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Thread: Freightman, How Did Your Blackjack Trip Go

  1. #1


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    Freightman, How Did Your Blackjack Trip Go

    I hope it was better than my last trip. I now have lost on my last two trips. In fact, I lost on every day of this trip. It was my biggest losing trip of the year. However, on every day of the trip if I would have won just my largest bet instead of losing it, each day would have been a winning day and the trip would have been a winning one. Oh, the dangers of making a super max bet.

    I now have 146.5 playing hours for the year. Am I still ahead of you in hours.
    Last edited by Midwest Player; 08-07-2018 at 12:35 PM.

  2. #2


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    Quote Originally Posted by Midwest Player View Post
    I hope it was better than my last trip. I now have lost on my last two trips. In fact, I lost on every day of this trip. It was my biggest losing trip of the year. However, on every day of the trip if I would have won just my largest bet instead of losing it, each day would have been a winning day and the trip would have been a winning won. Oh, the dangers of making a super max bet.

    I now have 146.5 playing hours for the year. Am I still ahead of you in hours.
    I did surpass your hours, but you’re ahead of me again. I think I’m at
    143 hours. Last trip was 9/11 for $5900, approx 18 hours over 3 days, about 50.3 k ytd. I have to check for exact numbers.
    Last edited by Freightman; 08-07-2018 at 12:38 PM.

  3. #3


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    Quote Originally Posted by Freightman View Post
    I did surpass your hours, but you’re ahead of me again. I think I’m at
    143 hours. Last trip was 9/11 for $5900, approx 18 hours over 3 days, about 50.3 k ytd. I have to check for exact numbers.
    Wow! I am not at your level but I am receiving the most positive side of variance ever. Since July 1st to today (won $685 in 25 minutes and 3 shoes of a 6 deck, min $10 game), I have played 19 sessions (32 hours), won 17 and lost 2 and over $10k ($8880 in July and $2400 so far this month). I mean its my years goal and I seem to have hit it already! About $19k so far this year.

  4. #4


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    Quote Originally Posted by ZeeBabar View Post
    Wow! I am not at your level but I am receiving the most positive side of variance ever. Since July 1st to today (won $685 in 25 minutes and 3 shoes of a 6 deck, min $10 game), I have played 19 sessions (32 hours), won 17 and lost 2 and over $10k ($8880 in July and $2400 so far this month). I mean its my years goal and I seem to have hit it already! About $19k so far this year.
    Variance is both positive and negative. It’s great when it’s positive and shitty when it isn’t. I recall my first 1k month, on only 19 hours. About 50 per hour, which was way over EV at the time. The next big threshold was about a 2700 month, about a year later, and then it was 6k. The 10k threshold eluded me for a couple of years, but when it happened, I obliterated, annihalated the threshold. That’s the way it happens. Enjoy it, savour it, and who knows, maybe some of it is the result of this forums influence.

  5. #5
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    I didn't want to get into theo makes how much pissing contest but variance is more interesting. My best upswing in variance was 3 long weekends in a row where I made over $10K each weekend. I was up about $40K for 3 weeks. I was just winning with an occasional big win while rarely losing and when I lost it was a small loss that was easily erased. Then, a month later, I started a bad stretch. I spun my wheels for 6 weeks barely making anything. But those 6 weeks spanned two calendar months and I was ahead $10K for both calendar months. Later that year I hit a bad patch where I lost $6K quick but it was bookended by bigger wins on both sides and quickly erased. This was with the smaller, less frequent losses and more frequent win approach.

    Then I made some changes to squeeze some extra EV out and raise SCORE but it caused swings to go nuts. The next year I was regularly losing $5 to $10K in a weekend trip and was winning less frequently while losing more frequently and much larger amounts. I was way below EV. I finally figured out how the changes to get more EV had caused results to be turned upside-down (after a severe ass kicking that had me contemplating what I had changed I figured it out). After making even more changes to give up some SCORE and EV I was winning even better than I had before. Lots more wins with occasional small losses mixed in and the rare getting your ass kicked in a shoe, but the worst was much less of a kick in the balls and almost never happened.

    Now the variance for the pleasant ride is more than the variance for the extremely crazy ride. I discovered variance is a long term stat and has nothing to do with indicating short term swings or what I call the ride to the long run. With one method variance was mostly negative (I spent most of my time way below EV waiting for that big run of shoes to raise me up to EV) and with the other variance was mostly positive (I spent most of my time way above EV waiting for a long spinning wheels stretch or a short steep lose to drop my average back closer to EV. Now this was not for BJ. But, in BJ, I use different techniques to get the same trade off of EV and SCORE for less frequent and smaller losses with more frequent wins. The effect on the swings and the way BR grows is the same. You tend to run way above EV only to be corrected to closer to EV by the same sort of spinning wheels or a very short but steep loss that is quickly erased. These corrections are relatively rare but expected.

