you counters be nice and join the conversation

[hardin county boy]

as a guy with an advanced science degree, of course i respect counters and, in my 2000 hours of recreational play, have had enough home counting practice followed by effort at the tables to glimpse the joys and sorrows of counting.


though i fully believe counting is advantaged play and that all else faces a house edge, i believe i detect in many counters a most unscientific bias. i would like to engage those of you who so quickly dismiss efforts to overcome the house advantage with anything but counting, as well as you counters who do NOT dismiss such so glibly, with phrases such as "voodoo" or some such term. hence, my respectfully posting in this category. the only respect i ask in return is that comments be substance-based instead of a dictatorial wave of your all-knowing hand being considered good enough.



those of you who count successfully, have a good math brain and can be fair-minded, i look to perhaps learn something from. those who arrogantly believe their own "counting-only" proclamation=gospel, let me start by asking if you would be comfortable with the following arrangement: you and i will meet to flip coins and i will employ perfect, basic, coin-flipping strategy and every 100 flips i will give you .5% of the total money wagered for showing up. i get to decide what size coins we flip, for how long, when we stop and when we start back.



the math is obvious, you will have an edge. the REALITY is, your generosity in allowing me the when, how long, how much and when do we do it again, gives me a reasonable prospect of owning everything you have--to suggest your edge will INEVITABLY lead to my "long term" destruction is, i suggest, patent nonsense.

depending on how i choose to use the tools you have given me, i see prospects for my losing all i have, getting all you have or something in between and if i construct my efforts with an emphasis on not losing, i see a high probability of success for THAT with lower prospects of losing or winning big----a very long career at counting, similarly, still only offers probabilities of winning with the possibility of lifetime loss.



let me pause here for comments.

[Norm]

i would like to engage those of you who so quickly dismiss efforts to overcome the house advantage with anything but counting, as well as you counters who do NOT dismiss such so glibly, with phrases such as "voodoo" or some such term.

You don't seem to have read much of these discussions. Almost no one here would "dismiss efforts to overcome the house advantage with anything but counting". However, we do dismiss voodoo. It's just that that isn't the definition of voodoo.

[hardin county boy]

You don't seem to have read much of these discussions. Almost no one here would "dismiss efforts to overcome the house advantage with anything but counting". However, we do dismiss voodoo. It's just that that isn't the definition of voodoo.

i AM new and have only been reading couple days but see a lot of "dismissing" of those who might use a variation in bet size any number of ways, "luck" into getting ahead and then working to stay there and go home a winner---a lot of suggestion that this is not a valid, serious way to approach the game.

[Norm]

Ahh, that's voodoo. Period. And, you are in the correct sub-forum.

[hardin county boy]

Ahh, that's voodoo. Period. And, you are in the correct sub-forum.

so, once again, no need for you to substantiate what you say---unilaterally dismiss the fact casino allows you to alter bet size, come and go as you please--assert that these are in no way exploitable- say, "period" and that provides your words the biblical authority needed. you ignore the scientific prospect that such approaches offer variations in winning and losing VERY similar to the variations experienced in counting and counters and non-counters both must choose whether to end a session winner or loser. many anecdotes in these posts talk of good 7 months work down the tubes by rigidly continuing to bet high unit in good counts only to kill a half-year's good work in an afternoon when a different, also scientific, approach might have been more profitable.

[hitthat16]

Varying your bet size without knowledge of the cards already played is not science. It's a losing strategy.

[mofungoo]

so, once again, no need for you to substantiate what you say---unilaterally dismiss the fact casino allows you to alter bet size, come and go as you please--assert that these are in no way exploitable- say, "period" and that provides your words the biblical authority needed. you ignore the scientific prospect that such approaches offer variations in winning and losing VERY similar to the variations experienced in counting and counters and non-counters both must choose whether to end a session winner or loser. many anecdotes in these posts talk of good 7 months work down the tubes by rigidly continuing to bet high unit in good counts only to kill a half-year's good work in an afternoon when a different, also scientific, approach might have been more profitable.

Counting is not the only way to get an edge over the casino. The other ways involve "information" and using that information in conjunction with a proper strategy. Betting progressions and leaving when ahead cannot reverse a house edge. Since you have an advanced degree perhaps a reading of Epstein's Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic will clear things up for you.

[hardin county boy]

Counting is not the only way to get an edge over the casino. The other ways involve "information" and using that information in conjunction with a proper strategy. Betting progressions and leaving when ahead cannot reverse a house edge. Since you have an advanced degree perhaps a reading of Epstein's Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic will clear things up for you.

warren buffet walked into a casino and flat bet 25$ all day and couldnt get ahead and go home winners. warren declared himself to be a scientist and came back the next day and flat bet 50$ , had a little "variation", found himself up for the trip and went home winners. he did this every week for years and sometimes he stayed 3 days, betting 75$ the third day, and STILL never caught that 12 hour day of enough "doubled up" winning to go home a winner so he said, "just like those science-based counters, every now and then, gotta book that bigger-than i like loss and move on--lady variance."

