Quote Originally Posted by Tthree View Post
Wow. You just can't learn anything. I explained the error of this thought quite well TWICE the last time you said it. Norm has a nice set of graphs of the EV for the various decision options for each matchup he found interesting:

https://www.card-counting.com/cvcxonlineviewer3.htm

Now if you were to redo the graph of a poorly correlated play using the side count(s) that are strong cards concerning the play your correlation if tags would go up. The graph would show a fast gain in EV after the index is exceeded rather than an anemic gain. This is because each increment in TC represents a bin full of equivalently rated situations. One has poorly correlated bins so the bins average shows little gain. The other has highly correlated bins so the average of each successive bin shows a lot of gain in EV. Some of the bin might be populated by deficit side counted cards with a strong playing count TC while others in the bin have a normal amount of side counted cards and others have a surplus and a low playing TC. All these situations are equated as their average when determining the EV of the decision for that bin. The guy side counting and the guy not side counting might both be in the first bin above the index and the side counted cards are at expectation BUT the guy side counting has a much larger EV with this hand because of the higher correlation of all the other situations that populate the bin. The guy straight counting would have almost no EV in the deviation because his bin is so poorly correlated to the decision. His EV is the average of all the situations that populate the bin. Their combined EV is almost nothing for making the deviation.

Like I have always said there is value in knowing side counted cards are at expectation. The value isn't about the current deck composition because neither really has much of a handle on that. The value is in the much higher increase in EV as the index is exceeded due to the average of all the situations that populate each successive bin having a much higher correlation to the decision.

The I18 shows the most important plays for your count. If you add side counting many plays that are worthless become more valuable than some in the I18. Some decisions will pretty much be just based on the side count. I am not saying you should side count shoe games. Only your understanding of what is going on is flawed. All those that use ace neutral counts side count shoe games. Side counting the ace can be worth up to 20% gain in EV in shoe games when used with an ace neutral main count. You have gain from increased correlation of almost every matchup. You have gain in betting more because of the higher EV and reduced variance of the decision. There doesn't have to be a surplus or deficit of aces to realize these huge gains.
Irrelevant