if a player at your table is oblivious to what BS is, particularly on soft hands, does that player's play REALLY affect antything. sometimes i feel like saying "you are supposed" to do this or that with that hand. but does it really matter how other people play their hands out when they don't really know "how" to play? or should i just not pay attention?
> if a player at your table is oblivious to what BS is,
> particularly on soft hands, does that player's play
> REALLY affect antything. sometimes i feel like saying
> "you are supposed" to do this or that with
> that hand. but does it really matter how other people
> play their hands out when they don't really know
> "how" to play? or should i just not pay
> attention?
Short answers: No, yes.
Card counting tells us nothing about the exact order of the undealt cards. A player making a boneheaded play is equally likely to help or hurt us.
Since we generally wish to maintain a low profile at the tables, it is best to simply ignore such play.
The idea that having everyone at the table play proper basic strategy somehow improves the "flow of the cards" and decreases the house advantage is superstitious nonsense.
A number of years back, in an attempt to prove/disprove card "clumping" or "bunching" theory, I wrote a series of programs. Key to these simes was the shuffle -- a model of the "stutter shuffle" in use at the time, which was alleged to be a crooked shuffle by Uston and Patterson & others.
The first of which was to track results in terms of "needed" cards. For example, if you were doubling ten vs 6 or less, the cards 7 thru A were deemed "needed;" and if you were hitting 16 vs 8, the cards 2 thru 5 were deemed "needed."
Results were kept in array elements in terms of how many needed cards had fallen in the last 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 cards seen to fall. (IOW, the dealer's down card would never be "seen" before decision time.)
This program gave some results which seemed impressive at the time; so were plugged into a program which, for example, would only double A5 vs 6 if the previous "seen" card was not "needed."
At a simulated table w/6 players and 6D Atlantic City rules at the time (DAS, S17, SP3, 75% pen, etc.), the results of the first run were interesting. These exceptions to BS caused the 1st baseman to do somewhat better than expected under pure BS, the 2nd baseman very slightly better, and players 3, 4, 5 & 6 all worse. Indeed, when graphed, the results were almost exactly a straight line from somewhat better results for Player 1 to abysmal results for Player 6.
So then, I modified the sim so that only Players 1 & 2 used the modifications, and 4-6 played pure B.S. The first 2 players did about as well as in the first test, but all the other players did about equally worse than they should have.
So I then modified the sim so that only Players 5 & 6 used the mods, and players 1-4 played pure B.S. The first 4 players did as well as they should playing B.S., but players 5 & 6 did even worse than they did in the first test.
Conclusions? Before I get there, let me first state that these "modifications to Basic Strategy" are what would be considered "bad plays." They are, after all, not Basic Strategy.
But considering the straight line results in the first test, and the results of subsequent tests, I am forced to conclude that "bad players" to your right DO hurt you and that "bad players" to your left, even in the allegedly crucial 3rd base position, do NOT hurt you.
Now, remember, these runs were only on Basic Strategy under a narrow set of conditions. They could be different with a different number of players, or under a different set of "bad plays." Also, they have absolutely nothing to do with card counting, the effects of which would normally be enough to overcome these effects, assuming they do hold true beyond the limited scope of those computer runs.
BUT -- and IMHO it's a BIG "but" -- I've found that it's seems to be true. Many times I have switched seats (i.e., moved to his right) when a "bad" player came to the table on my right, with positive results virtually every time. Now you know why I like 1st base so much -- I don't have to worry about what the other players do or don't do.
It could be actual, or it could be psychological, and it's surely emperical, but who cares? It works for ME!
Also, I should add, I also concluded from these sims that card "clumping," to the extent it may or may not exist, even under the nasty, evil "stutter shuffle", is not exploitable.
I had to do some thinking before I could even write code to detect like-card clumping. After all, it's not anywhere near clearly enough defined to put in a computer program.
After some thought, I decided the ultimate "like card clump" is an adjacent pair of the same value in the shoe -- e.g. two Fives coming out one after the other. The occurence of those is mathematically predictable; so any deviation from the theoretical would be an indication of any tendancy toward, or away from, like card bunching.
I did find that the stutter shuffle does increase like-card clumping, but, as I stated earlier, it's not exploitable, and was only proved in the very narrow parameters of the test; the conditions for which really don't exist any more.
What was the number of rounds used in each sim, and what were the standard errors of the results with respect to the magnitude of the apparent differences?
Don
> Short answers: No, yes.
> Card counting tells us nothing about the exact order
> of the undealt cards. A player making a boneheaded
> play is equally likely to help or hurt us.
> Since we generally wish to maintain a low profile at
> the tables, it is best to simply ignore such play.
> The idea that having everyone at the table play proper
> basic strategy somehow improves the "flow of the
> cards" and decreases the house advantage is
> superstitious nonsense.
I do give Basic Strategy lessons to unskilled players at the table. I have no desire to take a dime of anyone's money but the casino's, but there's no getting around this fact; when I Wong in or out of a table or spread to 2 hands I'm taking money from the uneducated. We wouldn't do it to another counter, and we wouldn't like it if another counter did it to us, so why should we do it to a ploppy? Most of us were ploppies at some time. Being better than that is of value to me.
So I pay them back with Basic Strategy. And it's a gift that keeps on giving, if they remember to hit A7 vs. 10 after I'm gone. One time I even got a nice gratuity from a whale I was advising. Ploppies are also more likely to let you partner with them on splits and doubles if you make friends with them first, and this is a very lucrative play so we help ourselves as we help others.
The one thing I will never do is give betting advice to another player. That crosses a line. The casino has no reason to tolerate me after a move like that and I'm also exposing another person to the same variance that crushes many of us.
