Buick Riviera: Just For Fun

[Buick Riviera]

I?ve always been intrigued by Benny B.?s old school ?set your limit with your first bet? approach to gaming and the idea that there must be some reasonable way for a casino to offer a decent BJ game without treating counters like crooks. So, just for fun, I'm wondering if the following game would be attractive to both casinos and players (including counters) and why or why not? I?m not mathematically astute enough to figure out the answers myself. My proposed rules:

1. Your first bet sets your spread for that session. In other words if you want to spread 1-10,000 then your first bet would have to be 10,000 units.

2. No mid-shoe entry.

3. No sitting out hands without reestablishing a new max bet at the beginning of the next shoe (play-all required).

4. If you left the table for any reason (even a potty break) you would have to reestablish your max bet at the beginning of the next shoe.

5. No time limit on a session, that being defined as only when you start and when you miss your first hand.

6. 6 decks, DOA, H17, DAS, RSA, no surr, 2 dks cut off out of six, 2 other players.

Assume a $20,000 bankroll and a desired 10% risk of ruin. Also assume the dealer could keep everyone?s max bet straight (maybe use buttons). :-)

Would a casino be crazy to offer this game or would a player be crazy to play it? If playable how would you attack it? Could you play enough hands in one session to overcome the off the top max bet disadvantage?

Buick

[college kid]

I am not as mathematically astute as oh I don't know, let's say ol' Don here, but I for one would love to freely be able to have a 10,000 unit max bet whenever the count warrants it, without heat, regardless of the rules and that 10,000 off the top play!

> I?ve always been intrigued by Benny B.?s old
> school ?set your limit with your first bet?
> approach to gaming and the idea that there
> must be some reasonable way for a casino to
> offer a decent BJ game without treating
> counters like crooks. So, just for fun, I'm
> wondering if the following game would be
> attractive to both casinos and players
> (including counters) and why or why not? I?m
> not mathematically astute enough to figure
> out the answers myself. My proposed rules:

> 1. Your first bet sets your spread for that
> session. In other words if you want to
> spread 1-10,000 then your first bet would
> have to be 10,000 units.

> 2. No mid-shoe entry.

> 3. No sitting out hands without
> reestablishing a new max bet at the
> beginning of the next shoe (play-all
> required).

> 4. If you left the table for any reason
> (even a potty break) you would have to
> reestablish your max bet at the beginning of
> the next shoe.

> 5. No time limit on a session, that being
> defined as only when you start and when you
> miss your first hand.

> 6. 6 decks, DOA, H17, DAS, RSA, no surr, 2
> dks cut off out of six, 2 other players.

> Assume a $20,000 bankroll and a desired 10%
> risk of ruin. Also assume the dealer could
> keep everyone?s max bet straight (maybe use
> buttons). :-)

> Would a casino be crazy to offer this game
> or would a player be crazy to play it? If
> playable how would you attack it? Could you
> play enough hands in one session to overcome
> the off the top max bet disadvantage?

> Buick

[Coug Fan]

> I?ve always been intrigued by Benny B.?s old
> school ?set your limit with your first bet?
> approach to gaming and the idea that there
> must be some reasonable way for a casino to
> offer a decent BJ game without treating
> counters like crooks. So, just for fun, I'm
> wondering if the following game would be
> attractive to both casinos and players
> (including counters) and why or why not? I?m
> not mathematically astute enough to figure
> out the answers myself. My proposed rules:

> 1. Your first bet sets your spread for that
> session. In other words if you want to
> spread 1-10,000 then your first bet would
> have to be 10,000 units.

> 2. No mid-shoe entry.

> 3. No sitting out hands without
> reestablishing a new max bet at the
> beginning of the next shoe (play-all
> required).

> 4. If you left the table for any reason
> (even a potty break) you would have to
> reestablish your max bet at the beginning of
> the next shoe.

> 5. No time limit on a session, that being
> defined as only when you start and when you
> miss your first hand.

> 6. 6 decks, DOA, H17, DAS, RSA, no surr, 2
> dks cut off out of six, 2 other players.

> Assume a $20,000 bankroll and a desired 10%
> risk of ruin. Also assume the dealer could
> keep everyone?s max bet straight (maybe use
> buttons). :-)

> Would a casino be crazy to offer this game
> or would a player be crazy to play it? If
> playable how would you attack it? Could you
> play enough hands in one session to overcome
> the off the top max bet disadvantage?

> Buick

I think it depends on the table minimum (is it $5, $1, or $.01). The ideal approach may be to bet big off the top, as required, bet small every other hand until TC+2 or +3, then ramp up to your big bet by TC+5 or +6. In an ideal world, your biggest bet would be @$500 - $600, and your small bet would be $.01. If this was the minimum, you would never need to wong-out, otherwise you might have an optimal departure point, depending on the table min. Actually, if the minimum really was $.01, then you would want to wear depends and bring some candy bars to the table so you never had to get up.

The rules would need to be very clearly laid out. For example, if a push "qualified" your first bet, the playing strategy for that hand would change to one of minimizing the chance of loss (i.e. you would want more pushes).

[Cyrus]

I for one would love to freely be able to have a 10,000 unit max bet whenever the count warrants it, without heat, regardless of the rules and that 10,000 off the top play!

Suppose you wager 1 Big Bet off the top, to set the maximum betting limit allowed for you. Your expectation would be (assuming you're just countin' and not doing anything more nasty) to start your session with a loss of (Basic Strategy casino edge)*(Big Bet). In your "wish", that looks to be approximately (-0.5%)*($10,000) = -$50.

To measure the effect of fluctuations caused by that move, one would have to know the extent of each session. A continuous 72-hour session, for instance, would minimize that effect. One could ask for a catheter comp.

