Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: I like bjs (blackjacks): System ques. for Don

  1. #1
    I like bjs (blackjacks)
    Guest

    I like bjs (blackjacks): System ques. for Don

    Building on my question to Norm (CVCX ques. for Norm, posted Sun. the 15th.) I am coming across numerous 6 deck sims on the CVCX online site where Hi Low outperforms Halves (A higher DI shows superior performance?). These are styles of play that I use.

    Question 1 - Should I consider switching to Hi Low? I did originally use Hi Low.

    Question 2 - Why is Hi Low frequently outperforming Halves. I understood that Halves more closely resembled the exact value of the cards according to Griffin?

    Question 3 - Who invented Hi Low?

    Question 4 - Are the sims on CVCX online truncated or rounded?

    Thnx for your time

  2. #2
    Don Schlesinger
    Guest

    Don Schlesinger: Re: System ques. for Don

    > Building on my question to Norm (CVCX ques. for Norm,
    > posted Sun. the 15th.) I am coming across numerous 6
    > deck sims on the CVCX online site where Hi Low
    > outperforms Halves (A higher DI shows superior
    > performance?). These are styles of play that I use.

    > Question 1 - Should I consider switching to Hi Low? I
    > did originally use Hi Low.

    No, Halves is superior. Without seeing the sims, I can't tell you why it underperforms Hi-Lo. Maybe the Hi-Lo sim you chose used more indices. Maybe Halves didn't use half-decks for TC calculation. Norm should know.

    > Question 2 - Why is Hi Low frequently outperforming
    > Halves. I understood that Halves more closely
    > resembled the exact value of the cards according to
    > Griffin?

    See above.

    > Question 3 - Who invented Hi Low?

    Harvey Dubner, 1963. Perfected by Julian Braun and, later, by Stanford Wong.

    > Question 4 - Are the sims on CVCX online truncated or
    > rounded?

    Ask Norm. Easiest way to tell is look at frequency of TC of zero. If 45%, then truncated. If 25%, then floored. they won't be rounded, I don't think.

    Don

  3. #3
    Norm Wattenberger
    Guest

    Norm Wattenberger: Re: System ques. for Don

    > Question 2 - Why is Hi Low frequently outperforming
    > Halves. I understood that Halves more closely
    > resembled the exact value of the cards according to
    > Griffin?

    There are a lot of HiLo sims. Make certain you are comparing apples with apples.

    > Question 4 - Are the sims on CVCX online truncated or
    > rounded?

    My attempt was to sim each strategy as presented in its respective book. Oddly, most books are vague on this point. They all give easy examples where the remainder doesn't require integerization and don't indicate how the indexes were generated. The overall results are not substantially different. But the TC frequencies are very different as Don points out.

  4. #4
    I like bjs (blackjacks)
    Guest

    I like bjs (blackjacks): Re: System ques. for Don and Norm

    > There are a lot of HiLo sims. Make certain you are
    > comparing apples with apples.

    > My attempt was to sim each strategy as presented in
    > its respective book. Oddly, most books are vague on
    > this point. They all give easy examples where the
    > remainder doesn't require integerization and don't
    > indicate how the indexes were generated. The overall
    > results are not substantially different. But the TC
    > frequencies are very different as Don points out.

    An example where Hi Low is outperforming Halves (I find many examples in the CVCX sims with 4.5/6 deck with lower spreads, various rules and Ill. 18 fab. 4 or full indexes):

    Using Ill. 18, Fab 4 with both counts

    fields on CVCX:
    decks - 6
    rules - h17 das ls
    spread - 3
    hands per hr. - 100
    ror - 13.5
    penetration - 78
    wong in/out - 1
    bankroll - 10,000
    back counting - check
    playing 2 hands - check
    simplify bets - no

    for Hi Low - ROR 13.3, DI 7.87
    for Halves - ROR 13.3, DI 7.6

    Comparing the two you get 7.87/7.6 = 1.03 squared = 1.06, a 6% improvement for Hi Low over Halves?

    So if the CVCX online viewer shows that Hi Low outperforms Halves in a certain style someone plays should they consider using Hi Low or is Halves always superior to Hi Low regardless of what CVCX may show?

  5. #5
    Norm Wattenberger
    Guest

    Norm Wattenberger: Re: System ques. for Don and Norm

    Ahh, this can be confusing. In the 1975 version of PBJ Stanford used rounding. In the 1994 edition he used truncation. Which is actually inferior. The original tables are better. CV products originally included three sets of tables from PBJ: Basic HiLo (the tables in the text,) Complete HiLo and Complete Halves (the tables from the appendicies.) In 1994, I added "94 Basic HiLo" to CV containing the new HiLo tables. I left the Halves tables as is and think they should be used by Halves players.

    Thus I used truncation in the HiLo tables as that is used in the new version of the book. However I stuck with rounding for Halves; as truncation was not used to generate these tables. (To tell you the truth, I don't know what was used in the original tables.) It makes very little difference in play all scenarios. However, back-counting is another story. If you use the same technique Halves will win.

    Now this seems to raise another question. Is rounding or truncation/flooring better for backcounting? Your example seems to indicate that rounding is worse. But, the optimal wongin point is different for rounding and truncation. When rounding TCs are shifted by .5. If I had to guess, I would say rounding is better overall but better or worse in specific examples. Could be an interesting study.

    All that confusion aside, the answer is that the sims used different TC calculation methods. If you move the backcounting number up or down in the CVCX tables you can find the optimal backcounting point for each strategy. Halves will probably beat HiLo when both are using the optimal backcounting TC for most counts. Of course with the full version of CVCX, you can run the sims with any TC calculation method. The sample sims aren't meant to be all encompassing.

    > An example where Hi Low is outperforming Halves (I
    > find many examples in the CVCX sims with 4.5/6 deck
    > with lower spreads, various rules and Ill. 18 fab. 4
    > or full indexes):

    > Using Ill. 18, Fab 4 with both counts

    > fields on CVCX:
    > decks - 6
    > rules - h17 das ls
    > spread - 3
    > hands per hr. - 100
    > ror - 13.5
    > penetration - 78
    > wong in/out - 1
    > bankroll - 10,000
    > back counting - check
    > playing 2 hands - check
    > simplify bets - no

    > for Hi Low - ROR 13.3, DI 7.87
    > for Halves - ROR 13.3, DI 7.6

    > Comparing the two you get 7.87/7.6 = 1.03 squared =
    > 1.06, a 6% improvement for Hi Low over Halves?

    > So if the CVCX online viewer shows that Hi Low
    > outperforms Halves in a certain style someone plays
    > should they consider using Hi Low or is Halves always
    > superior to Hi Low regardless of what CVCX may show?

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

About Blackjack: The Forum

BJTF is an advantage player site based on the principles of comity. That is, civil and considerate behavior for the mutual benefit of all involved. The goal of advantage play is the legal extraction of funds from gaming establishments by gaining a mathematic advantage and developing the skills required to use that advantage. To maximize our success, it is important to understand that we are all on the same side. Personal conflicts simply get in the way of our goals.