$590 lost. Of that $400 in the first shoe.
Was playing heads up against dealer tonight on a 6D shoe (cut card less than 1 deck from back of shoe) that went to a 20+ RC after 4 rounds, and kept climbing. Betting greens minimum, and max bet at $350 or 2 @ $250/hand.Originally Posted by Tthree
Kept getting horrible hands, and dealer kept getting the hands you would hope for, 9, 10 or Ace up, and made 19s and 20s. Neither of us made any blackjacks the entire shoe. RC got up over 50, and toward end of shoe, TC hovered at around 15-16. Max bets flying, won some, even some doubles and splits, but lost more than I won. End of the story, lost $3,500 for night (140 green units).
Know my count was good, bet spread 1-14 (2 x 10), but I hardly got any chance for deviations/index plays, other than standing on 15s and 16s against dealer's 10 hands (RC / TC warranted stand decision, bad hand to play whether I hit or stand). Took insurance due to count, but as mentioned above, lost every one of those bets, since neither of us got a blackjack the whole shoe.
So I can account first hand that sometimes the best hoped conditions can wipe out your session bankroll. Ended at RC +21 on 2nd 6D shoe, 3 decks in, as I ran out of session bankroll. That sucked to run out of cash (knowing the count), but..... the moral of the story, I am emotionally fine, and I know that I will live to play another day (or night). I even threw out 1 bet of $500 and did not have a panic attack or any hesitation. Wanted to do that, and even though I pushed on that hand (guess that's a good thing), I feel good knowing that I was not afraid to get the money on the table.
Hope my experience hopes someone else cope with the b*tch that is variance, and that even though the count can get real juicy, you can still end up getting smashed on any given session.
What if all of this was a scam though? What if the movie 21 was made by casinos to sucker in counters to believing they could beat the casino? What if this forum is all casino or former casino employees tricking people to believing counting works? I mean no one will ever know, all we can do is rely on sims and we dont even know if these sims were done genuinely or if its rigged. Just an interesting observation one can make.
You have described one of the worst possible nightmares-- the plus count that just keeps climbing. The fact that it just keeps climbing means that more small cards are coming out than large cards and aces, meaning that dealers are more frequently making their hands, while players are more frequently missing their 8, 9, 10, and 11 double downs, their blackjacks, and their successful splits, all with max bet out! Also, you are more likely to get two small or neutral cards or a small card and a large card to start, just as when the count is negative. Yikes! Did you hear a slight hissing sound while all this was going on?
Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 - 8/23/10... “Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
And "players kept taking the dealer's bust card." "It's a team sport, and sometimes you have to take one for the Gipper." "Someone was interrupting the 'flow'" And yes, "you read the wrong book. Sometimes you have to stay on a 14 vs. dealer 10 or double down on a hard 12 just to change how things are going." "Did anyone sit out one hand to change the flow?"
"If you think you're going to lose, you are going to lose." "Time to start playing a red for the dealer. It takes money to make money." "Who cut the cards?" "This dealer has been killing us all night." "This is why I like a hand shuffle!" "Some of these machines can stack the deck." "The new player that got in caused the whole flow of cards to change." "It was that lady who got in for one play and left." "The casinos wouldn't have blackjack if they could lose." "It's not possible to lose every hand!"
Last edited by Aslan; 03-21-2015 at 05:54 AM.
Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 - 8/23/10... “Life’s most urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
I think you started playing before you were ready. That is a recipe for disaster but unfortunately you won early and felt you were ready. You can be ready to count pretty quick. A few days or weeks to lean to count WITHOUT MISTAKES along with basic strategy and a couple hours to days to learn indicex plays. That doesn't make you ready to win in a casino. It takes months of learning and training to be ready for that. I call those tat take the short route people who learn just enough to be dangerous to themselves.
You apparently don't even own Blackjack Attack edition 3. It won't teach you to count but it will teach you things that will make you more likely to win in the casino and win more money over time. I am not trying to bump Don's book sales but everyone serious about winning money playing BJ in the casino should know how to use the things that you learn about in his book. I know the random walk chapter helped me when I was in your situation.
He has a part were he has team members playing and you are thinking the results prove one member is either really bad or stealing after a ton of results. Then he reveals it is a simulated team on the computer. No possibility of cheating or being bad. I took that to show that eventually, if I played enough, I would have results that made me look like that guy. Inevitably it happened (more than once) and I was mentally prepared for it.
I knew I was probably just having bad luck or negative variance, for those that don't like that term, but I still examined my game and took a break to come back with playing stronger game. I changed math procedures that I thought might make losing count more likely. I would study and practice to try to improve my game. I determined that I would only play certain conditions (crowding, rules, pen etc). Too many play just because they showed up when they would be better off be patient of just not playing at all. Playing poor conditions sets you up to fail. I scouted to find out when and where I could find what I called playable conditions. Some places it happened like clockwork and others it was just more probable at certain times.
To increase your chances of winning in the short term you want to play with a low N0 so you get to a significant sampling in fewer hands. You want to play the best pen and rules you can find without too much heat for your spread. If you can afford a large spread finding places that allow a huge spread with no heat is even more valuable but you must keep RoR manageable. You need to be conscious of RoR at any game. Every counter is headed toward their EV if they don't make mistakes. The ride toward that EV is determined by RoR and the other things I discussed.
Every time I went through something like you are going through I took a break if for no other reason just to change my attitude. In life if you expect an outcome it is more likely to happen than if you have no expectation. Take a break and study and practice on the computer simulated game and drills until you can come back with confidence that you will win. You will be much more likely to win because your game will be better and you will be in the mindset to help assure that happens. Two things happen when you have unusually good or prolonged successful results. One, you get so confident you might forget what your success was derived from. Two, you start to feel bullet proof and you may make poor choices about when and where to play, what pen is acceptable and when you should leave the table. They are kind of the same thing but there isn't a perfect overlapping of the two sets.
Take a break, practice and learn things that will help make mistakes and losing less likely then when playing a computer simulated game has your confidence up and you have learned more about AP BJ and have improved your procedures were you think mistakes may have happened. Then come back with renewed confidence, choosing better situations to put yourself in and playing a better game. It never hurts to learn more indices. It might not change EV much but you r optimal ramp at the same RoR will be more aggressive or your RoR will drop some and the ride to EV will be a little easier to take.
HI, ZKG
I know that CC is not a scam because I wrote my own MC and stats simulators. I KNOW EVERY LINE OF CODE in the programs and they show +EV for card counting. I wrote the programs because I can, it's fun and I can't stand to just trust someone else on something like this.
For those who care, learning to program enough to build a simple BJ simulator would be an excellent intro to some computer programming language. There are many free resources on the web to help.
SiMi
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