Charles Tuner: A counting question

[Charles Tuner]

This might not be answerable (is that a word?) however I figured this would be the place to ask if it is answerable...

Advantage players (soon to include myself) have said advantage when more high cards are left undealt than low cards. I disagree... to a point. Suppose, in a six deck shoe game, two decks dealt, running count = 8, true = 2 so we have an advantage here... and increase our bets accordingly. Over the course of the next several hands, the count continues to rise... which gives us a further advantage, but we've just taken it in the shorts. Still we continue to raise our bets, looking like that gambling genius, Mr. Progression Better. Eventually though, we'll reach a point where the count HAS to start declining (unless of course the decks aren't complete). At this point, that's where our true advantage lies. So far, so good. Let's call it a running count of 12 with three left, true count of 4. Over the next deck dealt, we continue to bet large in accordance to out advantage but now the count starts falling... and as it does we lower our bets, until the count becomes negative and at that point we find a bathroom or meet our Uncle or whatever (i.e. leave the table).

Here's the point... as the count is falling, that's where our true advantage lies. And as the count falls from say a positive 2 to a negative 12 we still have that advantage but we've left the table. Aren't we leaving many good hands and giving up our advantage?

[Parker]

> This might not be answerable (is that a word?) however
> I figured this would be the place to ask if it is
> answerable...

> Advantage players (soon to include myself) have said
> advantage when more high cards are left undealt than
> low cards. I disagree... to a point. Suppose, in a six
> deck shoe game, two decks dealt, running count = 8,
> true = 2 so we have an advantage here... and increase
> our bets accordingly. Over the course of the next
> several hands, the count continues to rise... which
> gives us a further advantage, but we've just taken it
> in the shorts. Still we continue to raise our bets,
> looking like that gambling genius, Mr. Progression
> Better. Eventually though, we'll reach a point where
> the count HAS to start declining (unless of course the
> decks aren't complete). At this point, that's where
> our true advantage lies. So far, so good. Let's call
> it a running count of 12 with three left, true count
> of 4. Over the next deck dealt, we continue to bet
> large in accordance to out advantage but now the count
> starts falling... and as it does we lower our bets,
> until the count becomes negative and at that point we
> find a bathroom or meet our Uncle or whatever (i.e.
> leave the table).

> Here's the point... as the count is falling, that's
> where our true advantage lies. And as the count falls
> from say a positive 2 to a negative 12 we still have
> that advantage but we've left the table. Aren't we
> leaving many good hands and giving up our advantage?

Sure. Suppose a slug of ten-value cards comes out right at the beginning of a shoe. We are playing with an edge, but we have no way of knowing it. Likewise, suppose that there is a large slug of ten-value cards behind the cut card. The count keeps rising, we keep pushing out the big bets, the small cards keep coming, and we keep getting killed. Counters lovingly refer to this situation as "the shoe from hell."

Attempting to determine our advantage by keeping track of the cards already dealt is an imperfect way of gaining an edge, so all of these things will occur. However, in the long run the edge is indeed tilted in our favor, which is why we play for the long run.

[Don Schlesinger]

> This might not be answerable (is that a word?)

Yes. :-)

> Advantage players (soon to include myself) have said
> advantage when more high cards are left undealt than
> low cards.

Correct.

> I disagree... to a point.

With all due respect, you don't have a right to disagree with this any more than you have a right to disagree that 2 + 2 = 4. So, if you're soon going to become the advantage player that you mentioned above, you'll need to stop disagreeing. :-)

> Suppose, in a six
> deck shoe game, two decks dealt, running count = 8,
> true = 2 so we have an advantage here... and increase
> our bets accordingly. Over the course of the next
> several hands, the count continues to rise... which
> gives us a further advantage, but we've just taken it
> in the shorts.

Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes you win as the count rises, sometimes you lose. Sometimes you lose as the count falls, sometimes you win. That has nothing at all to do with whether or not you had the edge during those times. If we won every time we had the edge, the game would be much too easy.

> Still we continue to raise our bets,
> looking like that gambling genius, Mr. Progression
> Better.

Some play that way; personally, I don't. But it's for cover reasons and not mathematical ones.

> Eventually though, we'll reach a point where
> the count HAS to start declining (unless of course the
> decks aren't complete).

You're talking about the running count (RC), I presume. The true count (TC) has no such tendency to decline, and I think it's your confusion of the two concepts that might get you in trouble further down the line.

> At this point, that's where
> our true advantage lies.

No, the advantage was there all the time. Again, you may have won or lost, but the edge was always there. Consider a bag with 60 white marbles and 40 black ones. You get even money if you draw a white marble. You have a huge 20% edge going in. But, you're unlucky and lose five times in a row. Did you not have the edge all the while?? Of course you did.

> So far, so good. Let's call
> it a running count of 12 with three left, true count
> of 4. Over the next deck dealt, we continue to bet
> large in accordance to our advantage but now the count
> starts falling...

The running count starts falling. The true count may not drop at all.

> and as it does we lower our bets,

Only if the TC falls. If just the RC falls, but the TC remains the same, we don't lower our bets.

> until the count becomes negative and at that point we
> find a bathroom or meet our Uncle or whatever (i.e.
> leave the table).

OK.

> Here's the point... as the count is falling, that's
> where our true advantage lies.

Not much we can do about that, right? But, again, the RC can fall (good for us), while the TC remains the same (also good for us).

> And as the count falls
> from say a positive 2 to a negative 12 we still have
> that advantage but we've left the table.

When the RC turns negative and you've left the table, the players who remain have no edge anymore. Surely, you understand that, right?

> Aren't we
> leaving many good hands and giving up our advantage?

What advantage? The count is negative. That's why you left. There is no edge when the count is negative.

Don

[pm]

Also (this is actually more of a question for Don etc.), there's never actually a point where the count HAS to start declining. On average, the true count will hold where it is, and a positive count will provide an advantage even if it doesn't drop.

If you have an RC of 12 and 3 decks remaining (TC +4), then on average, you'll have 4 extra big cards per deck. So when another deck is dealt, you should see four extra big cards come out (on average). This brings the TC to 8/2, which still equals +4. So you've gotten the value of the positive count's extra big cards, even though the count didn't drop. If it did drop, you'd probably get even more value out of it. Also, the count should, on average, hold until you get towards the very end of the shoe.

Is this correct?

[pm]

[Magician]

> Here's the point... as the count is falling, that's
> where our true advantage lies. And as the count falls
> from say a positive 2 to a negative 12 we still have
> that advantage but we've left the table. Aren't we
> leaving many good hands and giving up our advantage?

You are right that even in a negative count, if the cards from which your hand and hit cards will be dealt are rich in tens and aces, you have an advantage. However, you can not predict such situations from the count alone, so you can't take advantage of them. Unless you have other information about when the high cards are coming out, you should stick to betting more in high counts and less (or nothing) in low counts.