$100/day

My blackjack gambling experiences have had its up & downs but one thing i've noticed is that EVERY trip to the casino whether I walk away with $0 profit, win $1300 or lose $2000 the one constant in every trip is that i've always been up $100 at same point in the day.

not most of the time, but EVERY TIME, 100%

this means I had walked away with $100 on every trip I would have made a lot more $ than I ended up with which is just below the break-even amount.

Why is this exactly?
I don't think it's a fluke, I mean it happened every time,
**even when I only brought $30 to the casino I managed to make $100 profit too!

Is there anything to this or is it a fallacy? because
i'd be $3800 richer if id stuck to the "$100profit then leave"
goal.

Your experience is too small to have any meaning. You seem to be implying by your posts that you are looking for a way to consistently get a postive return on your money. You cannot do that by simply playing basic strategy, no matter how you manipulate your money or betting strategies. If you haven't run into a situation where you were losing from the beginning and never had a chance to recover the money in that session, you haven't played very much.

The casino blackjack games that are offered today in the U.S. are almost without exception negative expectation games. The house advantage may be small but it is there. Without using a method that gives you an advantage, the house will use its small advantage to grind away at you until you will eventually lose whatever bankroll you've dedicated to the game. You may have a bunch of small wins, but it is inevitable that you will run into a session where you are behind from the start and never recover. In that session, it is likely that you will lose all you may have gained and then some.

Stop losses or win limits don't change the math of the game. Quitting with a win of $100 is not going to change the cards or the advantage. If you truly want to win in the long run, you must learn a legitimate method of advantage play. Card counting is one way to do that. Using basic strategy with a win limit is not.

I've played approximately 54hours of blackjack this year (i guess the sample size isn't that big).

On average 2hours max per day, where i usually quit & run if im ahead or keep going and bust around that time.

This question seems to come up frequently. Sorry for the repost, but here is an explanation I provided some months back on Don's Domain:

The question is, "Why isn't setting a win goal an effective strategy, since it dramatically increases the chance of success?" Well, it's true--setting a win goal does increase the chance of short-term success. For example, in playing around in CVCX, the e.v. for a particular ten-hour trip is $1000. Among other things, this means that the chance of ending the ten hours $1000 or more ahead is about 50%. If you set a win goal of $1000, however, meaning you'll quit as soon as you're ahead $1000, the chance of reaching your goal skyrockets to almost 80%.

So how could setting a win goal not be a great strategy? The answer lies in the fact that, without a win goal, you actually might win more than $1000. In fact, about 50% of the time this is exactly what will happen. Though setting a win goal here increases the chance that you'll make $1000 by about 30%, it decreases the chance that you'll win more than $1000 to almost 0% (the exception is when the win that reaches your goal happens to push you over $1000. Even in this case, your win still won't be much over $1000). The bottom line is that, in the long run, the fewer number of hours you'll play using win goals will hurt your overall e.v. This is compounded if you always quit at your goal, even if it means leaving during a positive count.

In other words, the probability of reaching a given monetary goal is not a good measure of success or favorability. For example, consider a game with a 2% house edge. In this game, you plan to play for a maximum of 4 rounds and use a Martingale progression. You set a win goal of 1 unit. The probability of reaching this goal is .49 + .51*.49 + .51*.51*.49 + .51*.51*.51*.49 = 93.23%. However, the probability that you'll win more than 1 unit is 0%, and, in the 6.77% times that you do lose, you'll lose more (usually far more) than 1 unit. Your e.v. remains constant at -2%, despite the 93.23% chance of reaching your goal. The negative e.v. reflects the unfavorability of this game; the positive probability of reaching your goal is misleading.

Instead of setting monetary goals, it is more useful to set a temporal goal. That is, set a goal for the number of hours played. The more you play an advantage game, the more you're likely to win. Such goals are also good psychologically--you have more control over how many hours you play than you do over the outcome.

David

more hours = more money only works if I'm making money each hour

When I lose big It's always an instant 3min loss not a long losing streak.

ie. goal:$900

after 2 hours: $2100

end of day: $300

ie2. Goal: X

after 2hours: X+original bankroll

end of day: -original bankroll

as one can see the problem has always been in the last hour of gaming
Yes, had I stopped @ my $900 i never would have reached $2100! but I also never would have been down to $300!

and ie2 I never got a chance to even get slightly above my goal as I lost eveything "THE HAND AFTER" my goal was reached.

****************************************
My new idea for a goal:

to gamble for 1-2hours making as much as possible with the bare minimum being $0

in order words, worst case scenario will be to break even for the day.
this way my winnings should be $0 or higher and over time will create a bankroll big enough to allow me to place bigger bets.

ie. If i'm up $200 and fall down to $100, then I'll pocket my orignal bankroll and $10 and will only be gambling with $90 on the table.

Obviously this strategy will increase my bankroll at a SLOW rate but at least its safer (and better than losing).

David Spence's post included these words: The more you play an advantage game, the more you're likely to win.

You have said you are not an advantage player. So, you are not playing an advantage game. The house has the advantage, so Spence's words are applicable to the house, not to you.

Your words:

My new idea for a goal:

to gamble for 1-2hours making as much as possible with the bare minimum being $0

in order words, worst case scenario will be to break even for the day. this way my winnings should be $0 or higher and over time will create a bankroll big enough to allow me to place bigger bets.

ie. If i'm up $200 and fall down to $100, then I'll pocket my orignal bankroll and $10 and will only be gambling with $90 on the table.

