After the ill 18 and fab 4

[Three]

Very True, Don. But folks that continue to place emphasis on these things that are just so much less important in today's world, just aren't adapting to current times very well. I don't have a problem at all with anyone using whatever approach they are comfortable with and I am not trying to change any established player's mind. They should play whatever approach they like and are quite capable of being successful doing so.

What I do object to is that some of these guys are pushing these outdated ideas of the importance of count and large number of Index plays to newer players. On this site in particular (as opposed to the other one that you and I participate on) we see new members join daily and it is obvious when they start posting that many are new players. I hate to see these newer players misinformed about what is important here in 2015.

I gave the numbers from the sims in the toolbar. they are pretty clearly showing what I am saying. You just spout ancient wisdom and call the info based on modern games not living in today's world. I was in a hurry this morning. I didn't cherry pick anything but try to get the same RoR for the same BR, rules and bet restrictions. Just like Don's SCORE the point was to put all the gain into a change in EV for your optimal spread at the desired RoR for your BR and the game you face. Tolerance levels and table minimums caused some barriers to spread. In the two with spread differences (sim 2 and 3) the table minimum limited the ability of spread the same as more indices. If I18 could spread the same ratio the bets would be much less. This way of equally comparing is exactly why Don created SCORE. It takes all the gain that may hide in decreased RoR and causes it to show up in EV change only. You saw what a tolerant place with great rules would return, what a great rules place with standard SCORE comparison would do (sim 1) and an H17 game with 8 decks and decent pen would return (sim 3).

All were normalized in the same way Don did SCORE except were spread was affected by boundaries imposed by table limits or tolerance ceilings. These are real issues we all have to deal with and understanding how they affect your decision on indices is very important. When I researched the problem with a small BR and table minimums interfering with your ability to spread the number of indices you used had a huge affect on your game options (just as I demonstrated in sim 3). Nobody talks about this and keeps giving advice that is not helping the small BR player. How hard is it to learn the rest of the indices to get the huge increase in EV shown in sim 3. Lie I have been trying to hammer home recently there is no one size fits all answer. The value of something can be very different to AP's in very different situations. Most successful players don't need to worry about these questions any more but are not doing those who do any service by giving advice without consider how the decision affects the person they are advising rather than how it affects them.

There are many different playing styles and situations concerning BR and risk and each has its own best answer. Like for a backcounter many of the illustrious 18 indices will always be played the same way and the indices played differently with a great deal of frequency are the higher indices. His I18 would be very different than the one everyone memorizes. The backcounter would have a different BS you might call a backcounter's BS based on his style of wonging in and out and a totally different set of most important indices. Like I said no one size fits all answer to this index question. You advise a newbie to backcount because his BR is so small and only learn the I18 indices you are not preparing him well for the decisions and their relative frequencies that determine index importance. You must tailor advice to a person's situation and I still see no logical reason not to know all positive indices except if gain is accrued slowly. Some large indices are big because there needs to be a lot of gain to deviate while others are just very poorly correlated to the play. I don't bother wit the latter. You may not use that huge positive index often but one thing is for sure when you do you will have max bet out. It is nice to have as high an EV as you can for max bets.

[Sharky]

I agree about new players being misinformed. So you're convinced Hi Lo is as good as most any powerful system that was written in 80s? I truly don't know...

HILO gets the dough and halves is better, for sure....bottom line is, what trumps all....yes, including the almighty pen...is as as Lefty would say, "i'd rather be lucky than good"...been getting slammed on ridiculously high counts...trust me, no count can save you at that point...now, luck + skill is the ultimate...

[Orangechip2]

KJ do you use hi/lo for DD and SD games?

[DSchles]

"I would love to get out of my hot tub some day and have it be 1986,"

No, you'd like it to be 1976!!

Don

[Three]

Why don't you ask Don how many indices he knows. I think everyone is umping to conclusions about what Don is saying. He never said don't learn the indices. He said you can get most of the gain fro the I18. I would be surprised if Don didn't spend the minimal effort to memorize more indices.

[Three]

OMG, you are 'cherry-picking' yet again! You want to ask a question, you already know the answer to, because you think it helps your case. I'll save you the trouble. The defense concedes that Don knows hundreds of index plays and numbers. Now ask the really pertinent question, If he knew back then what he knows now........?

I would be disappointed if he said he would only learn 18 indices. Learning indices is the easiest thing you can do to smooth the ride some and increase EV and either lower risk or raise bets or both. You invest minimal time once for increase in results forever. I never too the I18 as these are the only indices to learn. To me the value is in knowing these are the 18 indices to learn first. To try and twist it into the only indices you should learn just shows a lack of dedication to playing the best game. You see posts from those that get it about what are the indices they should learn next.