An interesting effect I've calculated is that the presence of a counter at the table is of a slight help to a BS player, because we are drawing fewer cards in high counts and more cards in low counts. The effect is amplified by the Late Surrender rule.
Now the tricky part is when I and a ploppy have the same hand and an advanced play is called for due to the count. That's where the smooth talking comes in because I would never want to give someone bad advice. Fortunately it rarely happens.
> What was the number of rounds used in each sim, and
> what were the standard errors of the results with
> respect to the magnitude of the apparent differences?
Now you're asking me to go back to the late '70s, early '80s, even before the IBM PC came out -- which means two things: (a) I don't remember the number of rounds, but I'm sure they didn't exceed 5- or 10MM, because (b) the only home computer available at the time was the TRS-80. In fact, the only way to get anything at all out of an old TRaSh-80 was to write everything in Z-80 assembler.
I remember it taking a month of running 24 hours a day for that computer to work out Basic Strategy in BASIC, which was why I bit the bullet and learned assembler.
Unfortunately, being limited to assembler meant no access to higher math functions, such as powers and square roots of floating point numbers. Even calculating and working with logs would have been waaay too time consuming, not to mention the complexity and RAM requirements of going that route.
Thus, calculating such exotic things as SDs were pretty much beyond the capabilities of the machine. I'm not saying you couldn't do it if you used a higher level language -- but the loss in speed would mean it would take weeks or months to obtain enough data to be stastically significant. This is why I had to look for patterns (i.e., consistency) in graphs of the results, such as described in the original post.
But all this is mainly of historical interest (if of any interest at all), and was pretty much off topic, now that I think about it. We old coots do have a tendency to ramble on about the "old days," don't we?
> I do give Basic Strategy lessons to unskilled players
> at the table.
> So I pay them back with Basic Strategy. And it's a
> gift that keeps on giving, if they remember to hit A7
> vs. 10 after I'm gone.
Why, what benefits do you receive? All you're doing is exposing yourself as a "knowlegeable" player, something I don't want anything to do with.
> Now the tricky part is when I and a ploppy have the
> same hand and an advanced play is called for due to
> the count. That's where the smooth talking comes in
> because I would never want to give someone bad advice.
> Fortunately it rarely happens.
So when it does, what do you do? Lie? Now the ploppy goes away confused about whether to hit 12 v 3 or stand. So much for your education.
I'm sorry, I just don't go along with giving ANY advice...BS, betting, whatever. I want to fade into the woodwork when I play when it comes to playing decisions.
Let the ploppy learn basic strategy like I did...by themselves!
Regards,
PM
I completely agree. We want to conceal the fact that we are knowledgeable players for as long as possible.
In addition, it is not in our best interest to educate the masses. If everyone played perfect basic strategy, table holds would plummet and the casinos would implement more unfavorable rules or do away with the game entirely.
Besides, anyone who sits down at at table and buys in without even knowing basic stategy deserves whatever happens to them.
Advice is often not even appreciated by the players themselves.The first time the correct play happens to make them lose in a specific situation, they will return to their own good old strategy.That's why when asked,I usually just shrug my shoulders.
Francis Salmon
> when I Wong in or out of a table .. I'm taking money from the uneducated.
It may be nit-picking but I don't agree that wonging out takes money from anyone. They were there before you showed up and will be there after you leave. Just because you don't volunteer to eat some of those bad cards does not personalize your action.
> Being better than that is of value to me.
Me to .. except it only extends, for me, not to purposefully give BAD advice to others who ask. There are some (many?) around who do.
There is only negative expectation for outing yourself to the casino as a sharpie; that's to big a burden to bear, even for a nice guy like you!
(Regarding A7 v 10 .. most ploppies I know stick to any 18 like flys to flypaper. Now, trying to get one to double A8 or A9 would be the real giveaway.)
You seem to have the best of intentions, but I would argue that you are not helping the ploppies at all. Ploppies by definition are not playing with a realistic expectation that they will win money. They are happy being long-term losers.
Ploppies play for various reasons. The two most common are entertainment value and the excitement of short-term fluctuation. By giving them BS advice, you are likely criticizing their playing decision which does not help their enjoyment level. It probably makes them enjoy the session less. In effect, you are reducing one of the primary benefits that they get from the game.
If you really want to help ploppies, then applaud all of their plays that end up working by pointing out how the dealer would have made a hand if it wasn't for their great play. Be silent when their play hurts the table. Especially applaud all of their high variance plays and make sure you let them know whenever they have a chance to double down, etc. This way, the ploppy gets his/her ego stroked and enjoys their experience a bit more. Last thing, I like to make a big deal about their generousity in tipping the dealer. This encourages the other ploppies to tip, and a smart dealer may not be as upset at me for not tipping them personally (I always maintain that I am still down after the huge beating last night).
Quit worrying about helping the ploppies EV. It ain't gonna happen, and even if it does, you are taking away from their real benefit in playing.
I also will not give basic strategy lessions at the table. How can you tell a player to hit his 16 vs 10 or 12 vs 3 when as soon as the count is positive you do not? These are two simple examples but the result is you let the casino know that you might know some basic strategy and then when you deviate you bring attention from players you gave advice too. Additionally, it is their money so those who do not ask for advice should never get it. From those who do ask, you never really know how they will react when your advice backfires.
I do have an exception in the case of a negative shoe if I am not wonging out. I have when asked suggested that a player do a proper split. Helping them eat negative cards.
Victoria
> We old coots do have a
> tendency to ramble on about the "old days,"
> don't we?
What do you mean, "we"?? :-)
Don
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