Last night I had my worst session on record, losing $2,400 in an hour.
There were few, if any, redeeming features. I started the session in a new shoe by having two failed doubles the first two hands.
Absolutely nothing went right. There was, in theory, plenty of juicy EV to be made, as the shoes were often extremely positive.
But I won none of those opportunities.
It was a dealer ten or a dealer ace every hand when the count was high. And I got dealt either a stiff hand (from which I invariably bust) or a lousy made hand (17 or 18) and the dealer invariably got 20.
Finally, with two hands of max bets out, I finally get dealt two tens with the dealer getting a four. I double both hands and get a picture card for 20. She draws to 21.
The following shoe the same thing happens again. Instead, I now have FIVE max bets out due to splitting and doubling. I don't do badly either, getting four 19's and a stiff hand to stand on against a dealer six. Effortlessly, she draws to 20.
In Pontoon, on a hard 12, you bust on your next card only a quarter of the time. In my case it is well over 75%.
On the more mundane shoes and smaller hands I did just as bad. In one shoe that hour, the dealer won 30 of the first 33 hands. The following shoe I lost the first eleven hands.
In one swoop I have lost two thirds of this month's profits.
I actually dreaded the count going up because I knew I would lose more money. That's exactly how I felt during my last losing streak.
It seems that even when I am winning, it is generally on the small and moderate bets. Those big hands with multiple splits and doubles, I just invariably lose.
I accept that there is variation, and I know that my long-term risk of ruin is very small, but I am just sick of being forever and ever being on the left hand side of the Gaussian curve. In fact I remain at a loss over my last 9 months (I won $7.5k in my first month, then had my first losing streak and remain below where I was at the end of January). My overall results are in the bottom 15% of expectations.
In terms of sessions won or lost I am okay (~56%), but unfortunately the size my losses are not being made up for by my wins.
And ploppies. They suck. They just get better variation than you every session. You should have seen the irritating old woman get dealt blackjack after blackjack after 21 despite not knowing how to play, drawing on 16 vs 6, and getting her blackjacks against the dealer tens and aces. In contrast, the dealer always draws to 21 when I get a 20. Of course, eventually she got greedy and lost her session bankroll. But that's beside her point.
Why do we even bother to play this stupid game, and any of its variants. Perhaps God wants to teach us a lesson.
PS. I wanted to add that I had won five out of my last six sessions, and eleven of my last fourteen. I actually wouldn't have minded the house recording a loss this time around, after ratholing at least. But I still didn't appreciate having the biggest one-hour loss of my entire miserable career.
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Originally Posted by mickeymouse
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