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Thread: Underlying Reason for Floating Advantage

  1. #53


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    Quote Originally Posted by angle_sh00ter View Post
    Take a fresh deck of cards shuffle them up. Do the same thing with a second deck of cards. If the decks remain separate the chance of getting a blackjack are higher than if you mix the 2 decks together. Are you missing anything there?
    No.
    The simple act of going from 2 separate decks to one combined deck just changed the odds. No counting required.
    Going from 2 1D's to 1 2D. No counting...

    Yes, the odds of getting a natural do change, as there are more cards.

    Do you know why that happened?
    Because, there are more cards now?

    Its extremely simple, it happened because you are now playing with more cards. That's it. Nothing more. No one can argue with that. Nothing else changed. Not even the composition of the cards. Just the total number in play.
    The odds change precisely for that reason! The composition goes from [4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 16] to [8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 32]!

    Now for some reason im meant to believe just by mixing the 2 decks together and then seperating them into 2 random 52 card decks that somehow that effect is negated? I cant see why or how it would be.
    What makes you think that? What effect is negated? That the probability of drawing a natural changes? Yes, it is reduced as the number of decks increases. If you were to shuffle the 2D shoe and draw only 52 cards from it, the odds of getting a natural are the same for any shuffled DD game! The requisite 52 cards drawn are a red herring: they have no effect on the probability of drawing a natural! Just because you cut a DD shoe in half, does not mean that anything changes. You are still playing with a set of [8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 32] cards in DD! Regardless of if you chose the first 52, last 52, or some in between, you will still get the same EV on average. The only way to know that you have a change in EV is with counting.

    I have to believe that on average playing a hand off the top from one of the random 52 slugs will be more advantageousus than shuffling them all back in together and playing a hand off the top from the 2 complete decks.
    NO! You will still have the same HE if you shuffle 2 decks together and play any random 52 cards! Regardless! You can't simply look at one subset and suggest that ALL other subsets would behave the same! They do not! If that were the case, then counters would jump into a DD game, bet the MAX, then wong out after k cards have been drawn. Which is ludicrous!

  2. #54


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    Three, your talking about CSMs demonstrates a profound ignorance of the concept. CSMs furnish different BS results from normal shoes because of the cut-card effect. It has ZERO to do with what we're discussing. Just deal a fixed number of ROUNDS for a shoe game, instead of dealing to a cut card, and the BS edge is identical to a CSM. You're just muddying the waters with a concept that has zero to do with the discussion. But then again, you're great at doing that.

    Don

  3. #55


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    To Three and Angle:

    It's embarrassing to have to propose a simulation to Dog Hand, Norm, or anyone else to reach the correct conclusion in this, but if you can't understand the concept, then I suppose we can prove it to you by simulation.

    Sim #1. Shuffle six decks and deal a hand from the top. Play TD-BS. Rules: S17, NDAS. From page 394 of BJA3, HE is 0.547629. Play enough hands to make the SE minuscule -- say 100 billion.

    Sim #2. Shuffle six decks then, randomly, choose 52 cards from the pack and deal a hand from the top of the 52-card subset. Do this 100 billion times. Compare HE result to Sim #1.

    If the results are statistically different, given the SEs, well, I'll let YOU propose what you'd like the consequences to be. As for me, I already know what the answer is.

    Don

  4. #56


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    I find it hard to fathom that this subject hasnt been discussed at length before.

    Ill just ask one question though to Don or dogman. If a 6 deck shoe gets down to the last 52 cards and the RC is zero what do you think the BS HE would then be for the next hand? As far as im reading into it you would be arguing that it's the same as at the start of the shoe?

    And if you think it is different then what do you believe is responsible for tha difference? And your answer cant be floating advantage!

  5. #57


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    Quote Originally Posted by angle_sh00ter View Post
    I find it hard to fathom that this subject hasnt been discussed at length before.

    Ill just ask one question though to Don or dogman. If a 6 deck shoe gets down to the last 52 cards and the RC is zero what do you think the BS HE would then be for the next hand? As far as im reading into it you would be arguing that it's the same as at the start of the shoe?

    And if you think it is different then what do you believe is responsible for tha difference? And your answer cant be floating advantage!
    RC off the top is 0, and the HE off the top of a 312 card shoe, depending on rule set is .5. The exact deck composition is known. After 260 cards dealt, RC is 0, but the exact deck composition is not known.

    Now, it’s obvious that a single deck game, with its known exact composition will play out differently than the 52 remaining cards, with an RC of 0, from a 6 deck shoe - because ................ the compositions are different.

  6. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    Sim #1. Shuffle six decks and deal a hand from the top. Play TD-BS. Rules: S17, NDAS. From page 394 of BJA3, HE is 0.547629. Play enough hands to make the SE minuscule -- say 100 billion.

