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Thread: Successful players

  1. #1


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    Successful players

    I was wondering if our successful players what their biggest obstacles was the overcome to become a successful AP player. And how they overcome these obstacles. Thank you for younger counters like myself it could mean the difference to become a successful player like yourselves.

    Sent from my B1-820 using Tapatalk

  2. #2
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    The biggest obstacle I faced was BR. There are two possibilities for how I overcame it:
    1) Luck. Just lasting long enough to grow a big enough BR. I had figured going from $10K to $20K would be the biggest hurdle at which point ruin was far less likely. Then hurdles were $60K (play up to tolerance chokepoints in my area. In other words the highest stakes that would not jeopardize longevity) and $100K (Somewhat arbitrary amount for going pro that allowed for living off winnings). I realized how lucky I was when hitting a terrible run after increasing my bets at around $45K BR. A bad run that probably would have bankrupt my original BR hit immediately after increasing my bets. I had to draw down after losing over a third of my BR. I waited until I earned the losing run back twice over to increase my bets again. I figured $100K was needed to go pro but after tweaking my own unique system enough I found that $75K was all that was needed.

    2) Increasing the complexity of my count. I was no beginner as I had been counting recreationally for decades. When the economy tanked in 2008 my wife suggested I become a professional gambler as a fallback as job and economic certainty was out the window. She had seen me win consistently at many different games in the casino and online for decades. I know she was thinking live poker but I wanted a more definable advantage if I were to try to make a living at it. Anyway I studied card counting with modest play for a couple years while waiting until I was ready. I had so much to learn that really didn't concern me as a recreational counter. Anyway fast forward to when I was playing more often I kept almost hitting $20K BR but right when things seemed easy I would lose most or all of it back. Each time I tried to figure out how to increase certainty and EV. It was always increasing complexity. I broke the $20K mark and winning became easier. After the beating described above I came up with some ideas never published and they worked out real well. Very very hard count, harder than any published, but simple with enough practice. After that there were no large downswings anymore. Typical bad run was spinning wheels for a while and only showing a minimal profit or a quick larger downturn that was quickly erased by the play on either side of it. I had no problem reaching all my BR goals in a short period of time.

    Now I will never know which of the 2 got me over the hump. Complex techniques are worth most to the BR challenged. The rub is most BR challenged are inexperienced so going complex takes a special personality but like I said that was not the case for me. I had always side counted aces for all my decades of card counting so that was the easiest thing I knew. With a bar of easy being so much higher than a lot of counters getting even more complex was easy. Anyway maybe I just got lucky at the time I went over the first BR threshold or maybe it was the added gains from complexity. It was most likely a combination of the 2 or me making my own luck.

    Other things I had to fight was discipline. I am a very disciplined person but I needed the discipline to not play just because I was there. Playing crappy games just because you showed up and found that is all that was available at the time is a recipe for disaster. Scouting when and where to find the best conditions, not rules and pen, was an important part to consistent success.

    Realizing that maximizing time played rarely if ever maximized rounds played was an epiphany. Usually maximizing rounds played means playing far fewer hours because you can't find great conditions while playing crappy conditions. I like to get 1/4 n0 rounds in when on a trip. That is about 3,000 rounds. If I just play whatever game speed is usually about 60 rounds/hr so it takes 50 hours of play to get the rounds in. If I carefully pick games played to average around 200 rounds/hr it takes 15 hours of play to get in the rounds. After doing the latter enough times it became clear what the best course of action was.

    Also as a BR challenged player has the issue of trip expenses eating up most of their EV. Working casino incentives was very important because any trip expenses would cut too much into EV. This meant working transshipment problems to visit several casinos on the same day and pay trip expenses by combining the EV of multiple incentives. Planning trips to hit particularly lucrative incentive days or to be when and where table limits were lower so your spread could be larger helped greatly at the BR challenged level. Without doing something to eliminate trip expenses or make a trip +EV from incentives before you even play a hand a BR challenged player has a much much higher RoR than sims say they do.
    Last edited by Three; 01-24-2017 at 09:45 AM.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Joe Mama's Avatar
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    I cut my AP teeth playing VP, but there are quite a few similarities to BJ.

    1) Getting by the questioning of the math during a losing session or losing streak was difficult. Taking several thousand dollars and losing if quickly then having to get a marker for more to continue playing a positive EV opportunity made me think, "am I just a degenerate gambler?"

    2) At BJ, continuing to put out max bets at high counts after losing several high bets.

    3) After a losing streak, questions again about the math. Is what I am reading legit? Or is this forum and other resources some conspiracy by the casino industry to pull in more suckers?

  4. #4


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    Interesting question with interesting responses.
    A pro in my mind, is a full time AP with no other earned income source (does not include investments) I consider myself, at best, semi pro, as I still dabble (about 5 hours a week) in my regular business, and no longer push fir max playing hours as it requires travel outside of my home market (where the pleasure of my company is no longer welcomed). Certain health factors enter the equation a well.

