Sigh. I tried. Have fun here.
Don
Hi, TD!
I know Don wishes no one would reply but your questions/comments seem sincere and worthwhile to me. Also, I think it's ok to discuss these issues because I suspect many people who are relatively new to card counting may have these thoughts and some of these issues (math, stats, randomness, etc.) are just not intuitively obvious to everyone. When I have these kinds of thoughts, I'd like to be able to get thoughtful input from people who could educate me to the things they have learned.
So far, the comments have been great! My only addition is to echo the idea that you don't need to play millions of rounds to get to the Long Run. Understanding N0 allows you to see that you can get near the Long Run (84% chance of being even or ahead) in about 20,000 rounds. At 100 RPH, that is only 200 hours of play. If you play 20 hours per month, you could easily be at N0 in less than a year. Simulators run millions or even billions of rounds in order to generate results that are simply beyond question and from which generalizations can be made. You need to run millions of rounds in order to get a decent sampling of the 'weird' hands that can come up such as taking insurance, splitting 4 times, doubling down on each hand and winning/losing all of them. (BTW, here's a link to a free eBook on N0: http://www.blackjackstartup.com/N0I.htm in case you are interested in more details about calculating N0.)
I've written a couple of Blackjack simulators in Java (one for stats and one for game play) and I use a special Random Number Generator (Mersenne Twister: http://www.cs.gmu.edu/~sean/research/ ) to try to insure randomness but, as you say, who knows what you really get in a Casino at any given moment? I think it's healthy to have a built-in suspicion of all the math and stats that are thrown around by people in the AP Blackjack world. This suspicion will hopefully cause you to decide to learn even more about math and stats in order to evaluate the claims for yourself rather than just rely on what other people assure you is true.
If you find that the math and stats we all rely on are NOT correct, please let me know!
Best of luck in your efforts!
SiMi
Originally Posted by tezzadiver
A high TC says there are more high cards remaining. A large number of trials (shoes) will distribute those high cards evenly. So, if your TC is +10 at 2 decks remaining and a cut card at 1 deck, over a number of trials you will see an average distribution of 10 extra high cards in each of the 2 remaining decks. Therefore, TC=10. The ACTUAL number of high cards per deck will vary, but the average will be 10.
In card counting we never know the actual number of high cards before the cut card until after they are dealt, but it doesn't matter. The point of playing a large number of shoes is that you get the average distribution and you don't need to worry about the actual distribution of each shoe. And it follows that the card counter receives the average advantage over a large number of trials but receives the actual advantage during each shoe.
For what we're talking about here, spreading an unbalance of high cards throughout the remaining shoe, it won't take all that many trials. I'm not a mathematician/statistician so I won't try to take a guess, although it will depend on the specifics of the example problem... how many decks, how many decks remaining, where the cut card is located, TC, etc. All those factors would have to be specified to come up with an exact number of trials for a statistically meaningful answer.
My theory is that when negative variance hits us and we obstinately remain at the tables for marathon sessions, the losing gets to us and we begin to question the math, seriously start considering cheating by casino/dealer or that we win in negative counts and logic starts going out of the window. We then get home and while still mourning the loss, put the paranoia on a forum.
Luckily, most of us get over it, do not abandon counting and we return another day, the variance comes our way. When I read a post like the OP, I see an addict who played a long losing session, unable to get up and leave, abandoning the math and "gambling".
i started having doubts when losing in long sessions until I started regulating my sessions, deciding to leave the casino at a certain level of loss before the craziness hits.
Well shuffled cards have every possibility for what is coming out. It doesn't mean that the cards will be evenly distributed. You are confusing random and evenly distributed. They are 2 very different thing. There are some natural ordering of cards that happen during play. That is why the casino shuffle the cards. For example the last card for any spot is weighted far more toward being a T or any other high card. It either makes their hand or busts them. Low cards will form clumps from hitting repeatedly and continuing to catch low cards. Even the order cards hit the discard will create some adjacent card bias before the shuffle.
The first cards on the discard each round are player BJ's. The next cards in the order cards hit the discards will be busted and surrendered hands. As already stated a busted hand is most likely to have a T as the last card or another high card. A surrendered hand will likely have one of 2 cards be a T. If so there is a 50% chance that 10 lands on the first card of the last hand to hit the discard pile. Then the dealers last card as all the cards are gathered into the discard pile. That is weighted toward the T as it is the most likely bust card and is important part of any made hand that the dealer doesn't hit. The result is the aces are next to T's more often than random chance says they should be. All very interesting info.
