -4
> key count), whereas the chapter 13
> backcounter who decides to leave will have
> to see a surfeit of 16 small cards and face
> a 3 minute lag before they can place another
> bet.

But, you get a fresh shoe, not one that is half over and going nowhere. That's part of the difficult math -- to determine which situation is more attractive.

> Wouldn't that make the real life SCORE
> for the chapter 13 KO backcounter
> significantly lower than the chapter 2 KO
> backcounter's SCORE?

No, I don't think so.

> It seems like if you
> are using an unbalanced count, there is (in
> theory) no upside to leaving a poor count in
> progress and finding a new shoe (as long as
> the count in progress is still greater than
> the IRC) instead of just waiting for the
> count to become advantageous in the current
> shoe (again, just theoretically).

No, that's just not true. You have to understand that the count is just something you do in your head -- the cards are the cards. So, while you're doing K-O in RC mode, someone right next to you might be doing it in TC mode, making the kind of equivalent calculations to Hi-Lo that I did in the my first post to you. And so, he would probably want to leave more or less when I indicated, in which case, you ought to want to leave also.

> (Just for the record, not trying to be
> challenging or anything here; I just had
> questions that I was unable to figure out
> for myself..)

As you reread the chapter, and the incredible amount of work that went into it, don't be ashamed to admit that this stuff isn't too easy to understand. It was, by far, the most difficult and challenging puzzle I ever tried to solve, in over 25 years, and it took a half dozen people months and months of work to get it right.

Don

[pm]