Ridiculous. Unbalanced Level I Counts like that are all weak.
Absurd claims re: "effectiveness" are good for selling books.
Even though unbalanced level I counts are weak in terms of accuracy. Their performances according to simulations is possible to outperform balanced level 1 counts. I don't care if it outperforms balanced level 1 or level 2 by a hair to me it is still out performance.This applies to unbalanced level II counts. Those systems could be true counted for more accuracy.Originally Posted by ZenMaster_Flash
Last edited by seriousplayer; 07-12-2013 at 07:42 PM.
I don't see anything wrong with learning basic strategy and keeping the running count at the same time, as the two are not correlated. If you were learning basic strategy and index plays, then that would definitely be wrong, because the two are correlated in such a way that you must understand basic strategy so that you know what the index play is/means.
To keep the running count, take a normal 52 card deck, shuffled of course, and drop one card at a time, face up. Starting at 0, count each card you see, until you get to the last card. You should end with 0. Accuracy is absolutely key. You'll speed up naturally. Once you get the hang of it, drop two cards at a time, and learning to "cancel" or "add" cards. (ie: two lows = +2, one low one mid = +1, one low one high = 0, one mid one high = -1, and two highs = -2)
Once you can count down a deck in about 30 or even 35 seconds, start working on deck estimation. If you can, buy 6 decks from your local casino. If not, buy 6 decks from Wal-Mart. Shuffle all the 6 decks together, really really well, so that you don't see the "lines" between the decks. Number each card with a sharpie, 1-312, where the #1 card is at the bottom and #312 card is at the top. (I'm assuming you're playing 6deck. If you're playing 8deck, then get 8 decks and number them 1-416[or however many cards are in an 8decker].) Stand the pile of cards up in a discard rack if you can afford one. If not, take an old box and cut it in such a way so make your own "discard rack"...basically a thing that has a corner in it so your cards don't go flying everywhere.
Take a piece of paper, and make a chart of how many cards are at each deck. For example:
1 - 52
2 - 104
3 - 156
4 - 208
5 - 260
6 - 312
0.5 - 26
1.5 - 78
2.5 - 130
3.5 - 182
4.5 - 234
5.5 - 286
Put cards into the discard rack, until you think you see about 1 deck. Take the top card, flip it over, and there's a number on it. Is it 52? How far off are you? Record it. What you thought you saw (52 cards), how many there really were (say, 58), and how many you were off by (+6). Now try it again, but with 2 decks. Record it, etc. 3 decks...four decks...five decks... If you want to get really good, try guessing half deck increments, although you shouldn't need to do that quite so early on.
Some say that might be a bit excessive for deck estimation....but you'll never actually know how good your deck estimation is until you try a drill like this. I tried it and realized how off I actually was in deck estimation (it wasn't a lot, but it was enough to make me realize "I need to work on this!")
To figure out the TC quickly, practice a lot of division. Take twenty note cards and number them 1-20, or higher. Take 6 more cards and number them 1-6. Put them in two different piles. Pick up one card from each pile. Divide. Keep doing that until dividing any 2 is easy.
"Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]
While I have every respect for Flash's abilities as a player, I believe he is totally out of touch with red or green chip, Level 1 players. I will be listen to the the advice of Snyder, Renzey and many others, in preference to anything Flash has to say.
I don't know what you are trying to say. The problem with Blackjack Attack is that it simulated KO-preferred vs the true counted Hi-Lo system. We have had this discussion many time in this form. Blackjack attack had never simulated True Counted KO with the Hi-lo system itself as well as KO will full indices. Of course True counted Hi-Lo will beat KO-preferred but if you use KO to the full power KO will beat Hi-Lo sometime in running count mode and most definitely in True Count mode.There is no question if you add more risk adverse indices and True count to counts like Red seven and KISS. It will beat systems like HI-LO.
Last edited by seriousplayer; 07-13-2013 at 12:04 PM.
You are only going to get so much from a level 1 count no matter what "enhancements" are employed. If you think it is significant that Hilo makes $100/hour while TKO gets $101 in a given situation, you are worried about the wrong thing. Variance makes a much greater difference in short term results.
Just remember that they are all trying to sell books, and they know that an "easier" system will sell much better than a more difficult system, and the effectiveness of such a system becomes a secondary consideration at best. I've played at the same tables with KO players before, and very often I'll have big bets out for several hands while the KO player(s) are still betting minimum, and then maybe the last hand of the shoe they throw out a monster bet. They simply miss a lot of betting opportunities and stick out like a sore thumb. If you true count KO that may alleviate this problem, but if you're going to true count anyway you'd be much better off with another system IMO. I've known a few players who used KO and switched, and they're much happier with their new system.
Talk about a small sample size. I wonder how often you have played at the same table as a KO player. I suspect the difference may lie in your ramping method and the other player's ramping method, rather than the differences in the systems.
My problem with Flash's assessments is that he assumes that higher level systems are superior and the other systems are worthless. There is no question that Level 2 systems, when played flawlessly (an important consideration), are superior. That does not mean that other systems cannot be effective.
Very true your last sentence there. I have appreciated the insight those who are in this forum have provided, but seems like there is a lot of parcing of words, a 6 in one hand half dozen in another approach to some of the language. That's kind of what I thought when I was looking at "house money" that I was ahead versus my "buy in" money from a particular session. My thought was that I could afford to be more aggressive if the cards are hitting and on the casino dime at that particular moment. The thought relayed to me was that I need to look at all my chips as my money at that point and not deviate from the play that got me there, which was BS blackjack.
Effective in my definition means producing and achieving desirable results. Let think about it this way. There's only one purpose to card counting and I mean only one. I don't care what count system you are using. It is to satisfy one purpose. The purpose of card counting is to determine the favorability of the deck (when positive, negative and neutral situation occurs) because it give us information when to bet more when we have an advantage. To satisfy this purpose we use card counting. If any card counting system could determine favorability of the deck in a simple, proficient and efficient way without losing too much EV to me that is already consider effective. To me it doesn't matter how you do it. Lets take a similar example. Let take table tennis for example. The purpose of table tennis is to get the ball over the net within the boundary of the table. You can do back smash, forward smash, back spin, forward spin or just hit the ball normally. The same in card counting you can use a fancy count system like Wong Halves, Omega II, Uston APC, Revere RAPC or use a simple professional level count. They all satisfied the same purpose. The result of fulfilling the purpose leads to a result. In this case it will result in us winning money or making a profit.
Last edited by seriousplayer; 07-15-2013 at 01:01 PM.
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