The other part I really don't get is this mantra that in todays world earning more isn't worth it. Now your advantage has shrunk to minimal and you decide you want to invite larger swings and play at either a higher risk or lower optimal bet and give up an increase in EV of 11% or so because you EV is now much smaller so that percentage increase is less in dollars. While the dollar amount went down the significance of the smaller dollar amount went up. The extra used to be sauce for the goose but now it is a more significant part of your dwindling advantage even though the actual dollar hourly is less. If your monthly net took a big hit due to decrease in pay would you use that as a trigger to decide you didn't need to earn additional money or would you see any additional money is even more important even if it is less. Like you make a net over costs of $75/hour and then costs change and you net $50/hour after costs would you decide well my net got cut by a third I don't need that extra anymore I might as well get paid $43/hour. Remember this additional cut in pay comes with worse predictability of your income. Would you decide to cut your pay even more and have more of a chance of a layoff or under earning your hourly in any given time frame. I know I would see any additional hourly as far more valuable if I made significantly less with higher volatility.

To me that logic is the opposite of how you should view things. When the games were great you could get a much larger advantage sometimes off the top advantages. This meant any count would give you a big edge so you could afford to be lazy about how you attacked the game. Your were going to have a big edge and the swings were not going to be too bad comparatively because the increased EV made it much easier to outrace the swings by growing your BR. Many did well using the A-5 count. Fast forward to edges of less than half the old edges why in the world would you decide you want to have wilder swings and make you BR more vulnerable than it was before besides just the huge drop in EV from the game deteriorating? You should be looking for ways to get some of what you have been forced to give up back.

Then you get increased heat concerns. The simpler your approach the easier it is to nail you as a counter. Ace reckoned counts are the easiest for them to nail. All you need to do is correlate bet size to playing deviations. There is almost a 100% correlation between bet size and playing deviations. You can train a catcher to be very accurate even if he knows no math. Just teach him to correlate play variation to bet variation. If heat is a bigger concern why would you make it easier to be caught by choosing approaches that are easiest to bust?

Now I do understand if you are playing with a huge BR you can afford the cover needed to fly under the radar. The swings are not going to be much of a concern. If you play on a team the team gets in so many hands in a short time many of these issues become unimportant. But if you are a solo counter with a smaller BR I don't think you can afford to invite deeper and longer swings, more heat and you need to have as high an EV as is practical.

It all comes down to the statistics. The bell curves around advantage for both playing and betting have gotten worse from both the deteriorating games and people giving up what once used more often. These wider bell curves produce results that have wilder swings due to the decrease in certainty. The HILO advantage bell curve is twice as wide as many level 2 counts. In other words when the count doesn't predict the advantage well for the current deck composition you advantage prediction that you base your bet on can be as much as twice as far off the actual advantage using one of these other counts. It is like adding a bunch of random mistakes into your play. This bell curve width is the genesis of your swings and all variance. The tighter the advantage bell curves around every decision for betting or playing the higher your EV and the more tame the roller coaster ride for your BR. There is no denying this. It is the mechanics that affect your BR's ride.

Faced with concerns of diminishing advantage and wilder swings there are 2 roads that deal with these issues. One is a monster BR and/or team play etc. It should be no surprise all teams pretty much use HILO. It is easier to teach and you can be more certain team members aren't making costly mistakes but the main reason is the fact that they are using a team makes the other concerns that are mounting almost moot. The other lane on this road is having a monster BR. The casinos are counting on that being out of most peoples reach and the roller coaster they built ultimately eating a modest BR. The monster BR allows you a better shot at the wilder roller coaster ride not busting you out. You should still approach EV at enough of a multiple of n0 but with a high n0 that just means the ride to your long run destination takes a lot more time.

The second road to dealing with the change to worse conditions is to make sure your advantage bell curve is as tight as is practical. This is done with things like more indices, ace neutral counts with an ace side count, more advanced counts and other techniques to make your count more effective (Backcounting, wonging, KJ mentions counting multiple tables and if you have the skills shuffle tracking needs to be factored in. Both of the latter become less practical with some more complicated approaches. These really don't affect the bell curve but increase your EV which makes it easier to survive a wild ride). As you tighten the advantage bell curve your optimal bets get larger because the increase in certainty of results make both EV more and results more predictable. This is the most basic math of the game. The nuts and bolts that hold everything together. It all comes down to those advantage bell curves around your betting and playing decisions. The tighter you make them the more predictable your results come in to a larger EV. These bell curves drive the changes in n0, EV and risk. When viewing what is worth it I think it wise to view it from how it affects your advantage bell curves for you betting and playing decisions. Something may only get a small increase in EV but make the ride so much easier to take.

You can solve the issues by waiting until you have a decent 6 figure BR or by joining a team or you can work on those advantage bell curves that drive the certainty of your game which defines how wild a roller coaster you are riding toward the long run in order to get to the long run the fastest with easier swings. The third option is to settle for the wide bell curves and post about huge swings of long duration if your BR is large enough or post about how counting doesn't work because your small BR wasn't sufficient to make it to the end of the ride we call the long run.

