I looked on bjstats.com and found the following information for KO and Hi-Lo using the criteria below:

Spread: 1-12 units
Play All
Rules: DAS, DA2, LS, 6D, 75% Penetration

For KO:

EV: .93%
SCORE: 24.36
NO: 40,879

For Hi-Lo:

EV: .99%
SCORE: 30.67
NO: 32,656

In the above situation Hi-Lo earns an extra $6/Hr or 25% greater earnings then KO. This may not seem like a lot of money but over the course of lets say 1000 hours thats $6000 in increased earnings. Whats more bankrolls grow exponentially not linearly so the gain from using Hi-Lo would likely be more then 6K. Finally, if you look at NO for each system you will see that Hi-Lo requires only 80% of the number of hands that it would take if playing with KO to realize SCORE.

(40,879 - 32,656)/40,879 = 80%

If my reasoning is incorrect I'm sure you guys will correct me. :-)

Moving along on bjstats NO is defined as "the number of hands needed to obtain a result reasonably close to the expected result".

How close is reasonably close? If I were to play with KO does that mean it would require roughly 41,000 hands for my hourly earnings to equal $24.36?

I realize NO is just an estimate so how likely is it that I will realize the given SCORE of $24.36/Hr (or greater)given the NO of 41,000 hands? Is it 80%? 90%? 95%? 99%? I think you guys understand what I'm asking.

Finally, why does Hi-Lo require fewer hands to be played then KO to be certain of achieving a given SCORE? If my understanding of NO is correct then it would appear as though Hi-Lo gets to the long term faster then does KO. At 100 Hands/Hr, 8,000 fewer hands played is 80 hrs less spent at the tables with higher earnings. Thats not something which should be taken lightly.

Perhaps these are some of the reasons why professional teams use balanced systems; namely increased earnings in less time. Sounds good to me. :-)

-MJ