    I was fortunate enough to birth into counting at red chip games, when those games were very good. With $600 of seed money, I built an 85 k bankroll at red chip (still without software). I still did not graduate to green chip, as I wanted to play unde the radar, so to speak. Only when red chip games started to deteriorate, did I go to Green chip minimums (with Norms software just purchased). Earnings increased, and several multiples of the 85 k were earned. At that increase, backoffs started - at home and in certain out of town markets, primarily Vegas.

    What were the factors?
    There was an intense desire to learn - similar to the intense desire to build some soeciakty software programs (mostly fir my business), without prior training and starting with a book purchase. I was always very fast and very accurate with numbers. My brother and I used to play number games as kids. I wa also blessed with phenomenal memory recall (not as much a factor as you might think.

    Though there are likely many more issues, 2 additional items come to mind. Firstly, These forums, over the course of time, gave me lots and lots of insight. Forums, along with books and play time primarily responsible for my development. Secondly, pisdibly the most interesting point if all - beyond sims, the nuances of the game that cannot be simmed - those gambits and strategies that come with experience, networking and just simply thinking about concepts.

  5. #5


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    Should have added the concept if duscipline. I was out of town last weekend. Got throttled Friday night. No outbursts - that's just the way it goes. Made it back Saturday - only even fir 2 days play. My modest profit was generated Sunday, before going home. Never got to excited, one way or the other. The amount of duscipline seems to increase over the years, primarily with the knowledge that - regardless if what happens, nothing will affect my modest, pleasingly boring, middle class lifestyle.
    Last edited by Freightman; 01-24-2017 at 09:23 AM. Reason: Correct worst typo, couldn't be bothered with the rest - sorry Don.

  6. #6


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    "I think I was a pro handicapper until Don S put a 57% hex on me. 8- 6- 1 is no fun."

    On the contrary, let me pick 8-6 (57.1%) for the rest of my life, and I would own the keys to the kingdom. You really don't seem to understand how extremely difficult it is, with straight -110 handicapping, to pick 57%. Why you think 57% is unimpressive is beyond me.

    Don

  7. #7


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    "At $2,200 a game, it works out to about $1500 per month."

    If you go 8-6, betting $2,200 a game to win $2,000, you win $2,800, not $1,500.

    Don

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    Boy, it only took until post number 6 for Don and Moses to derail this thread.

  9. #9
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    The thread is about overcoming obstacles that you had to deal with in order to become successful.

  10. #10
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    I'd have to agree with Tthree, BR is a major obstacle. This was particularly more significant in my area where I had one casino that kept on increasing the min bets on shoe based games. It went from $10 about 20 years ago, to $50 today. In other words, it'd be near impossible to become a professional in my neck of the woods down under.

    P.S Tthree, I'm surprised you have a partner that advocated becoming a professional gambler! No one ever takes AP seriously, certainly in my experience. It's all just 'gambling'.

  11. #11


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    Quote Originally Posted by Tthree View Post
    Boy, it only took until post number 6 for Don and Moses to derail this thread.
    Where did these interjections:

    man!
    (oh) boy!
    oh brother
    come from, and why are they all male?

    If you don’t know their current meanings as interjections, it sounds very strange to say Man! when you are disappointed or frustrated, and Oh boy! when you are excited (although people are increasingly using it for other emotional contexts), and Oh brother (well, I'm not even sure of this interjection’s usage).

    Why are they used as interjections, and why are they all male?


    These are all considered "minced oaths". "Oh, man" could be replaced one-to-one with a Commandment-breaking "Oh, God" or "Oh, Jesus", which are generally shortenings of some prayer for strength.

    An alternate etymology is that of friendly condescension; the terms can be literally used when talking to one's peer, junior, or brother: "Oh boy, you've screwed up this time" could be used when talking to your son or one of his friends after they break a window. The terms have evolved out of their literal meaning to simply become an exclamation indicating exasperation at a situation, even when you're not really referring to anyone else in particular.

    The gender bias of the interjections is largely reflective of the historical gender bias in English-speaking cultures throughout the evolution of the language. There has been some insertion of the fairer sex in interjections: "oh girl" and simply "girl" are heard in informal conversation nearly universally now, virtually always when speaking directly to a "girl". Even then, there's no small amount of chauvinism in the term; the word as an identifier for females in general stems from the general male preference for youthful-looking women.

    ---this post is dedicated to Don S

  12. #12


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    Quote Originally Posted by moses View Post

    My lady can hear a fly pass gas 4 miles away. Man, can she give it back sometimes. Lol
    Impressive, on both counts.

  13. #13


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    Quote Originally Posted by moses View Post
    So blue"man" is a lady? Or standing up for women's rights? Point taken. I have daughters myself. But if Don offends you? Please cover your ears in a sportsbook. You should hear what some say when a lady walks away. I'm not saying it's right but it's real and just the way it is.

    My lady can hear a fly pass gas 4 miles away. Man, can she give it back sometimes. Lol
    There is no offense anywhere. It's just a type of post that Don would make, facts about another post that have nothing to do with the original post lol

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