  6. #6


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    Quote Originally Posted by Three View Post
    I didn't want to get into theo makes how much pissing contest but variance is more interesting. My best upswing in variance was 3 long weekends in a row where I made over $10K each weekend. I was up about $40K for 3 weeks. I was just winning with an occasional big win while rarely losing and when I lost it was a small loss that was easily erased. Then, a month later, I started a bad stretch. I spun my wheels for 6 weeks barely making anything. But those 6 weeks spanned two calendar months and I was ahead $10K for both calendar months. Later that year I hit a bad patch where I lost $6K quick but it was bookended by bigger wins on both sides and quickly erased. This was with the smaller, less frequent losses and more frequent win approach.

    Then I made some changes to squeeze some extra EV out and raise SCORE but it caused swings to go nuts. The next year I was regularly losing $5 to $10K in a weekend trip and was winning less frequently while losing more frequently and much larger amounts. I was way below EV. I finally figured out how the changes to get more EV had caused results to be turned upside-down (after a severe ass kicking that had me contemplating what I had changed I figured it out). After making even more changes to give up some SCORE and EV I was winning even better than I had before. Lots more wins with occasional small losses mixed in and the rare getting your ass kicked in a shoe, but the worst was much less of a kick in the balls and almost never happened.

    Now the variance for the pleasant ride is more than the variance for the extremely crazy ride. I discovered variance is a long term stat and has nothing to do with indicating short term swings or what I call the ride to the long run. With one method variance was mostly negative (I spent most of my time way below EV waiting for that big run of shoes to raise me up to EV) and with the other variance was mostly positive (I spent most of my time way above EV waiting for a long spinning wheels stretch or a short steep lose to drop my average back closer to EV. Now this was not for BJ. But, in BJ, I use different techniques to get the same trade off of EV and SCORE for less frequent and smaller losses with more frequent wins. The effect on the swings and the way BR grows is the same. You tend to run way above EV only to be corrected to closer to EV by the same sort of spinning wheels or a very short but steep loss that is quickly erased. These corrections are relatively rare but expected.
    can you expound on the tweaks you made change your EV/SCORE? I'm a casual player and I don't have access to the casino verite software because I use a mac (i don't even know what my EV or SCORE is), but it would be interesting to hear how you did it and if it could be applied to others.

  7. #7


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    Quote Originally Posted by cottage cheese View Post
    can you expound on the tweaks you made change your EV/SCORE? I'm a casual player and I don't have access to the casino verite software because I use a mac (i don't even know what my EV or SCORE is), but it would be interesting to hear how you did it and if it could be applied to others.
    T3 dont share, says he does not want to get into a "pissing contest" but he does piss a lot!

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by cottage cheese View Post
    can you expound on the tweaks you made change your EV/SCORE? I'm a casual player and I don't have access to the casino verite software because I use a mac (i don't even know what my EV or SCORE is), but it would be interesting to hear how you did it and if it could be applied to others.
    I had been working on betting using more specific deck compositions for different games. Basically you figure out a factor that can be used to divide a betting bin into sub-bins populated by related deck compositions. A random cross-section of the betting bin will not be of any benefit. There are a lot of factors that can be used but they must divide a betting bin into related deck compositions. If you use the added info to reduce the bets that are below the betting bin average it affects the winnings as described. If you use the same ability to raise bets that are in deck compositions that are related and above the bin average swings tend to go crazy. You are basically being much more cautious when risking money. You end up betting the sub-bin that is reduced bet accurately and under betting the rest of the bin as the bin average for the remainder goes up. If you raised those bets things get more volatile. By combining that with more caution for putting out extra money for weaker doubles and splits, or sweatier doubles and splits and surrendering a little more aggressively you give up the EV that causes the most volatility while not increasing EV where possible that would then increase volatility. The result is the higher volatility situations where doubles and splits fair worse with bets that are too high due to the deck composition within the TC bin are both bet with a reduced bet and played less aggressively. These tend to be the doubles and split situations that don't generate much EV because the deck composition is not properly factored into the play by the way decisions are made. You may think they have a small plus EV but in actuality you are adding money to your original bet and either losing EV or not generating enough to make the play worth the added volatility.

