Hey y'all, just felt like sharing my experience as a new counter who's been getting crushed so far.

Let me also preface this by saying I've put in my time (200+ hours at a conservative estimate) off the felt and I'm confident I'm playing a winning game. This also isn't a whining post.

Over the last year I've been saving up a bankroll of $10,000 (replenishable) to take a shot at counting. So far it hasn't quite gone as planned:

Session 1: -$443 (8 hours)
Session 2: -$210 (3 hours)
Session 3: -$687.50 (4 hours)
Session 4: -$1557.50 (1.5 hours)

Overall: -$2898 (16.5 hours)

I made a couple mistakes in my first session (Nobody told me that when you double they can place the card face down, and I forgot to account for it a couple times lol) but I've played pretty on point aside from that. I spread 1:20 on a $10 minimum 6D H17 DAS RSA NS game and 1:10 on a $15 minimum DD H17 DAS RSA NS game, both with amazing penetration. I use HiLo, half deck estimations (quarter for DD), and the deviations as found on the BJA app. That leaves me with an average RoR of something around 10% which I'm willing to stomach for higher EV, and unfortunately I'm trending towards busto. I went into this accepting that I may well lose every dime in my bankroll, so weirdly I'm at peace with my losses. The only thing that frustrates me is that I may not be able to play anymore for a while if I were to lose my whole bankroll. Obviously I'm sure more experienced counters have gone on much larger and longer downswings, but it's been quite the inaugural experience. If only my real bankroll was looking like my BJA app bankroll

How were your first experiences counting?