See the top rated post in this thread. Click here

Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast
Results 14 to 26 of 39

Thread: Please help to better understand the N0

  1. #14


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    "Thus, one could apparently match one's actual results to the theoretical CVDATA results, and see if one's practical experience is anywhere close to predicted results. Maybe Don S and Norm have already done this, but I'm too unsophisticated to use it."

    Bottom, center of the CVCX array does exactly this. It's been a feature forever.

    Don

  2. #15
    Senior Member Bodarc's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    136 miles North of West
    Posts
    1,949


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by cc12b View Post
    Let say you play 6D game with 2 or 3 other players for few hours a day at 3 or 4 casinos. You wong in/out and spread as count dictates, so you when wong out but still sitting at table does the rounds you see counted in your N0? on other hand, how about when you spread to 2 or 3 spots. For simplify the matter we disregard the heat.
    Good cards to you.
    N0 - The number of rounds of Blackjack that must be played under given favorable conditions with the same Bet Ramp such that the Total Expected Value of the play equals one Standard Deviation.

    Notice that the definition of N0 requires favorable conditions (at an advantage) and the same bet ramp. In other words, you must compute N0 based exactly on the game you are playing. If you are sitting out all counts less than 3, then you must compute N0 based upon that criteria. Also, N0 is based on rounds, not hands.

    If you bet $10 on all counts less than 3 and wong out 20% of those counts, and bet $ 250.00 at all counts > 3 , then that is how you have to compute N0. In other words, N0 has to be computed exactly according to the game and spread you are using.

    I don't know who wrote "Understanding N0" for blackjackstartup.com but he did a wonderful, easy to understand treatise on N0. The website is not there any longer.
    Play within your bankroll, pick your games with care and learn everything you can about the game. The winning will come. It has to. It's in the cards. -- Bryce Carlson

  3. #16


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Too much misinformation in this thread. N0 -- absent a constant divisor of one million -- is the reciprocal of SCORE. The higher the SCORE, the smaller the N0, and vice-versa. SCORE has absolutely no requirement whatsoever that the hands be played at an advantage, so the definition quoted above is flawed. When you play-all, you play the majority of hands at a disadvantage. Should that now make it impossible to generate a SCORE and, hence, an N0? Of course not.

    Finally, Stealth has a right to ask for any statistic he chooses, but if he's asking for N0, then it is NOT just rounds played. If you're backcounting, it is rounds OBSERVED. And, it absolutely ought to be that way. A SCORE is generated for a backcounter as a metric that represents win per 100 rounds OBSERVED, recognizing that you might PLAY only, say 25 of those rounds. N0 is the reciprocal of SCORE and is calculated with the same methodology.

    Don

  4. #17


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    SCORE is a game comparison statistic that takes into account the rules, pen and risk as well as betting and playing techniques. The only parameter it does not consider is game speed. That is, for any given game you can double your hands per hour which will double your win rate but the SCORE remains the same. This is because SCORE is defined as 100 hands per hour only.

    SCORE = (1000*w/SD)² where optimal betting is used with a $10,000 bankroll.

    w = one hand win rate
    SD = one hand standard deviation

    N0(n-zero) is the number of rounds that need to be played to overcome a negative fluctuation of one Standard Deviation assuming a fixed bet spread and is proportional to SCORE.

    N0 = (1,000,000)/SCORE.