    The same thing that causes the deck composition to be over bet by the TC average also causes the poor performance on doubles and splits and a lower frequency of BJ's than the rest of the TC bin. That is often why deck compositions have so much of a lower advantage within the TC bin. So lowering the bet for those deck compositions and being more patient on some weaker doubles and splits helps this issue that greatly increases swings to have swings reduced by both bet size and performance on the double and split decisions. They are usually plus EV situations so betting them higher generates more EV, but at the cost of greatly increasing swings (which you happily give up). The more weak doubles and splits that are barely in play for the TC bin you are looking at the more your crazy results are tamed. Strong doubles and splits gain EV quickly and will gain enough EV quickly after the index is exceeded that the inaccuracy you are correcting for is quickly exceeded. There are quite a few things that you can spot that affects whether you are on the high or low side of the TC bin average. Some can be well accounted for with a traditional count, like the density of 4s and 5s within the low card group (a multi-level count). Or the ratio of faces to aces in the high card group (an ace neutral count that side counts aces). Other things may have little effect on the traditional way to use information but if you use the info gathered in a non-traditional way it tells you more information on the true density of aces and faces rather than the relationship of aces and faces to low cards. You end up with both the ratio of aces and faces to low cards and the actual density of faces and the ace in the unseen cards. The combination of the traditional information a count gathers (relationship of high cards to low cards) and the extra information that allows a true assessment of ratio of T's to all other cards (near perfect insurance), or high cards to all other cards is a much better assessment of your true advantage within a TC than just the TC.
    Last edited by Three; 08-10-2018 at 09:43 PM.

  9. #9


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    Quote Originally Posted by Three View Post
    I had been working on betting using more specific deck compositions for different games. Basically you figure out a factor that can be used to divide a betting bin into sub-bins populated by related deck compositions. A random cross-section of the betting bin will not be of any benefit. There are a lot of factors that can be used but they must divide a betting bin into related deck compositions. If you use the added info to reduce the bets that are below the betting bin average it affects the winnings as described. If you use the same ability to raise bets that are in deck compositions that are related and above the bin average swings tend to go crazy. You are basically being much more cautious when risking money. You end up betting the sub-bin that is reduced bet accurately and under betting the rest of the bin as the bin average for the remainder goes up. If you raised those bets things get more volatile. By combining that with more caution for putting out extra money for weaker doubles and splits, or sweatier doubles and splits and surrendering a little more aggressively you give up the EV that causes the most volatility while not increasing EV where possible that would then increase volatility. The result is the higher volatility situations where doubles and splits fair worse with bets that are too high due to the deck composition within the TC bin are both bet with a reduced bet and played less aggressively. These tend to be the doubles and split situations that don't generate much EV because the deck composition is not properly factored into the play by the way decisions are made. You may think they have a small plus EV but in actuality you are adding money to your original bet and either losing EV or not generating enough to make the play worth the added volatility.

    The same thing that causes the deck composition to be over bet by the TC average also causes the poor performance on doubles and splits and a lower frequency of BJ's than the rest of the TC bin. That is often why deck compositions have so much of a lower advantage within the TC bin. So lowering the bet for those deck compositions and being more patient on some weaker doubles and splits helps this issue that greatly increases swings to have swings reduced by both bet size and performance on the double and split decisions. They are usually plus EV situations so betting them higher generates more EV, which you happily give up, but at the cost of greatly increasing swings. The more weak doubles and splits that are barely in play for the TC bin you are looking at the more your crazy results are tamed. Strong doubles and splits gain EV quickly and will gain enough EV quickly after the index is exceeded that the inaccuracy you are correcting for is quickly exceeded. There are quite a few things that you can spot that affects whether you are on the high or low side of the TC bin average. Some can be well accounted for with a traditional count, like the density of 4s and 5s within the low card group (a multi-level count). Or the ratio of faces to aces in the high card group (an ace neutral count that side counts aces). Other things may have little effect on the traditional way to use information but if you use the info gathered in a non-traditional way it tells you more information on the true density of aces and faces rather than the relationship of aces and faces to low cards. You end up with both the ratio of aces and faces to low cards and the actual density of faces and the ace in the unseen cards. The combination of the traditional information a count gathers (relationship of high cards to low cards) and the extra information that allows a true assessment of ratio of T's to all other cards (near perfect insurance), or high cards to all other cards is a much better assessment of your true advantage within a TC than just the TC.
    T3, all this stuff is way over my head, wonder if everyone else understands it and sees the value in it. For the games I play, simple HiLo is enough.

  10. #10


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    Quote Originally Posted by ZeeBabar View Post
    T3, all this stuff is way over my head, wonder if everyone else understands it and sees the value in it. For the games I play, simple HiLo is enough.
    It could be simplified. Essentially, he’s doing 2 things. He’s side counting aces for, example, for insurance and other play decisions, and he’s adjusting the betting power of various true counts by accounting for the surplus or deficit, for example, of intermediate cards.