    Sim #2. Shuffle six decks then, randomly, choose 52 cards from the pack and deal a hand from the top of the 52-card subset. Do this 100 billion times. Compare HE result to Sim #1.
    I like my sim proposal better. It is exactly simulating the situation for a player that bets and plays exactly the same as the basic strategist but tracks the differences between the situations. Your sim proposal doesn't sim what we are talking about. It again makes ann assumption that randomly choosing a deck of cards to play through is the same. I don't like making assumptions. The question is does the last part of the shoe have a larger advantage for the basic strategist. They only way to sim this without making any assumptions is to play the first deck of a shoe and collect the data from that series of play throughs and play through the deck from 2.5 decks left and 1.5 decks left and collect data from that. What I propose allows us to look at the play of the basic strategist through the eyes of a counter that give s knowledge of TC frequencies and advantage for both situations but bet and play both situations exactly the way a basic strategist would. This would gather so much additional information that you could see whether or not the HE on a basic strategist changed overall and and how it changed for individual TCs. Now this would be a learning experience that might produce insights that are valuable to counters. I agree your suggestion would be a waste of time as nothing useful can be learned. But my proposal answers the question and produces lots of interesting and possibly useful information. Perhaps you are more interested in being proven right than learning things. With my suggestion both things can happen but your suggestion is based on an assumption again. That is a random deck of cards pulled from the shoe is the same thing as playing a deck of cards that has cards that are behind are completely removed and cards that are part of the remaining pack but behind the cut card. The question isn't whether a random deck pulled from a 6 deck shoe has the same advantage no matter what. It is after many decks have been dealt what is the advantage playing through the remaining cards. To determine that without changing anything and be thorough you don't change the problem and you gather as much information as you can while still betting and playing just like a basic strategist. That is what I proposed. If DH does it the results will prove interesting.

    Your view of things seems to indicate that you think the deck composition of the cards left to play can't affect a basic strategist. But at the same time you argue that it must. I just see a difference between picking 52 cards at random and playing through them, playing the first 52 cards out of the shoe, and playing the deck of cards after 4.5 decks have been played and 2.5 decks being played. The basic strategist might not understand the difference but we know there are differences. What we do is based on the differences. I don't think being clueless about what is going on means you will not be affected by it. I think it will be interesting to see how The deck by deck results as viewed from a counters perspective would affect someone betting and playing the way a basic strategist plays and bets. Clearly TC frequencies and advantage distributions deck after deck as you play through the shoe. You would see how much the advantage for each TC changes for the basic strategist as you progress through the shoe and you will see if the overall advantage from the sum of the TC frequencies times their advantages changes at different counts and the effect of wonging out for the basic strategist at different counts. All this has its uses for counters. It will most likely show for certain you are right but we will all learn something. I bet that even includes you.

    So you are saying BS advantage changes by penetration but it is due to the cut card effect not floating advantage? From talking to dealers most don't count rounds when dealing from a CSM. They watch for a certain number of cards to accumulate. But that doesn't mean those that determined the advantage did it that way.

  7. #59


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    Quote Originally Posted by angle_sh00ter View Post
    I find it hard to fathom that this subject hasnt been discussed at length before.
    It has! Read pg 68-72 in BJA!

    Ill just ask one question though to Don or dogman. If a 6 deck shoe gets down to the last 52 cards and the RC is zero what do you think the BS HE would then be for the next hand? As far as im reading into it you would be arguing that it's the same as at the start of the shoe?
    For BS: The same as if you were to play off the top. Again, pg 68-72 BJA!

    And if you think it is different then what do you believe is responsible for tha difference? And your answer cant be floating advantage!
    Pg 68-72 of BJA.

  8. #60


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    Quote Originally Posted by Freightman View Post
    RC off the top is 0, and the HE off the top of a 312 card shoe, depending on rule set is .5. The exact deck composition is known. After 260 cards dealt, RC is 0, but the exact deck composition is not known.

    Now, it’s obvious that a single deck game, with its known exact composition will play out differently than the 52 remaining cards, with an RC of 0, from a 6 deck shoe - because ................ the compositions are different.
    Thank you.