    So, to lower the N0, increase the SCORE.
    Casino Enemy No.1

  5. #18
    Senior Member Bodarc's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    136 miles North of West
    Posts
    1,949


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    SCORE has absolutely no requirement whatsoever that the hands be played at an advantage, so the definition quoted above is flawed.
    Don
    It doesn't mean that every hand has to have an advantage. Only that the game has an advantage. If you play basic strategy only, you will never have N0 because you will never have an accumulated EV.
    Play within your bankroll, pick your games with care and learn everything you can about the game. The winning will come. It has to. It's in the cards. -- Bryce Carlson

  6. #19
    Senior Member Bodarc's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    136 miles North of West
    Posts
    1,949


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No

    N0

    Don

    Suppose you are a Big Player. You are alternately called into two tables. Suppose you jump from table1 to table2 and back again. You never play at a count less than +3. Shouldn't your N0 be computed only on the rounds > 3, since that is your game?
    Last edited by Bodarc; 07-13-2018 at 01:56 AM.
    Play within your bankroll, pick your games with care and learn everything you can about the game. The winning will come. It has to. It's in the cards. -- Bryce Carlson

  7. #20


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by Bodarc View Post
    Don

    Suppose you are a Big Player. You are alternately called into two tables. Suppose you jump from table1 to table2 and back again. You never play at a count less than +3. Shouldn't your N0 be computed only on the rounds > 3, since that is your game?
    You could either calculate N0 in terms of rounds played OR in terms of rounds observed. Of course, the figures are going to be different, but you have to measure apples to apples. You can't calculate N0 in terms of rounds played, then go observe that many rounds, and say you're at N0. If you know the game speed (HPH), you could calculate N0 in terms of time where N0 is 150 hours or some such number. Of course, these different types of defining N0 aren't going to work with other calculations like SCORE, since you can't go from "N0 = 150 hours" into a way to determine what the game's SCORE is, unless you revert it back to where N0 is measured in terms of rounds observed. You could calculate N0 in terms of BP call-ins and figure that after X call-ins, your EV should be equal to 1 SD, which is 1 N0.

    I look at N0 as a way to determine how much I need to play before I have X% chance to be within some Y range of results. If I'm comparing different games, I don't care if the N0 in blackjack is 15,000 rounds or in VP it may be 60,000 hands or in a HC game it may be 5,000 or.....whatever. I want to see what it is in terms of hours. The BJ may be 150 hours, VP may be 60-70 hours, and the HC game may be 200 hours.
    "Everyone wants to be rich, but nobody wants to work for it." -Ryan Howard [The Office]

  8. #21
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    3rd rock from Sol, Milky Way Galaxy
    Posts
    14,158


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by Bodarc View Post
    Suppose you are a Big Player. You are alternately called into two tables. Suppose you jump from table1 to table2 and back again. You never play at a count less than +3. Shouldn't your N0 be computed only on the rounds > 3, since that is your game?
    You can't use the sum of both tables rounds observed because you can't play both at once. Think about a Venn Diagram where each spotters observations are in its own circle of when to call in the BP. The overlap between the two circles is when both would be calling in the BP. So you add both spotters rounds observed together and then subtract the number of rounds both spotters would be calling the BP at the same time. The result would be rounds observed for the BP. Also you must subtract rounds played by the BP as rounds not observed by the other spotter.

  9. #22


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by Bodarc View Post
    Don

    Suppose you are a Big Player. You are alternately called into two tables. Suppose you jump from table1 to table2 and back again. You never play at a count less than +3. Shouldn't your N0 be computed only on the rounds > 3, since that is your game?
    I think you feel that if you keep asking the same question enough times, I'll eventually change the same answer I've given you several times already. And that is: you are free to create any metric that makes you happy to express any phenomenon you please. But I defined SCORE and Brett Harris defined N0, and you don't get to change those definitions. So, the answer is NO (that's the opposite of yes and not N-zero!), you don't just count the rounds you played at >+3. You count ALL the rounds you had to watch to earn the right to play at >+3 in the first place.

    Can't you understand the simple logic as to why? Suppose you played a wonderfully profitable game at a 10% advantage. How do you get that in blackjack? By backcounting and waiting for true counts of +20 or higher! So, you make 10% on all your bets. Do you want to tell us how incredibly LOW your N0 is? Who would give a shit about your ridiculous number, when you have to scout the tables and watch thousands of rounds before you get to play a single hand?

    Is this concept really all that difficult to understand?