[Bodarc]

I don't know where I read it or heard it but of course Don knows and uses more indices than the I18. He learned them years ago and has never forgotten them so why not use them. After all, he started playing back in the 70's before all of this information was available. He does use the RPC system which uses 1/2 deck conversion to true count. If I remember correctly, he said that is what he learned, it is a very good count, he is comfortable with it so why change.

He also has never said not to learn more indices. When you are playing a shoe game, 75 or so percent of your advantage is going to come from the larger bet spreads you can make. Only about 25 percent of your advantage comes from playing variation. Therefore if you capture 80 to 90 percent of that 25 percent by learning only 18 indices instead of 140, you are capturing the major part of your advantage.

That is all he is saying.

Here is Don's discussion re I18
http://www.slot-machine-resource.com/podcasts/dons2.mp3

[DSchles]

Some answers:

In 1976, I learned Hi-Lo and played it a couple of times, before buying Revere's book and learning his level 2 RPC. I have used it for almost 40 years! Revere sold privately, for $25, his indices for multi-deck RPC, and I just took it for granted that I should learn all of them! Over the years, with more sophisticated software, I refined some of the numbers to produce what I consider to be very accurate indices for multi-deck, all rules variations. I have stated many times that there are at least 150 of them, and I don't apologize for not "unlearning" them. Why would I?

Everyone also knows the genesis of the Illustrious 18, and eventually, the Catch 22 and Fab 4 (surrenders), which came a little later. What people don't always understand is that I never came flat out and said not to use more than the above-mentioned indices. In fact, if you reread the middle paragraph on p. 63 of BJA3, you'll see that I wrote there pretty much the same thing that I'm writing now.

Finally, the one thing that I have debated over the years with some highly motivated and intelligent people is that they often fail to understand how it is possible that the entire world doesn't think the same way they do! While I consider myself a serious researcher of blackjack, I never considered myself an elitist. I write for everyone, and as such, I am mindful of my audience. I considered the I18, etc., an important contribution to the literature because it quantified the value of that subset of all the indices, and explained to people that they could play a meaningful, winning game of blackjack without cramming 150 indices into their head. I never told anyone NOT to do it; rather, I told them what they would, and would not, gain, by not doing it.

Everything is relative. To my knowledge, not even the most legendary teams in the history of the game: Czechs, MIT, Hyland, Greeks, etc., used, or tested for, the full array of 150+ indices. I repeat: THEY DID NOT USE THEM ALL! They used more than 26, granted. But, for most of them, it was more like 50 or 60. So, you could reproach them the same way: why not learn them all? They're the greatest teams that ever played; why leave money on the table? I'll leave the Johnny Changs, Marias, etc., of the world to answer for themselves, but the bottom line is that they simply didn't think it was worth the effort. They used a sufficient number of indices to glean the edge they were happy with. They accepted the tradeoff, and I would end by saying that if it was good enough for them, it damn-well ought to be good enough for 99+% of the people who play this game, even for serious money.

Don

[stopgambling]

The truth is that a Mercedes gives him more status.

status and a little more , is it worth it? it is up to that individual to decide.

[stopgambling]

Every method has a use . it is just how and why you would use it ,isn't it? i would not use hi lo and only i 18 if i can not wong out and back count and if i only play DD games . I think it would be foolish of me to do that. If i can wong and put a good spread while maybe finding a trackable game then i would just use Hi lo . on the other hand with sp 21 i am much more inclined to do the opposite.

[ZeeBabar]

Where I play, there is no Mid Shoe entry in DD game but I do quite well using HiLo, only ocassionally winging out (if I am unlikely to lose my seat) through strategic breaks. HiLo may not be optimum but it works just fine. For me. Learning and using multiple counts is asking for trouble.

[bjarg]

I think my position is crystal clear on the subject, so I will really try to refrain from these discussions in the future and just stick to my game and what works for me.

If I had a penny for every time you've said this... Id probably have around 10 cents.

Just messing with ya

[Three]

One can easily read the depth of which T3 applies to his game. I would think very difficult to duplicate. However, one cannot feel the intrepid nature KJ applies to his game...and they won't until they've experience it. Mike Shychevsky attibutes a great deal of his success to Bobby Knight.

All I have to say about the comparison is One way goes for the money in a obvious easily identified way and gets huge variance and the other just makes people who think you are counting think you are the worst counter in the world because you don't know how to move your bet with the count or make terrible plays for your bet size. It also increases EV and is unbelievable at smoothing out the ride. Unfortunately I don't think anyone will go to the lengths I do so it is all moot. As long as you use a linear approach what you can gain has well known boundaries. That goes for how your results come in (the ride to EV) and all the other stats. There are gains to be made by complexity but the linear approach limits what can be done. Complexity with the linear approach is definitely worth more fora small BR but not if that comes with inexperience. I understand KJ's concern that those anxious to start up will try to do too much too fast.