Don/other experts, How to find covariance of a game ?

[aceside]

Then you don't know what covariance is. Covariance by definition requires at least two simultaneous hands.

I guess you often do not need two specific hands to find the covariance. Consider a six-deck shoe with the strip rules, and you just sit at the table to play two hand simultaneously. Your girlfriend asks you, what is the covariance of the two hand? Wong says 0.482456.

[Gramazeka]

First time I've ever heard that. I see no basis at all for that strategy.

Don

Snyder was talking about this. As far as I remember, in his book « Cookbook».

[bjarg]

What I can see here is that aceside tries to avoid the problem of multiple hands associated with a dealer Blackjack. The strategy could be applicable to Ace sequencing... Play only one hand and share the Ace with the dealer (on average) instead of playing a "buffer hand" and lose both to a dealer BJ.

But that logic would be innacurate.
Im far from being an expert in sequencing, but Ive done my fair share of it on simple shuffles and casinos with sloppy procedures where dealers showed cards and what you really want to do in a round with an ace is to bet big in the box where you have the ace tracked, but also bet minimum (or very small) in all the other boxes.
That way if you miss the ace you reduce the chances of it going to the dealer at a very little cost which far outweights the risk of losing that max bet against a dealers ace.
Of course doing this solo raises huge red flags, for obvious reasons.
Most experts Ive seen play serious sequencing strategies had team members to play those minimum bets when required.

[bjarg]

First time I've ever heard that. I see no basis at all for that strategy.

Don

Same here. First time.

Snyder was talking about this. As far as I remember, in his book « Cookbook».

Dont remember reading about that in the Cookbook my friend. It's been a while since I last read it. I will take a look at it to see if I find that.

[G Man]

If you have the Cookbook 2003 Edition, it's at bottom of page 75 and top of page 76

[bjarg]

If you have the Cookbook 2003 Edition, it's at bottom of page 75 and top of page 76

Thanks!

[Gramazeka]

If you have the Cookbook 2003 Edition, it's at bottom of page 75 and top of page 76

I will say more - all professional trekkers I know have used this strategy, agreeing with Snyder's findings. I'm not talking about keys and sequences, I'm talking about tracking slugs and segments.
Playing a slug with an excess of aces and a deficit of tens can be losing your ass, which is what happened to most Ace hunters who don't understand the math of Blackjack.

[bjarg]

If you have the Cookbook 2003 Edition, it's at bottom of page 75 and top of page 76

Just took a quick look at it and from what I can tell from those pages Snyder is advising against all other spots at max bets, which would definitely be a mistake.
I think it was very wise of him to include that heads up since playing only one hand in that situation might feel counter-intuitive to a person not familiar with the math of it.

[Gramazeka]

One of the hidden reasons for this advice from Snyder when it comes to one-handed aces slug is that one-handed play has more control over the attacking zone.

[Norm]

One of the problems with ace tracking is it is difficult to generalize the process. With straight card counting, you just follow the rules. With tracking, the particular situation may require quick improvisation.

But, that isn't how this conversation started. There is a difference between how to play dependent upon overall ace v ten richness (side counting) and slug tracking.