Maximizing the advantages of early surrender

[Norm]

You are asking someone with many serious misconceptions about how Blackjack works.

[Cohiba]

I don't want to get banned, as if I am, there will be no one to unban me.

Norm - agree that banning yourself wouldnt seem to work. You could just give yourself limited term suspension that would automatically expire to avoid the process question related to how to restore access.

Cohiba

[21forme]

You are asking someone with many serious misconceptions about how Blackjack works.

aceside has never made a post with correct math or conclusions. Don't two wrongs make a right?

[DSchles]

aceside has never made a post with correct math or conclusions. Don't two wrongs make a right?

My prediction is that they will get along swimmingly.

Don

[Norm]

I actually believe your thinking is reasonable. For multiple deck games, like 8-deck ones, the running count and the true count are very weak and hardly do any good except for guiding you wonging. We can think it as a global count. There is another count, the local count, that we must consider. That is the round running count, or the local slope of the running count. For the decision of 11vsX, I mostly watch the number of ten cards on the table to play.

Let me make this abundantly clear. You are turning the game into a CSM. Basically, you have a penetration of a dozen cards or so instead of many decks.

[aceside]

aceside has never made a post with correct math or conclusions. Don't two wrongs make a right?

On the game of Spanish 21, I have been reading any available resources on this forum from many experts. Let me make a correct prediction now: The trick for Spanish 21 s-17 games is SMC+7SC. Here SMC is the secret monkey count and 7SC is the seven side count. For this game, the most important two cards are the ace and the seven. Both carry a huge asymmetry between the dealer and the player. However, I haven’t figured out a way to skillfully combine these two counts. That is why I am asking BJanalyst to do some calculations on this.

[aceside]

Let me make this abundantly clear. You are turning the game into a CSM. Basically, you have a penetration of a dozen cards or so instead of many decks.

The reality is that I always play very conservatively in the first half of a shoe, because the variance is huge at the beginning. For the second half of the shoe, I am pretty confident about what I am going to get. It is all about the confidence or variance. I actually recently studied the variance problem myself. At high true counts, especially when there are a lot of ten cards, variance will drop a lot, if we flat bet. I use the combination of a global count and a local count to play blackjack, because I think this game is similar to the sport surfing. We need to follow the wave instantly to move ahead.

[Cohiba]

The reality is that I always play very conservatively in the first half of a shoe, because the variance is huge at the beginning. For the second half of the shoe, I am pretty confident about what I am going to get. It is all about the confidence or variance. I actually recently studied the variance problem myself. At high true counts, especially when there are a lot of ten cards, variance will drop a lot, if we flat bet. I use the combination of a global count and a local count to play blackjack, because I think this game is similar to the sport surfing. We need to follow the wave instantly to move ahead.

Aceman - i dont even know how to reply or respond to your post but its fair to say i am completely not tracking your approach. Sounds like its more intuitive and less mathematical than other types of count based AP strategies. Good luck.

Cohiba

[DSchles]

Time to start moving this stuff to the voodoo page.

Don

[Norm]

Difficult. Everything aceside is saying is wrong, and dangerously so. But, the responses are of use. And, we were all beginners once. Realize that the majority of readers here are lurkers who have not created a username. Parts of the thread may be of use. But, I'll likely move it to voodoo soon.

[aceside]

Aceman - i dont even know how to reply or respond to your post but its fair to say i am completely not tracking your approach. Sounds like its more intuitive and less mathematical than other types of count based AP strategies. Good luck.

Cohiba

I tried very hard to respond to Norm because I did not quite understand his reasoning of my approach as only a 12-card penetration. That is not fair. Let me just give you an example of how I played a 8-deck shoe, to clear up some confusions. For example, one deck of a 8-deck shoe has just been dealt, and the running count jumped from zero to ten in the very last round. I immediately bet two times of my base unit; I got a hard hand of 16 but the dealer had an ace up card. I alway took insurance decisively in this situation even when the true count was only 10/7=1.4, because locally in the nearby of the group of cards, ten valued cards were more likely to come out in the next round. I hope this makes sense.

[k_c]

Does this have anything to do with "floating advantage?" Because when playing against "multiple decks" and lets say 11vX which my index is -6> If less than 4 decks have been dealt i will only double @ -5 or -4 depending on the amount of cards played. But IF for example 5 of the 6 decks have dealt i drop this index to -8. I also stand (stiffs)at lower True Counts (below the index)the earlier in the deck it is(hence higher RCs) and hit at higher Tcs(above the index) hence lower running counts the later in the deck it is. Any relation to what your saying here?

This is what I get for 52 cards remaining of a 6 deck shoe before up card is dealt for a player hand of T-3. In the initial example of T-3 (half shoe) you would need to divide by around 3 to get a true count value but with 52 cards remaining you'd divide by around 1.
-difference in TC for ES: ~+4 for 52 cards remaining, ~3.3 for half shoe

TC can vary some by pen but how much of a handle one could expect on this is probably a function of common sense.

If anyone is interested I could post some simple data on exactly how cards remaining, RC, and TC vary for insurance indexes for all penetrations listed at once. Insurance is simpler because all that needs to be determined is the probability of drawing a T.

Other differences:
-There is a LS value versus T for 52 cards, no value for half shoe
-There is a LS value versus A for 52 cards, no value for half shoe
-ES versus A at >=-9 for 52 cards, always ES for half shoe
-There are values for surrender versus 8 or 9 for 52 cards, no value for half shoe (LS=ES for non A or T)
-There is a value for stand versus A for 52 cards, no value for half shoe

Count tags {1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,0,0,0,1}
Composition dependent indices for hand, rules, number of decks, and pen
Player hand composition: 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1:  Hard 13, 2 cards
Decks: 6 (possible input for cards remaining: 1 to 312)
Cards remaining before up card = 52
No subgroups are defined

i>=2        2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      T      A

Stand     >=1   >=-1   >=-3   >=-4   >=-4      h      h      h      h   >=17
Double      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -
Pair        -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -      -
LS          -      -      -      -      -      -   >=16   >=14    >=9   >=13
ES          -      -      -      -      -      -   >=16   >=14    >=4   >=-9

Press any key to continue

k_c

[Cohiba]

I tried very hard to respond to Norm because I did not quite understand his reasoning of my approach as only a 12-card penetration. That is not fair. Let me just give you an example of how I played a 8-deck shoe, to clear up some confusions. For example, one deck of a 8-deck shoe has just been dealt, and the running count jumped from zero to ten in the very last round. I immediately bet two times of my base unit; I got a hard hand of 16 but the dealer had an ace up card. I alway took insurance decisively in this situation even when the true count was only 10/7=1.4, because locally in the nearby of the group of cards, ten valued cards were more likely to come out in the next round. I hope this makes sense.

Ace - there are legitimate methods of attacking the game that i wont go into on a public forum. While using some of these methods a player may make insurance decisions that differ from the decisions that would be made by a card counter. For example lets say the dealer makes a mistake and flips his hole card up before asking for the insurance bet decision. In that case you dont rely on the count to figure out how to play the hand.

The method you described briefly does not in any way shape or form sound like an advantage play - I have no idea (as an aside I dont want or need to know) how you define or what you mean by local count but it doesnt matter. If you are strictly counting then stick to the index plays to the best of your ability. Based on the information you provided you have no basis to know in advance of making a play the distribution of high cards to low cards in the next hand to be played. All you know is the ratio of hi to low cards remaining in the entire population of the unplayed cards and that information (and only that information) should drive your betting and playing decisions.

Cohiba