So you go to a casino and tombstone (play way too long) each time. You spread 1-12 on SD and on other games with played great rules and pen (meaning they will almost certainly have strong game protection) spreading 1 to 60, 1 to 30 etc. You play with a great deal of frequency (4 times in less than a week) averaging way too much time per visit (8 hours of play/visit)until the last visit was cut short by a backoff. Yet you seem surprised they backed you off. This is what I have been talking about. Half the battle is found in sim results and the other half is in using information to be allowed to continue playing. You failed to include the latter. You probably bought a little time playing rated but now you are most likely data based. Hopefully they won't add your name, license plate and picture to any black books. If you go back the chances of that go up dramatically. If they already entered you in a black book there is no reason not to go back over and over. It can get ugly at Indian casinos that are on reservation land. Your rights are what they say your rights are.
Anyway, you are surprised you got backed off? If so, you are green. You have to allow the casino employees room to not act and not get in trouble. If you make it so they must act or get in trouble they will act every time. If you do things that allow them to have enough doubt that you are a counter and don't get greedy the suits will usually look the other way. Usually the better the game the more it is protected. The best games are usually strongly protected. If they weren't they would get burned and not exist anymore. Great rules attract big money which is good for the casino. Deep pen means more rounds an hour which means extra profit on every table which is good for the casino. All they have to do is protect the games from true threats not any counter since most will lose their BR and casino profits are maximized. Casinos make decisions on how comfortable they are attracting big bettors and taking their action and how to train their game protectors to ferret out the true threats and let the counter wannabes without the skill and/or BR lose their BR's. Many casinos feel their games are bad enough that they don't need much protection. If you understand these things and observe how things go by feeling heat before the tap you can figure out where you can get away with what.
Theoretically great rules and pen are the best games but getting away with playing is tough and even tougher with a simpler approach. If you can't get away with playing great rules and pen aren't worth much. If you choose to play great rules and pen at a casino that protects their games you need a plan to get away with playing. Smaller spreads and bet moves or plays that don't make sense to them. Breaking the correlation of bet size to playing decisions by using an ace neutral count can help. Understanding the frequent hands that have an index close to zero will be used to spot counters and how to alter your strategy to pass that first line of testing will help. Counter's Basic Strategy (CBS) is an altered basic strategy that is right for the counter because he alters his bets so being right when your big bets are out can outweigh being right more often, but only when you have min bet out. Wonging strategy can almost eliminate the frequency of the min bet situations where BS is right making CBS right not only for EV but for frequency. Then you have to understand how the casino will spot a too aggressive wonging style like backcounting. The key is to use the sims to get the best EV that is practical considering how various casinos protect their games. Figuring out ways to alter betting patterns in a way that costs little or nothing but makes it hard for the casino to find a correlation between your bets and the count is of great use. You also must be aware of each casinos own tolerances for how much you win at any time whether that be a session or week, month or year. There are tolerances for how long you play and how often you come.
Some casinos back off anyone that wins while others want to have the highest profit margin so they only back off true threats. A true threat plays too long, comes too frequently and/or wins too much. The don't do anything that looks like a mistake. A counters advantage is so slim if they see you are mistake prone they assume you most likely are not a threat. The key is to make "mistakes" enough that it looks like you are not a threat but in reality they are calculated to have very little affect on EV. The may affect variance and n0 some but you shouldn't be making costly "mistakes". A costly "mistake" may be costly because each instance is costly, the bet you have out when you make the "mistake" is large and/or it is a "mistake" that you would make frequently but doesn't cost much per instance. You can often do something about frequency by your wonging style. You can choose how costly each instance of the "mistakes" you make is. I see posters that only use the I18 say you can't afford to make mistakes because your edge is so thin. They don't seem to realize that that not using full indices they are making mistakes all the time. They rationalize that what they give up is not much. They sacrifice some EV, some additional variance comes with fewer indices and n0 increases. If you decide to use cover, which is what we are talking about, you need to carefully calculate a game plan that will actually increase your EV first by planning carefully to give up almost nothing. But also you can often get away with spreading more, playing longer sessions and having a higher top bet because you don't look like a true threat that a player playing to a lower EV using fewer indices but playing perfectly does.
The big caution here is you must do a lot of research into how to do effective cover at almost no cost or +EV and never do cover without understanding just what it costs. For example you here 16vT as one of the most important cover plays. BS says to hit. The index is 0 and it is the most frequently dealt matchup you will have to make a decision on. In just a short time the casino will see you play it both ways many times. CBS says to stand because that is the right decision for everything but some of your min bets. The truth is for Hilo at RC 0 you should stand and at TC -1 and -2 there is virtually no difference in EV whether you hit or stand. Only if you are playing at TC -3 or less does standing start to cost you. Most have wonged out by then but if you haven't the frequency of those TC's are very low. You can either accept the very infrequent cost of misplaying below TC -2 or move the standing index to TC -2 or -3 and kill their ability to see you play it both ways frequently. If you wong out at TC -2, as most do, there is virtually no cost to always standing on 16vT. If you move the index to -3 and play all the cost is minimal and you almost always play the hand the same. This is the kind of analysis you need to make when choosing cover. What plays do they look for. Can I do something that is almost cost free "mistakes" that allow me to pass their tests that would have my play reviewed if I failed the test?
There is a chapter on cover in BJA3 that has some stats that might be useful. The link below can be used to see the index and amount of advantage change around it for Hilo. Look at the 16vT play in the link below to see how my comments on the primary play they use to identify counters pans out and what the cost would be (note the point half way between the lines is the EV at the TC indicated):
https://www.card-counting.com/cvcxonlineviewer3.htm
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