I have. The math says it's near -4 sigma.
Just curious.
Hmmm. 200 Max Bets on a $25 shoe game with good rules means spreading (politely) $25 to $200
and $200 X 200 = $40,000 during a "prolonged losing streak." In my experience, this "feels" more
like 2 SD than 4 SD. That is to say, yes, it can and it does happen, which is why most card counters
have serious bankroll concerns when they do not have $100,000 cash "behind them." Dropping nearly
half of their cash means that they are no longer able to (rationally) handle the aforementioned spread
in a $25 game. In the experience of (most) card counters, they will be crestfallen at that point, as their
R.O.R. will simply explode to far more than double. If they have to drop to a $15 table they will have to
cope with tables full of annoying ploppies and possibly worse rules! I say that this is depressing as the
reality is that the counter feels that s/he is 'cursed', cheated, or that they have simply failed badly in
their endeavors to win significant money and this results in an assault upon their fragile egos, as young
card counters have tied their success at blackjack to their self-esteem. THUS, the requisite emotional
stability that is a foundational key to success may have been lacking.
Havent had anywhere close gto gthat bad a loss. Went down almost $9k in the first 2 months of this year, followed by 6 straight winning months where I won $24k. Leaving me up about `16k for the year to date.
Losing streaks and paranoia sets in. In my last 10 sessions, I have had 3 losing sessions at the same casino, won all the rest. This one casino, deep penn (almost 80%) and bad rules at DD, where I lost all three sessions and some $3400 ($1500, $400 and another $1500) but had won earlier in the year. Three losing sessions in one casino, winning everywhere else and I wonder what it is they might be doing because I seem to keep losing there.
At 2 standard deviations I am curious and introspective.
At 3 standard deviations I am nearing lightening strike territory and am concerned.
At 4 standard deviations, I am looking for a problem in (1) my records, (2) the math, (3) error rates and my games veracity. If no issue found, then I am staying indoors to avoid a meteor strike and a simultaneous lightening strike.
Luck is nothing more than probability taken personally!
Wow - 200 max bet loss in 270 hours! You've experienced this and are still playing? Honestly, if I had a run like that, I'd either quit (probably half way there) and/or hire a private investigator to check out the games I was playing to see if I was being cheated. I certainly wouldn't even think about questioning my gaming skill because that factor is miniscule compared to the variance you've experienced.
The odds of a -4 SD event are about 1 in 31,500. So if you're logging 810 hours per year (three 270-hour sessions per year), you would expect this unfortunate occurrence to happen about once every 10,500 years! (Global warming will kill us all off long before then ). Looking at it another way, if you take a group of 31,500 serious blackjack players who all play a 270-hour session, one of them would have this kind of luck.
What would be even more amazing would be if someone responded to your post and claimed that they too had a run like that....
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