[ET Fan]

I assume you mean with NO heat or countermeasures of any kind.

Would a casino be crazy to offer this game

Yes. Slowly, over a period of months and years, the locals would buy books, and learn how to kill the game. Those that didn't would be chided and educated by their neighbors. Game would lose money.

or would a player be crazy to play it?

Yes -- if you had to travel any distance to get to it. Much better games are available all over the U.S. The one time max bet at c. -0.5% is no big deal, IMHO, but no conceivable spread would make up for the lousy pen.

If playable how would you attack it? Could you play enough hands in one session to overcome the off the top max bet disadvantage?

Indubitably. I can play for eight hours without a potty break.

Heat is an inevitable part of the historical anamoly that is card counting. Where it is lacking, games gets killed VERY quickly, and heat returns.

ETF

[Red Baron]

I agree casinos would be crazy to offer these rules but for not the reasons you listed.
Most ploppies bet table mininmum when they first approach the tables. The ploppies will not be allowed to bet more than table minimum if this idiotic rule is used.

Oddly enough, a casino who is stupid enough to use this rule will save gamblers tons of money by "constraining" their action. We can easily see who the big loser would be.

As for the card counter, the only thing that changes is we are forced to pay for freedom. A much easier and less costly solution is play at casinos who are less likely to sweat my action.

I would have to adjust for the cost of making max bets when no advantage exist,this can be more costly than you think. Being forced to bet the max several times an hour for the price of cover is not all peaches and cream. There are still restrictions on the existing bankroll that MUST be looked at with caution and evaluation.

Red Baron

[ET Fan]

[Cyrus]

BR : Would a casino be crazy to offer this game ?

ETF : Yes. Slowly, over a period of months and years, the locals would buy books, and learn how to kill the game. Those that didn't would be chided and educated by their neighbors. Game would lose money.

I trust this is said with tongue firmly in cheek.

ETF : The one time max bet at c. -0.5% is no big deal, IMHO, but no conceivable spread would make up for the lousy [4/6] pen.

Welcome to Europe, if you ever will. And I think that there are conceivable spreads that can beat (compenspate for) that pen.

ETF : ...the historical anamoly that is card counting.

I believe Blackjack itself is the historical anamoly. (Card counting is the historical wacamole.)

[ET Fan]

ETF : Yes. Slowly, over a period of months and years, the locals would buy books, and learn how to kill the game. Those that didn't would be chided and educated by their neighbors. Game would lose money.

I trust this is said with tongue firmly in cheek.

Nope. I believe that heat is what causes much of the stupidity at the tables. If good players could talk openly about the books they have read, how much they have won, etc., a hierarchy would develop among players that's the first step toward education. At the very least, the poor players would KNOW they are poor, and would take the advice from good players to bet the minimum. Poor players would also frequently ask for, and take, advice on bets, and play of the hand. Every time a good player sat down, there would potentially be a team. Like I said, game would lose money.

Welcome to Europe, if you ever will. And I think that there are conceivable spreads that can beat (compenspate for) that pen.

Disagree. Very large spreads have a very rapidly diminishing rate of return. The opposite holds for pen. I haven't run the numbers, but I'll hazzard a guess that 1 to 16 at a 5/6 game gets a better DI than 1 to infinity at 4/6.

ETF

[quark]

> Disagree. Very large spreads have a very
> rapidly diminishing rate of return. The
> opposite holds for pen. I haven't run the
> numbers, but I'll hazzard a guess that 1 to
> 16 at a 5/6 game gets a better DI than 1 to
> infinity at 4/6.

I am fairly new to Blackjack, but consider myself somewhat knowledgeable of the game after lurking here for over a year... so it surprises me to hear someone of your caliber claim that the spread diminishes to SUCH a degree. Very surprising to me, if true. I would "think" that a spread of say $1 with no advantage to $1 million dollars WITH the advantage would be the KILLER game! Am I missing something? I am aware that pen is important, but I thought spread was too. It's just that you can't "get away" with that kind of spread so pen may come out ahead... considering.

[bond trader]

> I am fairly new to Blackjack, but consider
> myself somewhat knowledgeable of the game
> after lurking here for over a year... so it
> surprises me to hear someone of your caliber
> claim that the spread diminishes to SUCH a
> degree. Very surprising to me, if true. I
> would "think" that a spread of say
> $1 with no advantage to $1 million dollars
> WITH the advantage would be the KILLER game!
> Am I missing something? I am aware that pen
> is important, but I thought spread was too.
> It's just that you can't "get
> away" with that kind of spread so pen
> may come out ahead... considering.

While your EV would certainly increase considerably if your max bet was, say $1mln, ET Fan was referencing DI, the square root of SCORE. While having a max bet of $1mln would produce a large EV, the bankroll required to make million-dollar max bets would be so large as to render the EV quite small in comparison.

You can also think of it this way: if you are wonging, you essentially have an infinite spread, since your min bet is zero. While this improves DI, it doesn't send it through the roof.

BT

[Don Schlesinger]

Let's put it this way: a 1-200 spread wouldn't come close, in a 4/6 game, to a 1-16 spread in a 5/6 game.

Don

[Cyrus]

"Very large spreads have a very rapidly diminishing rate of return. The opposite holds for pen. I haven't run the numbers, but I'll hazzard a guess that 1 to 16 at a 5/6 game gets a better DI than 1 to infinity at 4/6."

I do not claim otherwise. (And I have run quite some numbers on the SBA! None with "infinity", though.)

What I now see is that when you said "no conceivable spread would make up for the lousy pen" you meant "shop elsewhere!", which is fair enough. And not that 4/6 can't be beaten with "a conceivable spread". (I'll hazzard the guess that having limited choices is as bad as having bad pen. But I haven't run those numbers.)