Paranoid

[ZenKinG]

Anyone else ever feel paranoid about their deck estimation? I once thought about just going to an unbalanced count to remove the paranoia and always have a precise solid game. I feel like we all concentrate too much on keeping the count, but if we can't accurately estimate the decks in the discard pile, isnt that the same as being consistently off with your count? Let's say you only accurately estimate the decks at about 85%, isnt that the same as being consistently off the count by about 3 or more?

If Im that paranoid, is it worth it switching to an unbalanced count? Or is the weakness of an unbalanced count equal to the minor deck estimation errors from a balanced strategy? Im also aware with unbalanced counts, you have to adjust your early indexes based on the penetration, which is a huge inconvenience. I once thought about UBZ II, but im no longer at the point where I feel like alternating counts. Is there a way I can make an unbalanced Halves with relatively the same indices?

[BigJer]

Anyone else ever feel paranoid about their deck estimation? I once thought about just going to an unbalanced count to remove the paranoia and always have a precise solid game. I feel like we all concentrate too much on keeping the count, but if we can't accurately estimate the decks in the discard pile, isnt that the same as being consistently off with your count? Let's say you only accurately estimate the decks at about 85%, isnt that the same as being consistently off the count by about 3 or more?

If Im that paranoid, is it worth it switching to an unbalanced count? Or is the weakness of an unbalanced count equal to the minor deck estimation errors from a balanced strategy? Im also aware with unbalanced counts, you have to adjust your early indexes based on the penetration, which is a huge inconvenience. I once thought about UBZ II, but im no longer at the point where I feel like alternating counts. Is there a way I can make an unbalanced Halves with relatively the same indices?

If I were you I would just keep practicing deck estimation. Also even if you are off by a half deck then as far as I know it's close enough. However you can try to keep a picture in our head about the size of one deck is.

The title reminds me of a song.

[Bigdaddy]

Suggest that you consider switching to KO and make adjustments for true count (e.g., "TKO"). The beauty of the unbalanced (KO) count is that once the running count hits a certain point, known as the "pivot point", you know you have a true count of +4 regardless of the number of decks played (it's a mathematical fact). So at that point, you know for sure that it's definitely time to take insurance and put 80% or so of your max bet out there. The pivot point is your North Star that always keeps you acclimated to the count and gives you the confidence that you're not screwing up your big money bets.

If you want to true count it then yes, deck estimation becomes relevant, but you'll quickly get the feel for it, and the in-between bets are more of an art that a science anyway. The reward for your efforts - TKO is a more powerful system that Hi-Lo! You'll kick the sh... out of as 6-decker...

[Ryemo]

Anyone else ever feel paranoid about their deck estimation? I once thought about just going to an unbalanced count to remove the paranoia and always have a precise solid game. I feel like we all concentrate too much on keeping the count, but if we can't accurately estimate the decks in the discard pile, isnt that the same as being consistently off with your count? Let's say you only accurately estimate the decks at about 85%, isnt that the same as being consistently off the count by about 3 or more?

If Im that paranoid, is it worth it switching to an unbalanced count? Or is the weakness of an unbalanced count equal to the minor deck estimation errors from a balanced strategy? Im also aware with unbalanced counts, you have to adjust your early indexes based on the penetration, which is a huge inconvenience. I once thought about UBZ II, but im no longer at the point where I feel like alternating counts. Is there a way I can make an unbalanced Halves with relatively the same indices?

If this is truly a concern of yours, you should practice your deck estimation. There are many ways to do this.

1) You can purchase CVBJ and practice without risking any money.

2) Something I did was purchase a 6D discard tray and taped a chart to the back of it that shows the level of each deck. Throw a random stack of cards (between 1 and 6 decks), make a guess of how many decks are in the discard, and check the back of the tray and compare your answer with the chart to see how accurate your estimation was.

3) You can also purchase multiple decks of cards and group them by 1 deck, 2 decks, 3 decks, etc. (you'll need 21 decks total) and tape them in their appropriate stacks. At the bottom of the deck, you can write how many decks they are and use that as a practice tool.

[BigJer]

If this is truly a concern of yours, you should practice your deck estimation. There are many ways to do this.

1) You can purchase CVBJ and practice without risking any money.

2) Something I did was purchase a 6D discard tray and taped a chart to the back of it that shows the level of each deck. Throw a random stack of cards (between 1 and 6 decks), make a guess of how many decks are in the discard, and check the back of the tray and compare your answer with the chart to see how accurate your estimation was.

3) You can also purchase multiple decks of cards and group them by 1 deck, 2 decks, 3 decks, etc. (you'll need 21 decks total) and tape them in their appropriate stacks. At the bottom of the deck, you can write how many decks they are and use that as a practice tool.

My feelings exactly.

