Quote Originally Posted by Three View Post
I have to agree with Bosox on this one. I think everyone can learn Hiopt2 but I don't think everyone has the work ethic to learn Hiopt2. With enough practice anyone could do it but many would not put in the effort required for them and play prematurely and get killed due to errors and not understanding how to use the count properly.

Now to Hilo. Hilo is a great count if you play to its strengths and away from its weaknesses. One of its main weaknesses is playing strategy weakness. Most of this is in negative TC's. By wonging to play the fewest negative TC situations, as Bosox implored, you eliminate most of Hilo's playing weaknesses while playing to it's strength Betting Correlation. I am not keen on playing more hours because the mistake most people make is they play too many hours. You want to increase rounds played not hours played. If you are more selective about what you play you will play a lot more rounds in less time than if you try to get in more hours. You get payed in proportion to rounds played not hours played. One guy playing 3 hours at a50 rounds per hour plays 150 rounds in 3 hours. The other guy hunting faster games might only play 1.5 hours in the same 3 hour period but he plays at 200 rounds per hour so he gets in 300 rounds in the same 3 hours. Thats twice the EV. Even if he is only playing 150 rounds per hour he plays 225 rounds or 50% more EV. So if you substitute being pickier about what you play so you can play more rounds to playing more hours the advice makes more sense. Obviously if you already play all the time with fast conditions playing more hours is diminishing returns like the argument some make against learning more indices. It is just not worth it.
This is something many just don't get about BJ. The rules Bosox plays allows so much more to be done by the player that he sees it is a waste of time playing without them. A wise choice for any count but even wiser with counts with more decision variance like level 1 counts and fully ace reckoned counts (this doesn't include ace compromise counts). Hilo is both.
This and BoSox's post are really helpful.

A couple of questions on your Wonging point and how it relates to increasing the number of rounds played: Wonging is obviously a great way to lower variance and increase EV, and the most likely conditions for maximising number of rounds is when the casino is relatively quiet/you play heads up. How do you Wong in and out of a heads up game? Surely that sets off all manner of red flags? And if it is heads up, you can't Wong back in since no one else is playing, so you would basically Wong out, then come back when they have shuffled which looks rather suspicious I would have thought?