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  1. #27


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    bigplayer, thanks for helping me reason thru it. help me consider your last sentence which is 100% unassailable: " add up all of the results from either pattern of distributions the house wins exactly what it's supposed to win over the long haul." please analyze the following which starts out all too familiar but hang in there:

    assume no advantage play but perfect basic strategy. assume that the "approach" taken is flat betting with losses till losing so much that the variance is unlikely enough to return you to even that you "declare you have lost" and go back to "even" (maybe somewhere around minus 30 units the "characteristics" or "math" of blackjack are such that the flat bet is ever-less likely to return you to even so it is here that you "accept the loss" and return to your "approach" to "even") (no "system" "works", we all know that) --as you said, it will happen as often as it should. so far, we are disciplined, take the loss when we must and start over, 100% accepting of the math--no hocus-pocus notions, just an "arbitrary" approach that "pretends" it is ok to re-define and re-set "even".

    NOW, no "system" on the upside, just an "approach". the characteristics of the approach are as follows: flat bet till winning then bet up and the math guarantees that sometimes you are going to simply destroy a good win and return to even, with all its perils. other times variance will grant you further success and, unlike when losing, you throw caution to the wind and press to whatever you "guess" the traffic will bear. once again, the math rears its ugly head and, depending on where you stop, you either give back to even or diminish what was shaping up to a pretty nice run. HOWEVER, that same math will, NOT-ALL-THAT-RARELY, (not often, either) grant you one of those fabulous runs where, unlike on the losing side, you enjoy an absurd outlier of a win, quit somewhere prudently and return to "the rules" of your flat bet, as if you were at "even". NOTHING has violated your last sentence, the math will eventually do EXACTLY as you say BUT, because you used an approach that eventually gave you an OUTLIER WIN on the upside and NEVER allowed the house the same when the math gave them your downside, you "create" a disproportionate "win" to "offset" the ugly reality of playing at a disadvantage.

    many players have war stories of their wild, outlier win, without advantage-play-----plug one of those in, with the downside discipline that did not offer the house the chance to "get it back" and for a season, this guy is looking pretty good. over time, the expectation, with the math being honored, is that this same guy will continue to add outlier wins (rinse and repeat)--your last sentence remains entirely intact but an approach that arbitrarily assigned the words "even" and "start over" on the downside and some kind of "artsy", "the moon" approach to when to quit on the upside and it was arrived at on a rocket of much higher bets than downside bets, thus creating NO asymmetry in mathematical expectation of events (your point) but every kind of asymmetry in dollars won or lost.

    i believe bright folks fall for magic thinking or fallacy all the time and i may well be doing that but i appreciate any reasoning thru this any of you might do that would help me see it, as i absolutely do not---i think it is sound reasoning and is also very common in many other "real world" endeavors in which a superior "approach", rather than an "advantage" leads to lifetime, good outcomes.

  2. #28
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    Voodoo and hocus-pocus thinking, nothing more.

  3. #29
    Random number herder Norm's Avatar
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    There is only one session. You cannot leave the table and return and think that leaving for a minute or hour or month has any effect. There is no "reset". You are still gambling. You are spouting the same nonsense spouted by gamblers for centuries.
    "I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse

  4. #30
    Random number herder Norm's Avatar
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    How to Fly

    1. Jump up in the air.
    2. NEVER allow gravity to pull you all the way back down by using discipline.
    3. If you fall part way down, leave the session with your won height.
    4. Rinse and repeat, gaining more height each cycle.


    The same approach can be used for the creation of perpetual motion machines.
    "I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse

  5. #31


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    a guy plays 25$ as described, has his share of "losses", then gets his lady-variance, 30,000$ win---i bet you are right, he will probably lose $30,000, 25 bucks at a time,--probably in no time at all.....

  6. #32


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    Stop feeding the troll!!!
    "One of these days in your travels, you are going to come across a guy with a nice brand new deck of cards, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not take this bet, for if you do, as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an ear full of cider."

