Nobody is mad at you. Just giving a reality check. The best situations give you the highest likelihood of a bad downswing. If the table was crowded and/or the pen sucked you would not get the opportunity to make near as many max bets. This hurts expectation but also makes the likelihood of a huge downswing much less since you will not make as many bets before the count is gone. Fortunately you get as good of a chance for a big upswing.
Doesn't happen often, but it happens. The only thing you can do is be mentally prepared for it. I once had a session where I lost 160 units and majority of my action were waiting bets! Count never got high enough to bet more than 2 or 3 units, but never got low enough to justify leaving the table or "take a break". I had 2 shoes where I lost probably close to 90% of my hands betting 2x1 or 2x2, just waiting for the count to heat up. It got mild a couple times and I barely got to bet it up (2x4 units). One of those sessions where I couldn't win a hand no matter what! It's rare, but that's the game sometimes.
You are very young and because of changes in the game, it is getting tougher to win. I sure hope you are a part-time recreational player and not someone who is getting addicted and obsessed with this game. Hope you will also concentrate on some other career, one that allows for good relationships and more.
An AP career may have been very attractive in the 70's and 80's, less in each successive decade. Many great AP's have quit to write books or seek better professions and few would voluntarily be an AP for more than 20 years. Back in the late 80's, I was living in San Bernardino, heading to Vegas every weekend, thinking of quitting grad school and then, I made the smartest decision of my life. I recognized that I was getting addicted, the gambling, the sex, and just quit, moved to Dayton, OH. A career and marriage and kids followed and it's only now that I am retiring, have started playing, with money I can afford to lose. Hope I am wrong about you and you have a good head on you. Sorry if I sound condescending. Just wanted you to be aware.
If you continue to get results that are -2 or -3 SD or more then you may want to see if problems exist in your play. Also, as other have said it is still way too early to know if your outside of what would be normal.
As an example I once went 2 months without ever being negative below my initial but in amount each and every session I player which was on average 3 times per week. This month I have had to buy in multiple times each session. Quite a few were -3 sd so... It can happen.
Now to put things in perspective.... If I were a new player and experienced the results I have seen this month I would be scratching my head... this would be compounded if I had a limited bankroll. On the flip side on the two months without ever being negative (Ok maybe not negative at all bit within a few bets of my starting point) as a new player I would be thinking I was on top of the world.
The only thing you can do is drill your self over and over to make you are not contributing to the losses through play errors.
ap
Here's a link to a detailed article about N0 that will help you calculate the odds of being $x behind after N rounds:
http://www.blackjackstartup.com/N028.htm
Best of luck!
SiMi
Are you sure those numbers are right? It seems like losing 40 units and 36 units is just like a regular swing. What's your score? Can someone else help to confirm these numbers. They look so normal to me, like within 0.5sd, so I'm not sure how they can be -2,3 sd like you suggested. Maybe consider minor tweaks or different approach.
Regardless, I know how you feel buddy, the going gets so tough sometimes. It takes everything in you to survive, you end up resenting the game, you're in the dumps, morale is low, it's soul crushing etc etc- you get my point. We get it, all been there- some have seen worse than others, some quit cause they can't handle it- it's understandable. At times, I've been the one comforting others, and at other times, I've leaned on others too. To give you some perspective of how gross I've seen it- Ive had 300+ hour losing streaks (between all time high) before spanning like 4-5 months- it sucks, believe me. I've also run several times 2, 3, 4sd or beyond losing streaks, my most devastating being dropping over 1000 munchkin/bp units or over 100k, so yeah 76 units sucks, but try losing more than 1000!! I routinely find myself swinging like 20k in single sessions and 40-70k in short periods of time. It takes a LOT of mental toughness- even at times, I can't stand the bs, but tmw is a new day. You wake up, maybe take a break and battle again. It always evens out, but it ain't a tough business. Very few stack huge cash, I'm even having a horrendous year (way below EV and where I wanna be). I take comfort in the fact that I may clear 250k+ EV every year, but running badly, might only see like 150-200k- guess I can still pay my bills
All I can say is hang in there, and hope you get positive variance!!
Last edited by apkevy; 08-11-2015 at 01:09 PM.
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