  9. #61
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    Quote Originally Posted by angle_sh00ter View Post
    Ill just ask one question though to Don or dogman. If a 6 deck shoe gets down to the last 52 cards and the RC is zero what do you think the BS HE would then be for the next hand? As far as im reading into it you would be arguing that it's the same as at the start of the shoe?
    No Don and Griffin both state the basic strategist must have a big decrease in HE. Griffin determined it is a .5% increase for a 4 deck shoe. They sat it has to be more because at the extreme counts that the pen produces the basic strategist looses more of the HE but since the assumption is the HE have to be the same overall at any depth in the shoe the are must be an increase in player edge at in less extreme TCs deep into the shoe. The basic strategist is clueless about the cut card effect but it affects the HE he is up against. But it is impossible that the changing advantage for the TC frequency distribution that he is also clueless about affects the HE over him. I am not denying this but everyone says I am assuming that this is true so I just proved it is true. Proof doesn't work like that. You can prove an assumption false by reducing to an error but you can't prove it true by reducing to a truth. Logic assumes that the true count frequencies will all average out to the same BS advantage at all levels in the shoe. We know how to prove that. We do a sim that collects deck by deck the frequency distributions and advantages for a Hilo counter that flat bets and uses BS as his playing strategy (that is he bets and plays exactly like a basic strategist but isn't clueless about the effects of the count) and we calculate the BS advantage for each successive deck played through from that. In the process of actually proving Don right you get all this bonus data to learn from.

    Quote Originally Posted by angle_sh00ter View Post
    And if you think it is different then what do you believe is responsible for tha difference? And your answer cant be floating advantage!
    Well Don put it in the floating advantage sections of his book.

  10. #62


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    Folks,

    I'm traveling for the next week or so, so I won't be able to run any sims until then... unless Norm produces CVData for Kindle ;-)

    Happy Thanksgiving to all!

    Dog Hand

    P.S. I also failed to bring BJA3 (I guess I was subconsciously afraid I'd lose it in my hotel room, like another poster once did!), so I'm wondering exactly what material Don is referencing on pages 70-71.

    P.P.S. Don, would you hurry up with the Kindle version of BJA3? Or even better, BJA4?

  11. #63


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    To all,

    I have spent much too much time on what is a trivial subject, understood by just about everyone except Angle and Three, who have decided to waste everyone's time with their stubbornness.

    Peter Griffin and I exchanged voluminous mail over the FA edge at 0 at the one-deck level of (at that time) a four-deck game, and I quoted from our correspondence on page 70 of BJA3. But, Peter himself quoted from our mails on pages 208-212 of his own book, where he reiterates what he wrote to me about the reason for the FA. I have pointed all of you to this material in The Theory of Blackjack, since Three seemed to be upset that I didn't put quotes around Peter's words while explaining, by paraphrasing, precisely what he wrote to me. No matter.

    As it is in my book, the explanation of the cause of the FA is enunciated once again by Peter on p. 211 of his book. Along the way, while speaking about BS edge, and how there is an imbalance at the extreme counts, which must be compensated for at the zero and near-zero counts, he adds, not unimportantly, "For this imbalance to occur and yet result, as is provable, in no change in the overall basic strategy expectation, there must be a small rise in the expectation somewhere in the middle of the distribution, quite possibly at counts close to and including zero."

    He then goes on to give examples. Angle, look at the bottom of page 209. You will be shocked and disheartened to learn that, compared to 208 cards, and both at a running count of precisely zero, the blackjack bonus is greater for four decks than it is for one! Such is the danger of your assuming that by giving ONE example of a deck composition with a count of zero, you have somehow illustrated the principle for ALL such counts of zero. It turns out that your tangential hypothesis on this matter, which was irrelevant anyway, was also completely wrong.

    I discussed this concept (invariant BS edge throughout the shoe) with Thorp eons ago. It's sad that just because we have two disgruntled readers who seem intent upon reinventing (erroneously!) the wheel, you all have had to suffer through this unadulterated nonsense. This will be my final post on the subject. For those who want the source of the FA, see pages 70-71 of BJA3, or see Griffin, pp. 208-212, but especially page 211.

    As for the abject nonsense, espoused by Three, about BS HE changing as you grab subsets of the 312 cards, just file it into your memory as painful stupidity, and keep in mind the image of shuffling six decks, throwing five of them on the floor, and then claiming that you have now reduced the BS HE for that bottom (after all, random) deck!! This is an argument that I used to trot out 30 years ago, when people didn't know better. That I have to offer it up again today in 2018, is really embarrassing.

    Done. Over. Enjoy the 25 or more posts that Three et al. will waste your time with following this one. But, don't believe a word they say!

    Don

  12. #64


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    Missed this. Quick addendum, then done:

    Quote Originally Posted by angle_sh00ter View Post
    I have to believe that on average playing a hand off the top from one of the random 52 slugs will be more advantageous than shuffling them all back in together and playing a hand off the top from the 2 complete decks.
    We live in a free country where you have the right to believe anything you want. It is your God-given right to make a fool of yourself. But your statement above is patently and painfully false.

    Don

  13. #65


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    Don
    I look forward to BJA 4, and the inclusion of the now regaled underground FBM ASC. Perhaps we can enjoy similar threads of discussion with regards to its use and application.

    In your honour, I have reviewed my comments for typos, correcting same upon their occurrence.

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