How sharp is the eye?

[ZenKinG]

I would say what I have said is the basics of casino play as a counter. I didn't even mention money management which is essential to learn if you are going to be a counter. If you are a counter you need to learn how to count and how to count in a casino. The learning process never ends. Those that think otherwise won't get very far. For a red chipper especially milking incentives, dealer errors etc is the biggest part of success. One dealer error an hour can make a BS player a plus EV player and can double or triple your hourly for a red chipper. Incentives can pay all your trip expenses and then some if you plan your rotation to capitalize on incentives. You just made successfully becoming a green chipper, the most important step to reach, much much more likely. Playing the best game with no cover because you can't afford cover will just burn your face out before you have the BR to be much of a threat. Sure you could teach a monkey to count but to succeed in counting at a casino takes a mastery of basic counters skills. Half is learning to count and the other half is learning to work the casino when counting. With just the former you are more likely to fail. You must have an EV that covers expenses and still makes enough to overcome variance. If your EV is cut to a small fraction of the sims while the variance remains the same your N0 grows exponentially. You probably won't last long enough to make it to the long run. With just the latter you can play a +EV game just using BS.

These are not advanced AP plays. These are the essentials to learn before you are ready to play in a casino. Some you can get a vague idea of from others but only experience will teach you. You are constantly learning. Advising people they can learn all they need to know quickly is like just handing their BR to the casino. No wonder so many counters starting out fail. They probably believe they can learn it all fast and either blow their BR from not understanding the basics of being a successful card counter or they burn all the best games with the best rules and pen before they can make any decent money playing them. First, you definitely don't avoid these games but you want to play them so you don't get backed off and don't get noticed, second. The casinos know there are a lot of would be counters that think like ZenKing. They let them play and lose their BR because they really don't know how to count. Sure they can keep a count a bet to a bet schedule but they know nothing about money management. Their 1-10 spread looks more obvious than the experienced players 1-40 spread. They think cover is to keep from getting backed off with their 1-10 spread not be able to get away with a 1-40 spread in a sweatshop. If they are one of the few that make it to the next level then they are backed off before they can make real money because they already know who they are and as soon as they start betting bigger the tap comes. They played all the games that are watched the most closely with no cover. They think because they didn't get backed off they were not noticed.

If your idea of being able to count mens counting down a deck, memorizing a hundred indices and betting to a schedule with the TC without the ability to use these abilities to make a long term profit in a casino then our definitions of learning to count are very different. What good is being able to count when it is more likely your casino doom than your casino BOOM. To me being a counter is learning the skills to make it to the long run in the casino setting.

When did I not say its important to prolong your play? Of course that's important, that's the whole idea of counting. Wong put it the best, in the Hot Shoe documentary "I can teach anyone to count, but can you get away with it for any decent amount of money"?

I also probably came off too vague with my responses. I shouldn't have said its ok to stop learning, as I always try to**keep learning and have learned much from you and others on this site. My point was that you eventually reach a certain point that you've seen it all and you know what it takes to get the money I guess I was just irriated at the time I posted and shouldn't have been so vague that could possibly lead new counters the wrong way.