The trouble is it is all but useless as the cards get shuffled. Since spot 1 has the first card after the last card of the last round and we know there is a T bias for the last card of the last round that natural ordering of the way cards hit the discards would suggest spot 1 would get more aces than other spots. The trouble is they shuffled the cards so that very small bias is not likely to survive the shuffle. If you don't shuffle spot 1 would have an advantage due to the BJ that were 1st card aces would be likely to get a T on top of the A in the discard pile. The T is biased as the last card for any round because it makes or busts almost any hand. Getting an A as a first card is a huge advantage. Spot 1 getting a first card ace more often than others since there is a bias for the last card of the last round to be an ace. Guess what, after the shuffle that ace is not likely to be the next card after the T anymore. What you are seeing using unshuffled cards is a real phenomenon due to this tendency in BJ for the last card of a round is heavily weighted to be a T and the most likely card to follow a T is an ace IF THEY DON"T SHUFFLE. Now all you have to do is get the casino to stop shuffling and you have a winning strategy. Just always play 1st base and you will have an advantage. Good luck convincing the casino to stop shuffling the cards. LOL
Last edited by Three; 02-12-2015 at 05:03 PM.
Wong proved many years ago that unshuffled cards favor the player, particularly when heads up. See Professional Blackjack. Aside from that I'm going to follow Don's suggestion and avoid further comment except to say Clumping is part of randomness and it only works against the player if the dealer is intentionally maintaining clumps of aces or big cards and keeping them out of play or all grouped into one section of the shoe particularly bigs with bigs and aces with smalls. This isn't the result of a non-random shuffle, this is just an example of cheating.
I saved hundreds of people from drowning in my surfing days when I lived at the beach year round. Most of the time I got to them calmed them down and said, Are you okay? When they said yes I told them to stand up. Most were drowning in chest deep water!! They just got their mind set wrong and believed they were drowning so they were actually drowning but all they had to do was stop flailing around and stand up. TD needs to do that now. Realize what random means and play for the long run. Once you get there you will have experienced all parts of randomness including lots of little cards coming out at high counts and all that other stuff he mentioned.
Tezz, you are under the misconception that you make your bank counting cards in blackjack by RECEIVING the tens and aces, as opposed to RECEIVING crap cards.
You make bank on the altered probability of being dealt those cards, not so much weather you actually receive them.
When you play a fresh deck, you have a 5:13 shot at a ten or ace. When you have a TC of +4 and your pulling cards form the end of the shoe you now have a 6:13 chance at receiving a ten or ace. Thats what makes you win. and the probability of being dealt a card from the remainder of the shoe is uneffected by the fact that somewhere in the stack of cards, there is a yellow plastic card.
When you draw cards at a high count, you will get favorable cards more often than a fresh deck, thats the end of the story.
"Then he writes and gets told by the person that 'wrote the book' to basically shut the flip up cause he's heard it all before."
"The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street." Never fails. Happens every year, like clockwork. Now, you're going to chide me for not partaking? Sheesh. When the thread gets to 100 inane, useless rehashes of the same drivel, write down the date and remember it when you do the same thing all over again next year -- just because you can.
Don
Thanks for your comments everyone - Some polite, some not polite but hey ho :-) I have a thick skin.
I have calculated that I have played close on 75000 hands and am still running at a loss. I use the hi -lo count with Don`s Illustrious play deviations. I have made very little mistakes while counting and do not steam if I am losing (not at the table at least). 4 and 6 deck games with 75-85% Pen, Insurance and generally fair rules. I have very good deck estimation skills and have been spreading between 1-12 to 1-20.
Probably what you are all saying is true, but I have realized that a 1-2 % edge is so minuscule that it may as well just be absolute blind luck. Some people I am sure will experience positive variance and do well. Many others will not. I am certainly not going to play 1000000 hands to find out. As in life, some will be luckier than others.
My card counting days are over -I will continue with other techniques such as shuffle and clump tracking and of course, there is still some money to be made in bonus bagging. So long counters - May you have better luck than I have! :-)
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Play within your bankroll, pick your games with care and learn everything you can about the game. The winning will come. It has to. It's in the cards. -- Bryce Carlson
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