    Don
    Last edited by DSchles; 07-13-2018 at 12:12 PM.

  10. #23
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    3rd rock from Sol, Milky Way Galaxy
    Posts
    14,158


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    You can't ALL the rounds you had to watch to earn the right to play at >+3 in the first place.
    Proofread please.

  11. #24


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by Bodarc View Post
    N0 - The number of rounds of Blackjack that must be played under given favorable conditions with the same Bet Ramp such that the Total Expected Value of the play equals one Standard Deviation.
    Don, is there anything wrong with the notion that, when playing a game at a disadvantage, the concept of N0 can still be applied as the number of rounds for which your negative expectation equals one standard deviation?

  12. #25


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    Suppose you played a wonderfully profitable game at a 10% advantage. How do you get that in blackjack? By backcounting and waiting for true counts of +20 or higher!
    There are a few other ways to get that advantage in blackjack on EVERY hand as well with no need to wait for ANY true count.

  13. #26
    Senior Member bigplayer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Las Vegas, NV
    Posts
    1,807


    Did you find this post helpful? Yes | No
    Think of a round observed as a round played but with a bet of $0. It helps you to cover N0 because those observed rounds would have been -EV and being able to see rounds for free results in a net EV gain. (you lose $0 rather than $xx) The only cost to you for back counting through negative and neutral count shoes is your time. But those rounds observed count towards N0 regardless whether you are the ones observing or whether you have a spotter doing it.

    This does bring up why table departure is so important. Time. Casinos whose procedures are to break shoes when all players leave the table then re-shuffle and pre-load shoes are very good for both the player and the casino. You are, in a sense getting partial N0 credit for observing the shoes that tank even after you table exit from without having to actually observe it. (if a shoe has a running count of minus 20 with 4 decks left you can safely say it's never going to rebound thus by leaving for a fresh shoe you still get varying credit for observing the rest of that first shoe even though you're already observing another freshly shuffled shoe at another table. Of course a sim can account for this impact when you select "Force Shuffle On Exit". As always the criteria you select have to be uniform when comparing SCORE and N0 or you're making apples to oranges comparisons.

    In the end it's the number of fresh shoes you start observing per hour that determines how many big betting opportunities you will get per hour. The more fresh shoes you begin counting down the more likely you'll get a positive one. The metric a good friend of mine uses involves him valuing every shoe he plays (starts) as worth about $30. So his goal is to begin 40 fresh shoes a day and if he does that he is making $1200 a day in EV. He knows the only way possible to accomplish seeing this many shoes in a day is by table exits and table changes. His dream casino would be one with dozens of open tables that use shuffle and load procedures so that there are not only open tables to move to but with shoes pre-shuffled and loaded ready to immediately deal.

    Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

Page 2 of 3 FirstFirst 123 LastLast

Similar Threads

  1. something i just dont understand, if there is a pro can tell me why
    By abc4000 in forum General Blackjack Forum
    Replies: 27
    Last Post: 06-29-2017, 09:32 PM
  2. I don't understand his thinking
    By Bodarc in forum General Blackjack Forum
    Replies: 41
    Last Post: 07-17-2015, 06:51 AM
  3. Trying to understand indices and the I18
    By 22playing21 in forum General Blackjack Forum
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 08-03-2014, 08:01 PM
  4. Help me understand EV
    By Mr2Project in forum General Blackjack Forum
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 11-13-2012, 09:53 AM
  5. Kasey: Something I don't understand about DI
    By Kasey in forum Theory & Math
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 07-25-2002, 07:58 PM

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

About Blackjack: The Forum

BJTF is an advantage player site based on the principles of comity. That is, civil and considerate behavior for the mutual benefit of all involved. The goal of advantage play is the legal extraction of funds from gaming establishments by gaining a mathematic advantage and developing the skills required to use that advantage. To maximize our success, it is important to understand that we are all on the same side. Personal conflicts simply get in the way of our goals.