What are you going to do when you lose the first hand and never get back to even?

Obviously this strategy will increase my bankroll at a SLOW rate but at least its safer (and better than losing).

No, no, no. As long as you are playing a negative expectation game, which you are, then the more you play, the more likely you are to lose. You will not increase your bankroll at a slow rate, you will lose it at a slow rate.

If you really wish to learn how to beat the house, then I would strongly suggest that you buy some books about card counting. You could start with my book, Bootlegger's 200 Proof Blackjack, but Wong's Professional Blackjack wouldn't be a bad place to start either. You can get either of them from the catalog on this site.

I didn't realize the original poster hadn't claimed to be an advantage player. In that case, any strategy, however arbitrary, that gives you a reason to quit is probably better than trying to play many hours. But, as you stated, even better is actually learning to play a positive expectation game :-)

The poster admitted he wasn't an advantage player in an earlier thread. You probably didn't see it.

Nobody with a small size bankroll plays blackjack anymore. They have moved on to other areas where their advantage/expectation is far better. I will refrain from disclosing those 'other areas'.

Get the following formula in your brain:

Expected Value = Advantage times Bet

If your advantage is negative, so will be your expected value. If you have a negative expected value on each bet, the sum of your expected values will be also be negative.

The main advantage of stop-loss and stop-win strategies have for you is that they reduce the number of bets you make, therefore reducing the amount of money you expect to lose.

There is one more thing to consider; if all it takes to make money in a casino is to stop when you're ahead, why doesn't everyone do that and bankrupt the casinos? The answer should be obvious.

54 hours is not close to enough to figure out a strategy. Some dedicated counters used to play 1,000 hours a year, year after year. (I don't know if anyone does that today any more. Kinda doubt it.) Even after 1,000 hours, once in a blue moon a top notch, highly disciplined counter would wind up in the hole.

You can see it in simulations. If you set number of rounds to 100,000, with win rate around +1%, normally you get a positive result, but every once in a while you wind up a few thousand $$$ in the hole. That's why people normally set up simulations with hundreds of millions of rounds (instead of thousands), when they're trying to determine accurate win rates.

Some of the top blackjack players and theorists in the world happened to jump into this thread! They are telling you the truth. If you play a nevative expectation game, there is no stop loss / stop win or progression strategy that will change it from minus to plus. Las Vegas was built on that truth. Millions have tried to prove them wrong, yet there it stands.

ETF

nt

Looks like you got everything you don't want.

It contains a scene which might save you a lot of money. Chevy Chase is having a tough session at a blackjack table. The dealer, feeling sorry for Chase, offers an alternative plan, "Why don't we go out back, I'll take all your money and kick you in the balls."

It is true the no Stop/Loss or Stop/Gain will increase his odds or % but for him not being any kind of AP, both are almost necessary.... Not to limit winning too much but to avoid loosing too much. Your odds will remain the same but unless you use Stops, you will always lose no matter how "Lucky" youve been. Chances are you will loose using Stops anyways given enough table exposure but at least you have a somewhat realistic chance to be up at certain points just like with a progression "system". I think he would be better served in learning a system in those 54 hours so the hours played vs stops argument would have some validity.

That being said, I cant say I am against Stops for AP's that are more weekend warriors than full time AP's. Full time AP's and full time gamblers are the guys "the long run" applies to. Guys who are very limited in table exposure have to take advantage while they can or get out while they can, IMO. "The long run" is definately not 3 two hours sessions every six months. That is exactly why sims need to be in the million/billions to be as effective as they can be.

As a player, youve seen your bankroll go from bad, to good, to very good but I bet you have also seen your bankroll go from bad to very bad to gone. It is true that over time, % show it will come back but for a guy who plays once every six months it may take years for those % to apply to him.

singletb if youve tried to learn systems but have had trouble with them do a search for OPP, Ace/Five, or even Speed Count on the web. You really dont need counting abilites or short term memory for them to be effective. They may only break you even over time but it is much better than the alternative.

Does anyone know whether the sequel to Beyond Counting will have advantage strategies for Guess Which Hand, Pick a Number, Coin Toss, and Rock, Paper, Scissors?

> Does anyone know whether the sequel to Beyond Counting
> will have advantage strategies for Guess Which Hand,
> Pick a Number, Coin Toss, and Rock, Paper, Scissors?

HAAA! That part of the movie was halarious. That was the old Klondike Casino, right? The parking lot anyway. I think this is still my favorite part of the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqHJqpeCEBc&feature=related

-Sonny-

This is a common topic. If you want to leave a winner more times than you leave a loser, it is not difficult. Just play until you are ahead one unit and quit. Otherwise, play until you run your session bankroll into the dealer's chip tray and quit. And when you are done that month, you will have won more sessions than you lost most likely. But you will have lost more money than you won, almost certainly. A "session win" is meaningless. It is overall win/loss that matters.

As far as the being $100 ahead, once you play a long session (100+ rounds) you can probably find most any condition you want somewhere in there. But when you are actually playing that session, you won't be able to see the pattern until after the fact, when it is too late...

Fortunately, this "idea" is believed by enough that the casinos stay in business. :)