David Spence: Non-integer indexes for insurance

[David Spence]

> It is also the only linear standard BJ index.

I didn't know that. How non-linear is an index for a situation in which you want both you and the dealer to get high cards, say for doubling 9v5? Is it roughly logarithmic, exponential, or something else?

[Norm Wattenberger]

Jagged. When you get down to sub-integers, you start to see a messy line as different combinations of cards and different depths react differently depending on exactly how you estimate depth and number of players. Very few people take into account cards on the table when calculating depth. The effect in pitch games is larger than a tenth of a TC. In single deck, there are entire TC integers that never occur at all. Which makes the concept of fractional indexes rather odd.

> I didn't know that. How non-linear is an index for a
> situation in which you want both you and the dealer to
> get high cards, say for doubling 9v5? Is it roughly
> logarithmic, exponential, or something else?

[7up]

I remember some figures show that for HiLo TC+10 at different positions of a shoe, the chances of getting a picture are not the same. Is it truth?

[Norm Wattenberger]

Well, pretty much nothing remains exactly the same at different penetrations. Although the point of a TC is to get close enough that it doesn't matter.

> I remember some figures show that for HiLo TC+10 at
> different positions of a shoe, the chances of getting
> a picture are not the same. Is it truth?

[7up]

Here are those figures, by Keith Collins:

Here's what I get, dealing from a 6 deck shoe, using a weighted average of all possible subsets relative to Hi-Lo:

Cards in deck = 208 (Running count = +40, no specific removals) : TC = +10

p(2) = 5.70988303394113E-2

p(7) = 7.89013347660649E-2

p(1) = 9.55603688009498E-2

p(10) = 3.82241475203799E-1

Cards in deck = 52 (Running count = +10, no specific removals) : TC = +10

p(2) = 5.79879280021777E-2

p(7) = 7.59376758901768E-2

p(1) = 9.64494664637162E-2

p(10) = 3.85797865854865E-1

.
Since there are no specific removals -
p(6) = p(5) = p(4) = p(3) = p(2)
p(9) = p(8) = p(7)
p(10) = 4 * p(1)

http://www.advantageplayer.com/black...cgi?read=17809

[7up]

"Never take insurance on the first round for a four deck game"

[OldCootFromVA]

> "Never take insurance on the first round for a four deck game"

That does not make it non-linear. THINK about it.

[7up]

Four deck, 208-15=193,
TC3 at 193 cards in shoe, ratio of tens<1/3
TC3 at 15 cards in shoe, ratio of tens>1/3
...on average.