warren went back home and hired epstein to audit his weekly trips and, no surprise to epstein, warren the science guy had bagged considerably more in winnings than losses. those of you with more math talent than i have tell me the odds of 3, 12-hour sessions of flat bet blackjack, basic strategy, no player advantage (just assume .5% casino edge) in which one of the 3 sessions would not produce the MOMENT the players variance/luck would need to find him up either SOME decent amount on day one or more than just HALF the AVERAGE number of his previous days losses. (25,50,75-- 3 daily "progressions" affordable to mr buffet and many of us )--on days 2 or 3, all he's gotta have is one "doubled up" unit win more than the prior 2 days AVERAGE loss and he declares victory and goes home.

what mr buffet understands that some of you guys dont seem to is that his willingness to vary bet size and length of time in the casino for any given trip TO CHASE DOWN LOSSES is MORE powerful TO INSURE A WIN than the true advantage of card-counting. (the larger bet size variation of counting, in more favorable situations, no doubt, makes for BIGGER potential profits). also, some of his day one wins will be large enough that they WILL add up to exceed his occasional 3 day loss.

[DM21]

let me start by asking if you would be comfortable with the following arrangement: you and i will meet to flip coins and i will employ perfect, basic, coin-flipping strategy and every 100 flips i will give you .5% of the total money wagered for showing up.

I will take you up on that offer as long as it is a fair coin toss, if I win the coin toss I get $100.50 / you win the coin toss you get $100. Sound like a good deal to me.

gives me a reasonable prospect of owning everything you have

That depends on whose bankroll is bigger. The casino's bankroll is endless ..... is yours?


btw, Norm has the knowlegde, experience, and wisdom to make statements matter of factly. If he is telling you something, it isn't what he thinks he knows, it is what he knows he knows. You should listen to him.

[Norm]

-unilaterally dismiss the fact casino allows you to alter bet size, come and go as you please--assert that these are in no way exploitable- say, "period" and that provides your words the biblical authority needed.

You are not going to last long here. As I said, and you have admitted, you haven't read much. You are just posting absurd assumptions without any evidence. I have spent decades, literally, posting about such voodoo. To refuse to read, and then claim that I refuse to write and claim Biblical authority is seriously bad form. The I'Net word for this is "trolling".

I strongly suggest that you read more and post less.

[Norm]

warren went back home and hired epstein to audit his weekly trips and, no surprise to epstein, warren the science guy had bagged considerably more in winnings than losses.

I am one of the three people in the acknowledgements page in the last edition of Epstein's book: Gambling and Statistical Logic. There is no way that Epstein would claim this was anything other than useless empirical evidence.

[Three]

Schooled. They don't want to believe the science. They believe their results until the results agree with science as it will if they play long enough and then bemoan their bad luck. The only way you won't approach the negative expectation is if by some coincidence you are betting with the count. I have seen plops raise their bets based on the cards played in the last round and make decisions based on the cards on the table. Many times they make the right decision but the cards on the table may not represent the cards played at all. At least they are basing their plays and bets on a little more info.

[RS]

Blackjack is a funny game (just like any other casino game). There is so much variance, so much randomness, that you cannot take any session, small group of sessions, or even a huge group of sessions, and say something about the game in general, based on those few sessions.

Variance, variance, variance.


As you said, some people may lose half of their year-to-date's profit in just a few shoes in one night. That's variance. You can't take the game and say, "I made $15K this month in 30 hours of play, therefore I should always make $500/hour." or some absurd statement like that. You can't say, "I made $200K this year with 200 hours of play, therefore I should make $1,000/hour." A few hours of play isn't enough to accurately say how you're going to do in the long run given some "system", which is why when we run simulations, we run 1 billion [or more] rounds.


Likewise, you can't take Mr. Buffet's small selection of play and say, "Because [he made money], then [it's a winning system] or [this will happen]." It would be like sitting down at a blackjack table, winning one $100 hand in the first 15 seconds, then claiming, "With this system, I can make $100 every 15 seconds, which is $400 every minute, which is $24,000 every hour!"


The thing about Mr. Buffet's "system", is that there are many many small wins with one gigantic win. Even though he had many wins, there is nothing that inherently means "he will lose soon" as if a loss is "due".


Imagine if we took a "The price is right" wheel, with 100 selections. 99 of them represent a "winning" weekend, while only 1 of them represented a "losing" session. I don't know what Buffet's wins/losses were respectively, but bare with me.

Let's say we spun the wheel 52 times. There's a good chance that every of the 52 spins is a win. Likewise, there's also a good chance that 1, or 2, or even 3 of the spins were losses. Each spin represents 1 weekend "session", while the total of 52 spins represent an entire year.

If you look at the first "year" of 52 winning spins and 0 losses, that's going to look like one hell of a bad*ss system, right? If you look at the second "year" of 52 spins, 49 wins and 3 losses, that's going to look like a pretty sh*tty system, isn't it? BUT, they're both the same system, just different outcomes! THEREFORE, you can't say a system is "good" or "bad" based on real-world results or "outcomes", but merely by simulations run on the system.


I'd throw money on it, and say that Mr. Buffet was "ahead" in variance that year, and likely should have had 1, if not 2 more "big" losses.