Acceptable error rate

[Stealth]

Perhaps you take his error rate in conjunction with other factors in determining his eligibility.

Factors of integrity, personality, leadership, persona, financial status, all should precede any concern about their ability to "count".

His/her error rate must be within the range as defined by the team management and clearly defined before hand. This should not make you a team member, it only qualifies you to go to the next level of certification. The next level was more about performing your technical skills in a casino environment while display a comportment that was required by the role you would play. That is to say that a back-counter/spotter had different requirements than a BP or gorilla BP or an all play member.

Additionally, there should be clear policies on the handling of any error that is discovered and confirmed. This can be a big issue. Example: back counter calls in BP and BP goes to wrong table resulting in a large loss. Should there be a penalty? For whom? What about the manager that trained them? Did he make an error? Since winnings and losses are shared with investors, should the investors share in this loss?

You get my point. Not a simple issue.

[ZeeBabar]

Errors are both NOT ACCEPTABLE and inevitable.

If you are a lone wolf, then perhaps you perform with a very low error rate, but I can assure you it is not zero. Maybe it is a simple as missing the TC conversion or not realizing you moved to the table with surrender, whatever, they happen.

In a team environment, were they are moving on the strip from casino to casino, game to game, it is not hard to miss some key variable. My experience was that they range from not being aware of the specific rules for a game, missing a surrender play, thought the pen was better than the game I sat at, to being called in by a back counter and going to the wrong table to name a few.

In my research and experience, when long term (>n0) team results are reviewed, often actual results were some 60-80% of EV. Although I have no empirical evidence to support such a statement, antidotal evidence does. Common sense tells us that we can not, and do not, play with the efficacy of a computer running a 3 billion hand sim, in fact, our actual results (hands played correctly, not win/loss) must be worst than the sim by the very nature of the human versus computer comparison.

Since we have no way (other than casino verite and then only in a test environment) to validate our correctness in actual play then we can only postulate what those error rates might be.

I am very interested in the perspectives on this subject and will tell you that I believe it to be a reduction in EV by a range of 20-30%.

Now, I expect the purist among us to "blow me up" with their absoluteness of their quality of play, I will just ask, how do you know?

Let the games begin!

antitodal....?..

anecdotal, maybe?

[Stealth]

antitodal....?..

anecdotal, maybe?

Yes, my bad.

[ZenMaster_Flash]

Maybe antipodal ?

L O L

Australian humor ?

[Stealth]

Maybe antipodal ?

L O L

Australian humor ?

So, while I may be able to count efficiently, spelling is a challenge.

The truth is that the word in question, as I originally entered it, was marked as a spelling error with no correction provided. I sent it to Google to get a correction and got the results, then pasted into the post without checking for the correct word.

My wife would suggest you are lucky if the error was only one word!!! She continues to remind me not to use quarter words with my nickel vocabulary.

LOL

[Freightman]

She continues to remind me not to use quarter words with my nickel vocabulary.

LOL

Why not? It's only $.20 difference.

[MJGolf]

Why not? It's only $.20 difference.

But at 100 hph, that's $20/hour............. Stealth wouldn't normally give up EV of $20/hour............LOL

[RS]

"Acceptable" error rate can only be determined by the individual (or team). If you're treading water with a tiny edge & high variance, you're gonna want to be as error-free as possible (I'd assume). For those who have much stronger games with larger edges and/or lower variance, errors should be more understandable. If you're playing a game with a 0.3% advantage (certain blackjack's pay 2:1, perhaps?), you don't want any errors at all. If you're playing a game with a significant advantage like 10% (hole-carding or next-carding?), errors aren't going to be a huge deal.

And, of course, I wouldn't say a specific # of errors per hour, or anything like that, would be a good way to determine if that's "acceptable" or not -- but the amount of EV you give up on average by making whichever error you're more likely to make. For example, if you have a tendency to flip a -10 with a +10, that might occur ever-so-rarely, but when it does, it's gonna be costly. Or perhaps you make the 'error' of never hitting 12v4 (if you consider that an error)....it's going to happen frequently-enough, at least more frequently than getting to a -10 RC....but the amount of EV you're giving up by never hitting 12v4 is probably lower [in the long run] that flip-flopping a -10 for a +10 RC.

[ZenMaster_Flash]

"Tarzan crunches so much info, it slows him down ... 35 second single deck count."

Tarzan plays about 98% Heads-Up.

Speed is NOT an issue.

His "counting", I can tell you from first-hand experience,

is truly 100% accurate, complexity not withstanding.

[Freightman]

So the fastest you have seen is 5 decks dealt in 6 minutes and Tarzan does it in under 3 minutes. I think Tarzan is fast enough to not slow the game down. Factor in he doesn't do calculations for playing decisions and he is fast enough.
.

Your numbers don't make sense. If Tarzan can count a single deck in 35 seconds, it will take him 175 seconds to count down 5 decks. You are obviously not considering the minor issue of dealer dealing approximately 50 hands. The 6 minutes I quoted included that minor elusive point.

[Freightman]

"I usually come in high on EV. I believe a factor is that I can use the 2d info from the 2 counts to wong more effectively than the sim is programmed to. Another factor is such a steady grind of profits makes it hard to perceive how the rare bad runs affect everything. As you know rare events require a ridiculous amount of data to approach expectation. That makes empirical data tough to get a feel for which could make a difference between perception and reality for actual results.""

I also come in high on EV. Granted, the more info, the better - regardless of count and indices used, judgement - the manner in which that information is used, is key - and will boost the results of any count system.

[Three]

Your numbers don't make sense. If Tarzan can count a single deck in 35 seconds, it will take him 175 seconds to count down 5 decks. You are obviously not considering the minor issue of dealer dealing approximately 50 hands. The 6 minutes I quoted included that minor elusive point.

6 minutes is 360 seconds which is more than twice Tarzan's count down speed. I am not sure what the number of hands dealt have to do with anything. You are doing all sorts of TC calculations that are not done with Tarzan count. He just has a bet sizing calculation with the rest already done before he plays. His big workload is memorizing all the data that eliminates the need for calculation. That is done well before you enter the casino.

I have heard a simple count zealot talk of the cost of errors and then use a game plan that has errors built into it. The nature of those that go to the extremes of complexity is perfection. They have the mindset that no error is acceptable and their play at the table reflects such a mindset. They aren't racing out to play before they are ready. Many that use the simple approach have the opposite mindset. Recommending very short training periods, few indices etc. To me the simple approach has a ton of built in betting and playing errors (Betting heavy into what is actually a disadvantage situation but the count can't tell the difference or a weak playing count making decisions that are wrong for the actual composition but right for the weak playing count) that can be eliminated to varying degrees with a more complex approach. So even with the odd extra error all the errors that were built into a simpler count have been corrected so you are still ahead of the game. Of course generally speaking the mindset of those that seek perfection through complexity is reflected in their extremely low error rate.

[Stealth]

I usually come in high on EV. I believe a factor is that I can use the 2d info from the 2 counts to wong more effectively than the sim is programmed to. Another factor is such a steady grind of profits makes it hard to perceive how the rare bad runs affect everything.

Then are you saying your sims are inaccurate and that is why you overachieve EV?

The sim's programming for wonging is based on the most accurate data you can get assuming the count system and indexes are correctly programmed. Now, if you are doing some sophisticated wong in out at various levels of TC above or below the sims thresholds then the sim may not represent your game. If the sim is not for your count, then apples and oranges.

Can you translate "steady profits" to a number like win 83% of sessions played on a basis of 345 sessions..?

Not trying to be an antagonist, just trying to understand the post.