Blackjack Bankroll Recommendation Question

[FishBear]

hey bughousemaster,

i dont know the math to answer ur OP, but maybe this link will help somewhat: https://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/appendix/4/ .

Regarding what I honestly think about your approach to blackjack, i think these ppl are right. They base their game on betting larger in positive expected value situations, not on betting systems or streaks (which they (as well as I) believe is a very common fallacy that ton of ppl fall into traps for). we believe streaks are random and every hand is an independent event (previous results don't affect current or future results). imo humans by nature have selective memory and are result-oriented so it's very easy to be bias and in turn try to predict the future after a streaky situation (when in reality, it's just all random, and the future is just as random).

the gist of it is the house has a theoretical advantage of anywhere from like 0.2 to 0.7% and there is no betting system in the world that is able to conquer that. all short term results are due to variance. the result or odds of winning/losing on ur current hand or next hand is not going to change due to a winning/losing streak. this link will explain that in details: https://wizardofodds.com/gambling/betting-systems/ .

also if ur up a ton lifetime, u probably

a) book many small wins and few huge losses. it may take longer to regress towards the mean (lose),
b) have selective memory and delude/forget (find reasons not to remember or blame something such as alcohol/poor concentration) losing sessions,
c) mingle other income with blackjack losses (so u can't accurately say whether ur up or down)

im guessing u are likely experiencing a lot of positive variance lately, but as u play more and more, u'll regress to whatever the theoretical advantage for the house is. I suggest if ur not doing so already to record all ur results to get the actual amount ur up or down. if ur not recording and tangle ur gambling expenses, it's impossible to even gauge the ballpark of what ur up or down as time goes by.

However i do think this forum is overly critiquing your play and giving u a lot of shit instead of answering the question you asked simply because they are too concentrated on trying to tell you that ur system will not win in the long run (100,000 hands for instance). i agree with them, but i do think some of the stuff this forum said is pretty snarky and some ppl just think they're smarter just because they understand a concept better after being spoon fed non-intuitive information from other ppl/sources and seeing/experiencing variance in action over time with informed eyes. it's like bashing someone for being religious or having some sort of superstitious belief, but so what, we all have areas where we have misinformation or are born into and take for granted without any educated research. anyhow this is a community which base its play on math and math is never wrong! they actually have concrete math to back up their preferred choice of play (card counting) which is all over the internet. if u dont agree with them, i dont think u'll get along with this forum.

it all starts with expected value and standard deviation. i think once u learn how those 2 works in blackjack, then some of the things said on this forum will make more and more sense to you.

anyways, it'll probably take a lot of unwiring prior information u've acquired so im not sure if u'll ever choose to agree with this forum on anything if u choose to participate more. the style they play is also probably going to be counter intuitive for u (for example if they lose 9/10 hands but count is high, they will still bet as big as they can according to math). the concept we believe is every hand is an independent event. the other concept we believe is high counts mean the edge is in our favor. the concept we don't believe is this is a cold deck. most ppl who gamble for fun have a ton of misinformation on how gambling and variance works. im sure a lot of ppl u talk blackjack or strategy with probably have done very little research on gambling themselves (which is most ppl who gamble for fun), so im sure their opinions on the laws of gambling will differ from the opinions here.

Anyhow was kinda surprised to see you post! Played you a bunch of bughouse on icc and irl back in the days!

ps) if i've said anything wrong, inaccurate, or misleading, feel free to correct me (im not a math or statistician)