Aces

SO I'm reading Play BJ like the pros. In the book he talks about counting Aces with Hi opt count. I understand why, but is it worth it to keep track of them with hi/lo? And is the foot counting like Kevin talks about the best why? And if not, what is?

Thanks
N

An ace side-count with hi-lo (an ace-reckoned counting system) is worthless for betting purposes, since hi-lo has a good BC already. The side-count will help insurance decisions to a limited degree, since if you have one deck left, with a +6 running/true count, and you know there are 6 extra aces left, you would alter insurance decisions, since you actually know there are no extra 10's in the deck, the +6 high cards are all extra aces, meaning you would not take insurance. Ditto for playing decisions where a 10 is good, an A is bad, such as doubling 11 vs 10. The extra aces make these less profitable.

On the flip-side, playing efficiency and Insurance Correlation improvement (using a side-count) is not so important on shoes, unless you get down to that last deck or two, assuming it is dealt that deeply. The side-count becomes more useful for SD/DD games, since playing decisions are more important there. In shoes, most of your advantage is just in getting the big bets out when you have an advantage. The extra 10's are spread over so many cards remaining, the playing efficiency is less important, which means the ace side count will offer you less useful information. If it turns out to cause you to make counting errors, it could actually hurt more than it helps.

I tried it for a while. I played a lot with the side-count using CVBJ, and for the life of me, I could not find any sigificant reason to stick with it. If you want better insurance decisions, do it. If you want better playing decisions, it is less useful in shoes.

All of that is my opinion of course, others may (and probably will) disagree. If you can do it without introducing basic counting errors, it can't be bad. It just might not be much better.

The only really "stupid questions" are the ones not asked at all. Since they will never be answered. :)

So are there any tables for HiLo that correlate your decisions making based on the ace side counting. I mean it is obvious that if there are only 6 aces reamining and no 10 you whould not dd 11 vs 10 (in fact you should not even bet) but where is that point. You know what i mean? What if you have 3 10s and 4 aces remaining? Whould you dd 11 vs 10? Are there tables? And also i have heard about betting correlation but don't understand how it works with side ace counting? I know about normal HiLo betting (and playing) strategy though.
ThX

correct the count so that you can use normal indices...

For example, lets talk about insurance. RC/TC=+3 with 2 extra aces, would normally say insure when the dealer gets that A up, correct? But since hi-lo is ace-reckoned, you adjust by 2x the side count of aces to account for the fact that you were over-estimating the number of 10's in the deck, and then under-estimating the number of small cards in the deck (the A's are 1 since the dealer has an A up already). So you are at a TC of -1 and you casually decline insurance. If you use +2 as your insurance index (+2 or +3 are very common values) and you have 1 extra ace in the deck, you would not insure at a TC of +2, because subtracting double the number of extra aces would take you back down to 0, below the insurance index.

I hope that makes some sense. It's late at night, I have just finished grading a zillion finals and final projects, so it might be completely scrambled when I re-read it again in the morning. :)

I'm afraid to say more since I am not actively doing this. And I'd suspect that if I were, or if I was hyper on max PE/IC, I would be simming this and looking at how the playing indices change with the extra aces in the shoe. I have seen quite a few posts in the past about side counts, so there is perhaps some information if you go back into history and look at older posts. I chose to simply practice normal hi-lo to the point that I can play for long periods with no errors at all, and then live with that. When I got tired, when trying the side-count, I tended to make mistakes since I was fiddling with the count in a temporary manner, and sometimes the adjustments became permanent. Might be different if I played several times every week, but I don't and so follow the KISS principal (not the KISS count. :) )

Just my $.02 here. There are many players with far more experience around here...

I have been practicing with using an ace side count with hi-lo (DD games only). I count the aces with my feet. I only use the ace side count information for insurance and playing decisions. I estimate the cards dealt to the nearest quarter deck, which makes it convenient to know at all times how many aces should have been dealt--one ace per quarter deck. I use the same playing strategy index values that are used for standard hi-lo.

**NOTE: I gleaned the following info from past posts related to using an ace side count in hi-lo. I did not come up with this technique.

The running count is adjusted for a maldistribution of aces in an effort increase the PE and IC of hi-lo. For most playing decisions (default), the running count is increased by one for each excess ace dealt. This is because the Ace should be valued as a neutral--similar to an "8"--for most plays. Conversely, for each ace deficient, the running count is reduced by one instead.

For insurance, 11 versus 9, 10, A, and 16 versus 7 thru 10 (not ace), I add 2 to the running count for each ace dealt in excess of what is expected. This is because the ace should be valued as a low card for these plays (like a "2").

For 10 vs. 10 or A and for 9,9 v. 7, I subtract 2 from the running count for each excess ace dealt (add 2 for each ace deficient), since the ace for these playing decisions should be valued as a "double-high" card.

In a nutshell, the running count (and therefore TC) gets temporarily adjusted when faced with particular playing decisions or insurance. I don't know how practical this technique is. I'm sure it would require a lot of practice in order to use it in a casino.

