Well, in my case, it’s hand to mouth. Fixed income just enough to cover expenses. My BJ is the supplemental income used strictly for luxuries like a vacation or car.Originally Posted by BoSox
Deck estimation is ok. I am okay with the I-18 and a few others. It’s the ramp I struggle with. Am I ramping up too slow or too quickly, etc. Yesterday, I played a 6 deck game, $15 minimum, deeply dealt. I started out 2 x $15, dropped to one hand of $15 at TC -1, went to 2 x $25 at TC2, 2 x $35 at TC3, 2 x$50 at TC 4, 2 x $75 at TC5, on rare occasions when TC went higher, I max bet at 2 x $100.
I suspect I am not ramping up faster but not sure.
Yes, too timid a ramp.
Why are you starting with 2 hands? I would only do that if the table is crowded and I'm trying to preserve my second spot. And if the table is crowded, I'd look for another table.
As you know, if you run this through CVCX, it will give you the optimum ramp. I ran this only for 1 hand:
Untitled-1.jpg
As you can see, your ROR with your 80K bankroll is zero, so no reason to be timid. Start ramping at +1, as you have a small edge. Your count is going to be greater than +4 only 3% of the time. That's 3 hands/hour, so you should not wait so long for your max bet because when you lose that max bet, it's going to demoralize you, and you're not going to have many opportunities to recover it with a win (assuming you don't freak out and cut your bet in the next high count hand).
One thing that surprises me is the SCORE is so low for a 5/6 game. If anyone else could comment, I wonder if I am missing something?
Thanks, that makes sense. Since there is little heat, is there an issue with wIting and going to 2 hands in positive counts? Playing one hand of $150 gets more attention than 2 hands of $95 or $100.
I will try it tomorrow. Hope someone answers on the SCORE question.
Zee, pay attention to the percentages of true count frequencies and you will see for yourself you need to ramp up much quicker. At a $15 minimum table and for you to be betting two times $25 at a true count of +2, and two times $35 at +3, and two times $50 at +4, as well as your top bet, is your main problem. I think you are afraid to lose a session and subsequently only playing to break even to occupy the time.
Keep in mind this is for head-to-head. If there are other players, you should be spreading to 2 spots at +1 or +2.
I've never quite understood how CVCX calculates the differences in EV, SCORE, and the other metrics when playing 1 spot vs. 2, but I suspect that you'd see a higher SCORE here if you told it you'd play 2 spots (and have higher total bets per round) when the count favored you. This isn't right, but I'm pretty sure that's what CVCX would show - Norm can you confirm/deny/explain this?
If there are other players at the table, by all means, spread to two hands at +1 and above, but I'd start with 1x$15. If you're heads up, it's better to play one hand, but if it attracts attention, then go to two. Another thing to consider is other than your initial bet of $15, try to avoid using red chips along with green. Just use green chips once you're raising your bet. You slow the game down with multi-color bets.
I did go today and played as per your suggestion. However, I had to deal with heavy variance. I lost $750 in about an hour, followed by another hour of not much movement and then one great shoe where I won max bet after max bet, betting 2 x $100. I played 2.5 hours, cashed out with $1200, a win of $450.
I was upset losing so much so quickly, and then an hour not making much progress, thought about leaving, come back another day but it was right at 5:00 p.m. and dealing with rush hour traffic was not in the plans. I thought I would play another 45 minutes when I got that lucky shoe. I played 2 more shoes, went down. $200, got it back.
Thanks.
Reread Don's posts about the statistics of winning and losing; then read them again. That's how this game works. There's nothing you can do to change that. You have to work on that. What happens from hand to hand is statistical noise. If you go back to the sim I posted on the previous page, you'll see the hourly SD is $585, so your $750 loss is not unexpected. It's the long term that matters.
I understand it intellectually but when a $750 loss is followed by another couple of losses (I know it’s variance), I feel a loss of confidence, an expectation of loss at the next session and it only stops after a big win. I have to train my mind to deal with it. I look at my BR that has diminished and when I have lost a couple of thousand of my BR, I just quit for a while.
In any case, thanks for the reminders.
If your bankroll goes down by 10 percent, you could maybe rescale your betting system by a factor of 0.9. This would be a rational decision, or maybe wait till it goes down to 80 percent. But getting upset about every little loss won't help. 750 dollars is less than 1 percent of your bankroll. Do you also complain or get enthusiastic after winning 1 percent (800 dollars) of your bankroll?
Last edited by PinkChip; 10-16-2019 at 05:50 AM.
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