Mr. X: Honcho

[Mr. X]

I'm rudely jumping to the front of the line to respond to Honcho's November post-

"J.M.I have been playing a game that 70%of the time I can read perfect, the other 30% is unreadable.Now after 30 hours of play I am still losing.Based on your chart on page 115 I think this game is worth about 9% if 100% readable,so i`m estimating maybe 6% with 70% read.For how long is it possible to be losing in a game like this.Any comments ,insights or advice would be greatly appreciated.P.S this game also has late surrender."

I'm not JM, but since you asked for comments and insights-

I don't know the formula for the answer, and I, too, would be curious to know what the odds of that happening are.

I have never been down overall against a strong flasher like yours for over 30 hours of play, that I can recall. It's rare.

A few years ago, I was talking to a spotter (with a great act) who showed up at about 10 of my games over the years. He once told a story about how 2 of his friends had played a mediocre flasher at "F" casino, and both were down (not by much) over a relatively long period of time. They asked this guy to check it out. He did, and he said "In my professional opinion (his words), she is false shuffling the aces to the bottom." They indeed were getting very few blackjacks. Also, few chances at insurance. I've always thought playing flashers was protection against cheaters, because, imo, if they are skillful enough to cheat, they'd be skillful enough not to deal the cards so sloppily in the first place. I keep close statistics of my play, and my net win against flashers over the years is VERY close to my EV estimate (about a 1.02 ratio). So, cheating by flashers is rare, but not impossible.

By "70% perfect reads", do you mean exact reads of the index? Is the "unreadable" 30% actually misreads/guesses, or true non-reads where you revert to BS? If it really is 70% perfect reads, and no misreads, then my guess is it is VERY rare, but not impossible. If you lose over the next 10 hours, I'd monitor the BJ's for false shuffling, and cut my stakes until I started winning, and probably abandon her after another 5-10 hours of losses.
If the 70% reads are ranges or 10/non-10's, and misreads crop up, then your 30 hour loss is not THAT unusual.

If this is an SF game, are you sure you know all the correct BS & HC strategies? (I didn't until recently. I rarely have an SF game).
Late surrender is nice in a HC game, but if you use it, MAKE SURE your read is correct. Misreads involving surrender is VERY costly. If you have several LS misreads, that could be your problem.

[Honcho]

>
> to respond to Honcho's November post-

> "J.M.I have been playing a game that
> 70%of the time I can read perfect, the other
> 30% is unreadable.Now after 30 hours of play
> I am still losing.Based on your chart on
> page 115 I think this game is worth about 9%
> if 100% readable,so i`m estimating maybe 6%
> with 70% read.For how long is it possible to
> be losing in a game like this.Any comments
> ,insights or advice would be greatly
> appreciated.P.S this game also has late
> surrender."

> I'm not JM, but since you asked for comments
> and insights-

> I don't know the formula for the answer, and
> I, too, would be curious to know what the
> odds of that happening are.

> I have never been down overall against a
> strong flasher like yours for over 30 hours
> of play, that I can recall. It's rare.

> A few years ago, I was talking to a spotter
> (with a great act) who showed up at about 10
> of my games over the years. He once told a
> story about how 2 of his friends had played
> a mediocre flasher at "F" casino,
> and both were down (not by much) over a
> relatively long period of time. They asked
> this guy to check it out. He did, and he
> said "In my professional opinion (his
> words), she is false shuffling the aces to
> the bottom." They indeed were getting
> very few blackjacks. Also, few chances at
> insurance. I've always thought playing
> flashers was protection against cheaters,
> because, imo, if they are skillful enough to
> cheat, they'd be skillful enough not to deal
> the cards so sloppily in the first place. I
> keep close statistics of my play, and my net
> win against flashers over the years is VERY
> close to my EV estimate (about a 1.02
> ratio). So, cheating by flashers is rare,
> but not impossible.

> By "70% perfect reads", do you
> mean exact reads of the index? Is the
> "unreadable" 30% actually
> misreads/guesses, or true non-reads where
> you revert to BS? If it really is 70%
> perfect reads, and no misreads, then my
> guess is it is VERY rare, but not
> impossible. If you lose over the next 10
> hours, I'd monitor the BJ's for false
> shuffling, and cut my stakes until I started
> winning, and probably abandon her after
> another 5-10 hours of losses.
> If the 70% reads are ranges or 10/non-10's,
> and misreads crop up, then your 30 hour loss
> is not THAT unusual.

> If this is an SF game, are you sure you know
> all the correct BS & HC strategies? (I
> didn't until recently. I rarely have an SF
> game).
> Late surrender is nice in a HC game, but if
> you use it, MAKE SURE your read is correct.
> Misreads involving surrender is VERY costly.
> If you have several LS misreads, that could
> be your problem. Mr.X thanks for responding.This dealer is not false shuffling ,he has only been dealing 3 months.this is on a shoe game not hand held.The 30% i could not see i reverted to basic strategy.The 70% i could see perfect.Since my previous post I have played about 40 more hours and am now winning,however he has dropped to being readable about 50%.I now have two other players fighting for the same seat so i don`t know how much longer this will last.

[martidani]

The data is not too hard to calculate. The EV is probably at 6%, and the charts on BC give you the variance. Thus with these numbers you can calculate the long run and determine how far you are in one direction. Just guessing, at a 6% EV
and a variance of around 1.4, I am assuming if you are playing 100 hands an hour, your long run is only 4 hours!!! Meaning that after 4 hours of play, you are guaranteed to be at +1 standard deviations (or that there is an 82% chance you are ahead). If you are losing after 30 hours of play, I would guess you are at multiple standard deviations to the left. Possible? yes, but very unlikely. Either you are doing something wrong or you are overestimating your edge. Again if I had more time I could look into this, but I don't right now. E-mail me if you are interested, or we'll see if mr. morgan answers your question.

Also, I don't think you can take 70% of 9% and have your true edge. You probably have to subtract the negative EV of the hands you are playing at with no information.

[martidani]