I wrote:
For 10 vs. 10 or A and for 9,9 v. 7, I subtract 2 from the running count for each excess ace dealt (add 2 for each ace deficient), since the ace for these playing decisions should be valued as a "double-high" card.
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For the 10 vs. 10/A decision, the correct method is to subract 1 from the running count for each excess ace dealt (this adjustment treats the Ace as if it is a double-high card for this play).

It is actually correct to subtract 2 for each excess ace dealt for the 9,9 vs. 7 decision (since the ace in this situation is correctly valued as a triple-high card). However, since this play only comes along once every 2,500 or so hands, I just lump it in with the 10 vs. 10/A group which occurs much more often.

Again, I obtained this information from past posts (probably on Green Chip) by some smart folks.

when I was experimenting with it. I initially just used it for insurance, then added a few doubling play modifications (11 vs 9, 10 or A, etc). Most of my playing was against CVBJ to see whether I could do it with enough accuracy and whether it was worth the trouble.

It wasn't that hard with CVBJ, but when I tried it in Vegas it was more difficult, since we were always on the go out there, late nights, early mornings, etc, and being tired certainly made it harder to keep up correctly. I quickly decided to play normally (drop the side count) unless I was exceptionally bright-eyed on a SD/DD game...

But I never went very far with index departures adjusted by the ace side-count... I still believe that would work best for someone that plays very regularly... which is not me most of the time.

When you practiced side counting aces with CVBJ, did you find a way to customize the program to beep at you when you played incorrectly according to your ace side count strategy (CVBJ would need to calculate the ace surlus/deficiency and adjust the running count)? I haven't found a way to customize the program for that. Currently, I just use the normal settings and play knowing that CVBJ will beep at me when I make a play based on my ace side count which differs from what CVBJ expects.

Wow, thanks for the input on ace counting guys. Its a little more advance for me to figure for betting. I'm still learning, but again thanks alot for at least taking the time to answer my questions. I understand what you all are talking about but I'm not sure I can do all that yet.

thanks
N

about this method of side-counting the aces is that it is an addition to what you already know. You don't need to learn a new system from scratch because it is added to the basic hi-lo system. If you fumble the ace count at any time, even during the middle of a pack, you can just ignore the side-count portion and stick with the basic hi-lo. Maybe start out using it at the shuffle, then keep using it if you are confident with your accuracy...or drop it if you get "fouled up." At the next shuffle, you can try again.

I agree with SSR that this method would probably best be used by someone who plays regularly (and I think double or single deck games).

I did not try to go that far with CVBJ. There are some side-count options that I have not experimented with. I just let it nag me when I did something it didn't expect, and then tried to double-check myself to make sure the decision was reasonable, since I could peek at the running/true count, and at the actual number of aces remaining, to make sure my tally was spot on.

I think you can actually do this, but I didn't feel like studying the options long enough to figure it out, I was more interested in "was it doable?" "could I manage it?" and "did it seem to help any?"

My main problem with it was that if I practiced every night for a week, I could get pretty accurate on the side-count and calculations needed to use it, but if I took a week off (or sometimes more) then it was not so easy. Whereas if I take two months off between BJ sessions, hi-lo sticks with me with no problems... But then I have played a lot of BJ with hi-lo so maybe that has gotten to the "bicycle" stage with me where the side-count did not due to lack of use.

You might examine advanced betting strategies and so forth on CVBJ, I'll take a look tonight when I get home, just for curiosity...

The late Ken Uston wrote about keeping a separate count of aces seen by positioning his feet (apparently toe up, then toe down, then toe left, then toe right), using first one foot for the first four seen aces, then the other foot for the next four seen aces. As close to the clumsiest person alive, this didn't work well for me and I literally have to count upon my fingers.

Spread out your left hand. If you have made it this far in life with a complete set of digits, you will have four fingers, divided in thirds by the creases at the joints. At the beginning of a shoe, my thumb is not in contact. At the first ace I see, I place my thumb upon the innermost pad of my pinky. At the second seen ace, my thumb moves to same pad on my ring finger. At the third ace, my thumb moves to the same pad on my middle finger. The fourth ace, the first pad on my forefinger. At the fifth ace, my thumb goes to the middle pad of my pinky, and so on. After three decks worth of aces, I start again with the thirteenth ace seen upon the first pad of my pinky.

I sometimes will use the right hand to count aces, again starting with the pinky, handling chips with the less nimble left hand. If there is an interuption, as when chips are brought to the table for a fill, I can just remember the ace count by appending it to the Running Count ( say, 11 + 7 ) and do as I wish with my hands until play resumes. I use the same method while playing, or while watching a game being dealt. This has become automatic and I will know at any time the ace richness of the set of cards I am monitoring.

I use the same, no-think method at single deck, freeing my mental capacity to be alert for anomolies in the densities of other ranks. And I use these rank densities to augment my playing efficiency when I am aware of their implications for departing from basic strategy.
Perfect play is unobtainable, but I try, I try.