HOLLYWOOD: Question?

[HOLLYWOOD]

When a count finally gets good at the very end of a 6 deck shoe, is it effective?

Besides the fact that only a few hands are left, does the math still indicate we should press under those conditions the way we would if we were only half way through the shoe.

Let me tell you what actually happened last night, and I would just like to know if you would have done it the same way?

I'm playing head to head.
The count was flat. I'm keeping an eye on the discard tray and I know i'm close to the end. I win a hand and the count gets good enough for me to go from 1 to 2 units. I win and I go to 4 units. Every second I know the yellow card is about to appear. I win the 4 unit bet and I let the 8 units ride. After the first card to me, the yellow card appears. I lost the 8 units, which is what prompted my question.

Thanks,

Hollywood

[Don Schlesinger]

> When a count finally gets good at the very
> end of a 6 deck shoe, is it effective?

Sure.

> Besides the fact that only a few hands are
> left, does the math still indicate we should
> press under those conditions the way we
> would if we were only half way through the
> shoe.

Sure.

> I'm playing head to head.
> The count was flat. I'm keeping an eye on
> the discard tray and I know i'm close to the
> end. I win a hand and the count gets good
> enough for me to go from 1 to 2 units. I win
> and I go to 4 units. Every second I know the
> yellow card is about to appear. I win the 4
> unit bet and I let the 8 units ride. After
> the first card to me, the yellow card
> appears. I lost the 8 units, which is what
> prompted my question.

So, had you won the hand, you wouldn't have asked the question, and everything would have been all right? :-)

So long as there are enough cards remaining for you to be dealt the last hand, you make the proper bet. Had you bet 8 units and not noticed that the cut card was poised to come out for the next hand (a mistake amateurs sometimes make), you would have then been caught with the big bet in the circle and a shuffle coming up. Then, you have the problem of either withdrawing part of the bet or letting it ride on the negative-EV first hand of the new shoe.

So, when you think you're close to the end of the shoe, and you're about to make a big bet, make sure to glance over at the shoe to see that you WILL be getting another hand. If so, bet according to your count, as always.

Don

[MathProf]

For some reason I got the impression that you played KO. If so, then the answer is NO. The key count should be higher deep in the shoe, and lower early in the shoe. The official Key Count is a type of average throughout the shoe. But toward the end, you are actually at a disadvantage at the Key Count.

This is true for all the other sub-pivot counts. However, the Pivot Point is good thought the Shoe. Pivot in the first deck is the same as Pivot in the last deck. That it partly why it is called Pivot.

Running Counts above the Pivot are More Valuable at the end of the shoe as opposed to the beginning.

> When a count finally gets good at the very
> end of a 6 deck shoe, is it effective?

> Besides the fact that only a few hands are
> left, does the math still indicate we should
> press under those conditions the way we
> would if we were only half way through the
> shoe.

> Let me tell you what actually happened last
> night, and I would just like to know if you
> would have done it the same way?

> I'm playing head to head.
> The count was flat. I'm keeping an eye on
> the discard tray and I know i'm close to the
> end. I win a hand and the count gets good
> enough for me to go from 1 to 2 units. I win
> and I go to 4 units. Every second I know the
> yellow card is about to appear. I win the 4
> unit bet and I let the 8 units ride. After
> the first card to me, the yellow card
> appears. I lost the 8 units, which is what
> prompted my question.

> Thanks,

> Hollywood

[Mister M]

Does the dealer continue with the round when the cut card is dealt or does he shuffle at this point?.
If your ramp calls for an 8 unit bet then it is correct to go ahead and bet the 8 units,if for example the tc = +4 then you have a greater chance of winning that hand than you do of losing which is the whole principle of a ramp in the first place!.
You have no way of knowing if the high cards will be dealt thus realising your advantage or whether they are in fact cut out of the playzone causing the possible loss of many units as you ramp with the increasing running count.If for example the cut-offs contain a rc of -10 then you will have just played through a whole shoe at a disadvantage regardless of what the tc rose to.
Hence the power of tracking.

[Norm Wattenberger]

on what you mean by the end of the shoe and what the count was. As MP says, an unbalanced count is not accurate throughout the shoe. But, how often do we get deep enough to matter? Since the ramp in the KO book is a might conservative anyhow; your bet likely was fine. Just didn't work.

[MathProf]

I don't know what current KO users do. The Book gives a Key Count of 8 below pivot for a 6 deck game. Now with 1.5 decks left in a 6 deck shoe (which I don't really consider "deep"), normal composition is 6 points below pivot. So at the official Key Count, you are -2 running points below normal. That is, the house has an edge.