[Three]

Practice deck estimation as we all had to do. The other option is to keep a side count of quarter or half decks seen along with the number of cards short of the next full quarter or half deck. After enough time you will know what each quarter deck looks like in the discard tray. I rarely even look at the discards. If you play enough you know how many cards are burned as you play. Maybe every couple decks you sneak a glance to confirm your perception is still on target.

[Norm]

The title reminds me of a song.

I think he dealt to me at the Golden Gate. I felt sorry for the bat.

[Dieter]

You can also purchase multiple decks of cards and group them by 1 deck, 2 decks, 3 decks, etc. (you'll need 21 decks total) and tape them in their appropriate stacks. At the bottom of the deck, you can write how many decks they are and use that as a practice tool.

Cancelled decks (sometimes free, sometimes cheap in the gift shop) are perfect for this. If you're bunching them in whole decks, it doesn't matter if they're corner-clipped or punched.

If you're doing partial deck estimation, clipped corners are preferable. The punches go dull long before they stop being used, which makes a dimple around the punched hole, making the cards thicker.

Various brands are slightly different thicknesses. If you're practicing partial deck estimation, it's probably worth buying new decks of the appropriate flavors (Bee, Aristocrat, Gemaco plastic, Gemaco Sentinel, etc).

[muckz]

Suggest that you consider switching to KO and make adjustments for true count (e.g., "TKO"). The beauty of the unbalanced (KO) count is that once the running count hits a certain point, known as the "pivot point", you know you have a true count of +4 regardless of the number of decks played (it's a mathematical fact). So at that point, you know for sure that it's definitely time to take insurance and put 80% or so of your max bet out there. The pivot point is your North Star that always keeps you acclimated to the count and gives you the confidence that you're not screwing up your big money bets.

If you want to true count it then yes, deck estimation becomes relevant, but you'll quickly get the feel for it, and the in-between bets are more of an art that a science anyway. The reward for your efforts - TKO is a more powerful system that Hi-Lo! You'll kick the sh... out of as 6-decker...

Deck estimation is very important when using TKO. Improperly using a system is detrimental to your games SCORE.

[ZeeBabar]

You have been playing a long time and winning so where is this coming from? I realized that I was estimating 0n the conservative side (a deck in the discard was probably a deck plus 6-10 cards) and thus underbetting a bit but over time realized the error.

Sometimes, if you are hitting home runs, you should not worry about your feet or hands position. I suspect that those who go on forums, get persuaded to mess with an already successful game, change counts, do sims, try different stuff. This happens also on car forums where folks get paranoid that their car is not performing optimally and start tinkering when they had been perfectly satisfied before they joined the forum.

[Bodarc]

Anyone else ever feel paranoid about their deck estimation?

Get cards and practice until your ears bleed!

[Bigdaddy]

Deck estimation is very important when using TKO. Improperly using a system is detrimental to your games SCORE.

Yes - any mistake is detrimental to SCORE in any game using any counting system.

To elaborate on my previous point re: TKO - take a look at a CVCX sim for a typical 6-decker using TKO and then fool around with "custom bets" vs. the "optimal bet" for each true count below +4. You'll find that you can pretty much botch your bets from the TC 0 to TC +3 range and maybe suffer a 10% reduction in SCORE at worst. However, one thing you likely won't botch up are your max bets at TC +4 and higher. So again, betting in the TC 0 to TC +3 range is more art than science, and I will further assert that deck estimation mistakes in this range are likely to equal out somewhat over time and thus the reduction to SCORE would be less than 10%.

[alexost]

I went through this too.

I haven't run sims with Halves, but with Hi-Lo, it takes accurate half deck estimation to start to get a slightly higher edge than Red-7 which is the count I switched to after years of recreational counting with originally RPC, then Hi-Lo, then Hi-Lo Lite.

And no rounding. If you think: OK, I'll use half deck estimation then sometimes round the same thing happens. You round away the extra edge you've tried so hard to achieve with all that deck estimation drill. So in the end because I'm still a recreational counter and sometimes take long breaks from counting I switched to Red-7 because I can get back up to speed much more quickly not having to add deck estimation drills to my practice.

I'm not saying don't use a balanced count by any means if you can stay sharp with deck estimation to half deck accuracy or less. But you definitely need true half deck accuracy to keep that edge higher than a simple unbalanced count. It's also easier to KNOW you are playing an unbalanced count accurately due to the lack of deck estimation errors and or rounding.

With all that said. If you are anything more than a recreational counter I would recommend something like RPC, Hi-Lo, or Hi-Lo Lite so you can add shuffle tracking if you find the opportunity.

On the subject of unbalanced counts, I also had the thought that the time saved not looking at the discard tray and calculating could be spent keying aces or something to get a higher edge than straight counting. You could also spend more time looking at the dealers hands in pitch, rather than looking at the discard tray and doing math.