advice for a noob please

OK here's my situation. I have found a two deck game, H17, split A once, DA2, with ~%75 penetration, $5 min. The game has about 50 tables in 4 casinos in a small city, allowing a bit of wonging at two of the casinos. I am starting to get proficient with counting halves, and I have several more months of practice yet ahead to get myself on 'autopilot' with playing and betting. I've already used the HI-Lo for about a year, weekend warrior style, with decent but slow results. I have a $3500 bankroll, and can play there every weekend. My questions are these:

1. How sensitive is this game to penetration?

2. Is this a game that can be beat by spreading to a max. of $40, and two hands of $30?

3. Is halves much better than HI-Low in this game (is it worth the extra effort)?

4. What book offers the best advice about avoiding heat?

5. Any critique of the following bet scheme?

2= $10, 3= $20, 4= 25, 5= 30, 6= 35, 7= 40, 8+= two hands of $30

6. What playing indexes are most recommended? I am studying -2 through +5

Am I looking at a good game here, provided I "play my cards right"?

All advice is VERY much appreciated, and sorry for asking so many Q's

Ransom

answers numbered according to your question numbers:

1. Very. 75% makes it playable.

2. yes. (see 3 below for results for the counts you mentioned)

3. HiLo (CVCX) produces about $17.00 per hour, spreading 5-40, with a ROR of under 3% for your bankroll. You could bet more aggressively if you wanted to...

Halves will produce about the same hourly win rate, but with a lower ROR.

A different approach: Let CVCX choose the min bet size: HiLo produces a win rate of $33 per hour, with a $10 min bet, and a ROR of 15%. Halves produces a $35 per hour win rate at a ROR of 13.5%.

Hopefully this particular point won't produce a loud chorus of "Oh No, can't be," as always used to happen over on AP.com before I was kicked out... This data comes from CVCX canned sims for HiLo (full indices) and halves (full indices). H17 DAS, no surrender, 75% pen. Anyone should be able to verify these...

5. Remember, when you give a bet ramp, the TC values are different for different systems.and I can't comment about halves, not having used it. CVCX gives the optimal halves ramp as (using $5 as min unit to be compatible with your question) TC <=1 bet $5, TC=2, bet 10, TC=3 bet $20, TC=4 bet $25, TC=5 bet $30, TC >=6 bet $50. The bet ramp I use for HiLo is aggressive as well, to allow room for "covor" (don't ramp up after a loss, don't ramp down too much after a win if the count tanks, etc).

Your laast ramp doesn't quite make sense to me. Going from 1x40 to 2x30 is not much of a ramp because of hand covariance...

6. Learn the I18 cold, first. Negative indices will help but not much as while you might have to "play-all" you will be playing negative counts with a $5 bet which won't help you much.

My $.02, and a plug for qfit's CVCX which helps answer these questions instantly, when you need the answers quickly. I'm going to play next weekend. My first task will be scouting, then back to the room to compare the games and choose the one I'm going to play. Scouting a dozen casinos takes a little time, but is highly worthwhile to play the most beatable game.