  7. #33
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    How to Fly? Norm. Deep. Very Deep and very good advice. My reasons for leaving a session are when additional players come to play. But sometimes dealers get on a run that just seems to be unexplainable. Perhaps it's my discipline, bullheadedness, or amazement of what I'm seeing that can turn a profitable session into a losing session. Sometimes I think "he can't possibly keep this going" but he does. I've been "in the zone" so to speak but not nearly as often as they have. I notice I will leave and they continue to clean out whomever apporaches the table. But I fully realize this is "voodoo thinking" as you say. But perhaps it's voodoo that allows them to build all those huge buildings. And it darn sure feels like some sort of voodoo or unwanted spirit when it's happening. It happens in basketball all the time. A team will get hot and go on a scoring run. Opposing coach calls a timeout to slow things down or reconfirm his teams game plan. At what point do or should a person take a timeout in blackjack?

  8. #34
    Random number herder Norm's Avatar
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    Sports teams have emotions. Timeouts can wipe out emotional momentum. Cards have no emotions.
    "I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse

  9. #35
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    Norm. Ok. That makes perfect sense. Plus the cheering or booing fans drive that emotion. So I have a 10 and 15 rule primarily developed for radar reasons. If I get up 10x the table limit (without a large bet) I consider this be a good run or found money. Oftentimes, I will take my profit and go to the next stop on my paper route. If I get down 15x the table limit, a 10x profit for that session probably will not occur without drawing some Heat. Getting back to even is my goal at this point. This is usually when the dealer seems to be in the zone and as a human with motions, I'm starting to feel perplexed and whizzed off. For instance, yesterday I got down 10 to 3, meaning 10 tens and Aces had been played and 3 two-7s. This is not an extreme example but my thought was "o crap" here it comes. And you feel the need to cover (much like a boxer and just wait for the bell) or in my case wait for the shuffle. I'm hoping there is only 3 more rounds played or (punches thrown) and thrilled to get out of it 2-2 if 4 rounds played. I'm thinking a text message (that must be answered) or a restroom break might serve as a timeout like in basketball might help slow one of these negative runs or get a shuffle. But like in basketball there would have to be a limit per session. Probably 2 at the max. Perhaps take a t.o when the deck has hit a negative point? or when the dealer has won X amount of hands straight?

  10. #36
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    Perhaps I've answered my own question. Positive counts that warrant my large bet come late in the deck and the success will increase more if the dealer doesn't shuffle. This positive sitution will happen about 5% (on average) assuming I "always" get 2/3rds deck penetration.

    The worst negative counts come early in the deck. They are easy enough to identify because all the big cards are getting played. So reverse the count that signifies a positive count (worthy of a large bet) and take a timeout up to the first 3 hands. No need to waste a t/o beyond 3 hands because we are closer to the end of the deck. If this happens once out of 5 shuffles the a t/o will reduce the volatility by 33% in a 100 hand session. Hot dealer: Going from 10x to 15x below the table limit is a common rapid descent. Take a t/o at 10x down. Not voodoo. Just to compose myself and get a shuffle up. Maybe buy some time until the next dealer comes. This is usually where I fight the propensity to increase my bet with the "he can't possibly keep this up" mentality. Step back and realize that history has proven "he can keep it going." The logic of chasing a hot dealer with increased bets is ludacrous. Don't let my ego of wanting to beat him get in the way of sound judgement...as Norm said "cards are cards without emotion." The cards will eventually bring a 10x or 15x loss back but it might have to be done with another dealer, or at another table, or casino that day. Consider these options before returning from t/o.

  11. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Norm View Post
    Sports teams have emotions. Timeouts can wipe out emotional momentum. Cards have no emotions.
    The cards have no emotion, but people do!

  12. #38


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    Quote Originally Posted by Norm View Post
    I am one of the three people in the acknowledgements page in the last edition of Epstein's book: Gambling and Statistical Logic.
    APwn'd!
    If advantage play weren't such an esoteric topic, we'd have a fleet of internet youngsters right now creating captioned GIFs and celebrating this Top Five "ownages" in all of internet history.

    #epsteined

  13. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by hardin county boy View Post
    a guy plays 25$ as described, has his share of "losses", then gets his lady-variance, 30,000$ win---i bet you are right, he will probably lose $30,000, 25 bucks at a time,--probably in no time at all.....
    If he is betting $25 initially, and stopping at a loss of $750 or a win of $30k (regardless of how he alters his bets in between), I can assure you he will lose the $750 more than 40 times for every $30k win, so the average result will still be negative. This is completely consistent with what bigplayer posted. All you've done is change the distribution of session results (many small losses and an occasional big win), but the house edge is still the house edge and you'll still lose over time. Choosing when to start and stop your play does nothing for your long term success.

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