    He is suggesting that he can decrease variance by taking more into account than high cards to low cards. By inference, he’s also saying that he doesn’t need accepted spreads to do well.

    To answer your question - yes, there is value there.

  11. #11


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    Quote Originally Posted by Freightman View Post
    It could be simplified. Essentially, he’s doing 2 things. He’s side counting aces for, example, for insurance and other play decisions, and he’s adjusting the betting power of various true counts by accounting for the surplus or deficit, for example, of intermediate cards.

    He is suggesting that he can decrease variance by taking more into account than high cards to low cards. By inference, he’s also saying that he doesn’t need accepted spreads to do well.

    To answer your question - yes, there is value there.
    I am sure there is value there. T3's explanation, with bins and sub bins, is difficult for simpletons like me to grasp. Seems to me that its a lot of work.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by ZeeBabar View Post
    Seems to me that its a lot of work.
    Everything seems like a lot of work until you get used to it.You are born as lump that can't even crawl. crawling is a lot of work until you get used to it. Then it becomes second nature. Learning to stand is hard until you get used to the skills needed to keep your balance. Then walking, running, riding a bike, riding a skateboard, skiing, driving a car, and even flying a plane. Each step along the way seems hard when you are thinking about learning it or learn it, but becomes second nature with enough practice. You are at the toddler stage (the second stage) and looking for excuses not to become proficient at any other mode of transportation. That is fine but don't act like because learning something is hard it will always be hard to do. Life repeatedly teaches us different. The question is can you learn something and if you can how long will it take to become second nature. I use different really hard counts to master for different games. Much harder than traditional counts you will find information about. But they are all automatic now. I don't even think about counting and can easily keep up with every dealer. A glance at the table is all I need to get the count and everything in my region worth playing are shoe games. My point is your comment is from a perspective of someone that never tried to master more than the simplest of tasks. Those that have mastered more difficult tasks have differing opinions.

  13. #13


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    I almost forgot the first paragraph in Three's post #5.

    "I didn't want to get into theo makes how much pissing contest but variance is more interesting. My best upswing in variance was 3 long weekends in a row where I made over $10K each weekend. I was up about $40K for 3 weeks. I was just winning with an occasional big win while rarely losing and when I lost it was a small loss that was easily erased. Then, a month later, I started a bad stretch. I spun my wheels for 6 weeks barely making anything. But those 6 weeks spanned two calendar months and I was ahead $10K for both calendar months. Later that year I hit a bad patch where I lost $6K quick but it was bookended by bigger wins on both sides and quickly erased. This was with the smaller, less frequent losses and more frequent win approach."

    Quote Originally Posted by Three View Post
    Then I made some changes to squeeze some extra EV out and raise SCORE but it caused swings to go nuts. The next year I was regularly losing $5 to $10K in a weekend trip and was winning less frequently while losing more frequently and much larger amounts. I was way below EV. I finally figured out how the changes to get more EV had caused results to be turned upside-down (after a severe ass kicking that had me contemplating what I had changed I figured it out). After making even more changes to give up some SCORE and EV I was winning even better than I had before. Lots more wins with occasional small losses mixed in and the rare getting your ass kicked in a shoe, but the worst was much less of a kick in the balls and almost never happened.

    Now the variance for the pleasant ride is more than the variance for the extremely crazy ride. I discovered variance is a long term stat and has nothing to do with indicating short term swings or what I call the ride to the long run. With one method variance was mostly negative (I spent most of my time way below EV waiting for that big run of shoes to raise me up to EV) and with the other variance was mostly positive (I spent most of my time way above EV waiting for a long spinning wheels stretch or a short steep lose to drop my average back closer to EV.
    Three's above quote is not complete, but in case anyone missed it the very next line is relevant.

    Quote Originally Posted by Three View Post
    Now this was not for BJ.
    That was very nice of you to make that VERY CLEAR. Now continuing with Three's post:

    Quote Originally Posted by Three View Post
    But, in BJ, I use different techniques to get the same trade off of EV and SCORE for less frequent and smaller losses with more frequent wins. The effect on the swings and the way BR grows is the same. You tend to run way above EV only to be corrected to closer to EV by the same sort of spinning wheels or a very short but steep loss that is quickly erased. These corrections are relatively rare but expected.
    Thank you for telling the rest of us that you use different techniques, but I am sure you have previously mentioned this a few times.
    Last edited by BoSox; 08-11-2018 at 01:54 PM.

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