If you are halfway between pivot and key, (4 below pivot), you are only 2 running points above normal. A High-Low player would have a rather small bet out. I think KO betting schedules have a much bigger bet out at P-4. These bets are likely be more than twice optimal; that is, negative CE bets.

For a 1-12 play-all spread ay S17-DAS 4/5/6, BJRM puts out the max bet at pivot-2. With 1.5 decks remaining, this is only a true count of 2 above normal. I think we would agree that a max bet at 2 above normal is over-betting.

The original question was


Besides the fact that only a few hands are left, does the math still indicate we should press under those conditions the way we would if we were only half way through the shoe.

And the short answer is NO. The math does indicate that for sub-pivot bets, the KO player should play more conservatively at the end of a Shoe.

> on what you mean by the end of the shoe and
> what the count was. As MP says, an
> unbalanced count is not accurate throughout
> the shoe. But, how often do we get deep
> enough to matter? Since the ramp in the KO
> book is a might conservative anyhow; your
> bet likely was fine. Just didn't work.

[Norm Wattenberger]

I don't know the penetration or the count. The question that I am attempting to answer is would we have done the same thing. I believe that the answer is 'depends.'

[Double21]

I, for one, would have spread to multiple hands at an appropriate bet level and played more that the one hand at shoe end.

[Mr.X]

One exception where it might make a difference would be in a (single deck) game where all cards are dealt (except the burn card). VW called the game "Experto", other places had other names.
One major problem I had with that game (besides the even money BJ's), especially with a lot of players at the table, is that when you get near the end of the deck, with a juicy count, they run out of cards, and suddenly the +6 count at the start of the deal reverses to -6. It's particularly dangerous if the deck runs out after you're done but before the dealer hits, because low cards are good if you have to hit stiffs. I'd suggest avoiding the 1st base side at a full Experto table.
Anyway, Don's answers of course are correct, but I like to find exceptions.
As an aside, I remember an article from Gambling Times in the early 80's, where Stupak wrote about the "story" of Experto. Basically, he claimed he hired some programmers to come up with the player odds given his first set of rules (this was in the days before BJ simulators). They took a week to come up with the answer. Well, maybe in the early 80's that sounded reasonable. But then, he claims he wanted more of an edge, so he commisioned these same programmers to come up with the edge if they changed the rule to BJ even money. Stupak claimed that after a week, they came up with the result. Now wait a minute!!! All you have to do is figure out the commonly known occurance of a BJ, and divide by 2! Why would these phantom programmers need a WEEK to figure that out??? I never trusted Stupak or Gambling Times again (not that I had before).

[John Auston]

Here is one way you can use BJRM to help answer questions like this.

Consider the following two screen prints from the Systems 101 section. I've selected the KO count, and am displaying the indices for Doubling. The first screen shot shows the exact RC at 2 decks left, while the second shows exact RC at 1 deck left. To get 1.5, take 1/2 between the two.





To find the RC of "first positive EV", we just need to know that the departure for 9v2 is taken, for almost every count, at around "first positive EV", and that the departure for, say, 9v7 is around the max bet territory.

So by looking at the KO RCs for those departures under the 6 deck column, we see that RC (assuming an IRC of -4 * #-of-decks) must be, for 9v2, -6 at 2 decks left and -3 at 1 deck left, then "first positive EV" is -4.5 at 1.5 left, and max bet is 0 RC.

- John

BJRM Web Site

[Don Schlesinger]

Did I miss somewhere that Hollywood was talking about the K-O count? His post mentions nothing about that.

To me, the question was simply: If my count indicates that I should be making an 8-unit bet in the middle of the shoe, and my count indicates that I should be making that same 8-unit bet at the end of the shoe, is there anything going on, deep in the shoe, that would stop me from making that bet?

The answer, of course, is no, there is nothing at all to indicate that you shouldn't make the same 8-unit bet.

I think you're all reading much more into this question than was originally intended, but Hollywood can tell us exactly what he had in mind.

Don

[John Auston]

> Did I miss somewhere that Hollywood was
> talking about the K-O count? His post
> mentions nothing about that.

Didn't matter to me if it didn't. The thread took an interesting turn, anyway, namely, should playing an unbalanced count in RC mode cause you
to play the end of the shoe differently.

If you just play the compromise RCs, no matter what, then "no". But if you want to get a little cute, I was showing how to do so.

John

[Norm Wattenberger]

We need more info. If it is KO, Hollywood's instinct is valid; but we need penetration and count to form an answer on the correct bet.