Gut-wrenching

[RS]

Gut-wrenching really depends on the level of play. A huge loss at the red chip level isn't too bad, but at the black chip level it is really gut-wrenching. I suggest downsize your bets to see if it turns around. Also make sure you somehow didn't invert the count.

A 5-SD negative swing is gut-wrenching any way you cut it. Someone with a small bankroll is going to be "hurt" when they lose $5k, as someone with a larger bankroll when they lose $50k.


As far as having a 5-SD negative swing, although it's certainly possible, it's definitely not something that I would be like, "Oh yeah, shit happens, keep plugging away!" I'd definitely be wary about what's going on. I would check the following, in no particular order:

1. Make sure my skills are accurate, including the fact that I'm betting the correct amount when I should be. Over-betting your intended spread is going to increase variance. It's unlikely that bad play would be the cause of a -5 SD swing, unless you're playing as if you're brain-dead. Making small mistakes here and there aren't going to be the cause of such a huge loss.

2. Make sure the sim is accurate to what you're playing up against. If you simmed a game with 60 rounds per hour but you're actually playing a game at 180 rounds per hour....that's obviously going to effect the math. Small details like the advantage (and thus EV, re: speed of game), whether there's RSA/DAS/S17/etc. doesn't really matter, because those things are very small and won't be noticeable in a short amount of time. Although, you should still make sure that's all accurate, regardless. Make sure you're entering results properly (hours or rounds played as well as actual result).

3. Make sure you're not getting cheated. I'm not really sure how to test for this necessarily, other than there are some things you can do to gauge it. For one, you can count shoes and see if many end positive, that would mean there's at least a better chance that the decks are shorted of 10's and/or aces. See if they're doing any kind of funny business, like dealing seconds. Is this a place in the USA or South America? Not that cheating can't happen in the USA, but I'd be much more skeptical if it was out of the USA.

4. MAKE SURE YOU'RE DOING THE MATH CORRECTLY!!!! It's possible that you didn't do the math the right way and you messed something up. EG: Perhaps you squared a number when you should have found the square root of it, or vice versa. Do your results intuitively make sense to be at -5 SD? EG: If you're spreading 5-100 and you're down $500, then that's obviously not going to be -5 SD's. If you're down $15k....then yeah, that's pretty messed up.


If I had to guess, I'd guess on you being cheated or you're doing something wrong (sim, math, etc.).

[stopgambling]

Your max bet of 2x $90 is around $120 , So losing around close to 40 max bets in 73 hours is certainly not a 5 SD event. i have lost 80 max bets in around 100 to 150 hour stretch ( from fuzzy memory) . While it sucks it certainly is not anything out of the ordinary. i am guessing it is just your emotion at work . Usually is with ranting.

[Meistro123]

I really don't think that losing 45 max bets over 70 hours of play is a 1 in 3.5 million event

[Counting_Is_Fun]

haha meistro to the answer

[ShipTheCookies]

If you have problems with even the slightest bit of emotion in this endeavor, you aren't properly prepared.

[G Man]

ShipTheCookies, tell us about YOUR emotions. How much can you lose without showing any emotion? $100, $1000, $10000, $200000?

[refinery]

ShipTheCookies, tell us about YOUR emotions. How much can you lose without showing any emotion? $100, $1000, $10000, $200000?

I've lost $15,040 in one session without showing emotion. The 15k was playing blackjack, and the $40 was finishing a bottle of bourbon after losing the 15.

[hitthat16]

My last all time high was April 2018. It’s been a pretty nasty year.

[G Man]

therefinery, are you ShipTheCookies? hitthat16, who care about what you just wrote???

[G Man]

I find it funny everytime I read some "I will show you how cool real pros are" that likes to show himself as the cool guy that is "mentally prepared for Blackjack". He can lose 20% of is bankroll in a single night and stay totally cool as if nothing happened. Great! I've been on $20K bankroll and on $1 million bankroll with everything in between and you know what? I HATE LOSING. I'm not going crazy or lose my temper or concentration, BUT I HATE LOSING. And you know one other thing? I can't stand a fucking "cool" moron on any of my team if he acts like nothing happened when he lose 20% of our investors money. This kind of "cool" is BULLSHIT.

[hitthat16]

therefinery, are you ShipTheCookies? hitthat16, who care about what you just wrote???

It’s a comment about losing in a thread about losing. Are you for real? ????

[cc12b]

There are many posts and people like Snyder, Zender, Jacobson etc, saying the casinos should not fear counters as only small percentage of them make some money because majority of counters will give up when bad luck, variance in ap jargon, rears it ugly head.

[G Man]

hitthat16, it's not a thread about losing, it's a thread about a miscalculation of EV and SD... However, posters like you and a hundred more on this side can make a simple thread that deserves 2-3 good answers turn into a 10 pages thread. Go back to first post by jacquesblack and try to answer... This is as simple as that! We don't need to know that you lost $15K in a session, we don't need to read about how cool ShipTheCookies is when he loses $10 or $1000