CC, is there ANYTHING you don't know? :-) (nt)
How important is your betting stragety to your success as a BJ player? Would you share your betting stragety? Thanks in advance.
Does this person near sixty going to collect social security and some other pension? Does this person already have his house paid off? Generally, the older a person is the more conservative he should be with his financial resources. If a 25 year old goes bust his life is not ruined. It is just a set back. If a 60 yr old has 50K to his name and loses it, well... For an older person to play blackjack as a source of supplementary income is a good idea if he is going to have medicare, does not have a house note, etc. I don't think that investing any substantial portion of your net worth at this venture is wise. For a younger person, however, those who succeed generally must be willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of their dream. Their ultimate success or failure for the next decade of their life, or more, will depend almost entirely on the success of their gambling ventures. If unsuccessful they will likely be broke and deeply in debt, having to make a fresh start in life. This is not where you want to be at age 60.
This is for starting with a small bank, like 15 or 20 thousand. If you triple or quadruple it, so that you have a reasonable chance of success, then switch to a very conservative ROR. Otherwise you can go broke quickly and won't waste as much of your life.
This seriously takes LOTS of money. I don't personally know of any pro gamblers with bankrolls less than $100,000. In some cases it is a joint bank with a partner or partners. You must be betting big enough to have most of your expenses comped. Your remaining expenses should be absolutely trivial to your betting level. You can't spend a max bet on an airline ticket. You can't spend half a max bet on a hotel room. Your monthly rent or house note should be considerably less than a max bet. Professional gambling is about putting lots of money at risk to make very little.
No, not where I wish to be and maybe it is my fault for having lived this long. But consider the alternative.
Understand that sympathy falls between sh*t and syphilis alphabetically. I don't want or need it. I only offered the bit of biography as an explanation of why someone would assume card play as a profession.
For what it's worth, it's not necessarily fun if winning becomes an essential requirement. Understand this before you commit yourself.
And I thank all of you total strangers for your concern and I do wish all of you a most pleasant holiday. And most important of all, I hope that we all have a big, plush, profitable 2002!!
"If you triple or quadruple it, so that you have a reasonable chance of success, then switch to a very conservative ROR. Otherwise you can go broke quickly and won't waste as much of your life."
This is basicly what I was trying to explain to a few of your hard headed green chip friends of why I decided to lower my ROR to less than half after winning at an alarming rate.
I know the book says "Pump it up if your bank increases!!"
Yeah, tell me about it book...maybe I have other more important things on my mind.
What I did was basicly take advantage of my winnings in order to decrease risk of ruin. I imagine this makes sense to those who plan on sticking around casinos for a long time to come, such as myself.
My simple advice to those who would like to make a living playing BJ is dont try this and expect to raise a functional family at the same time. I cant imagine someone going through half of what I've been thru while trying to pacify their family with security and happiness.
Actually for a good take on the Clarke Cant persona, think of some of the things you get from Wayne Green, and from the authors at (not associated with him) a company called Consumertronics in Almagordo NM. Both will sometimes make their style appear crude on edgey subjects, to deal more with the open-minded and ready people, than the anal-retentive. Consumertronics is known for putting out high quality (and high priced) specialty manuals that are accurate and cutting edge, but will often have crude looking hand sketched diagrams just to P. O. those not ready!
You get the idea.
The main point is that starting out with a somewhat small bank is a gamble and the odds of success are against you. The longer it takes for you to go broke the more of your life you have wasted. The extra risk, or higher risk of ruin, should be taken when gambling is not your livelihood. When you make the decision that this bankroll is now your business, your means of support, then it should be much more carefully guarded. If risk of ruin is any concern at all then you don't have enough money to be a pro. There are just too many other things to worry about, like trying to make money. ROR is for recreational gamblers who set some small portion aside as a blackjack bankroll. When this is your business you can't have any tangible chance of wipe out. A long term ROR of 1% is very, very high. GM or IBM would not make bets that gave them a 1% chance of going under.
You created the criticism in the greenchip discussion by the way you presented it. You clearly implied that you had a big win streak and were cutting back because you thought you were due for a loss. You did not articulate that you were changing your ROR because you had changed your objectives. If your objectives have not changed then there is not a logical reason to make smaller bets after your bankroll has grown.
Also, I advocate lowering the risk of ruin by increasing bet sizes at a slower rate than your bank grows. I don't advise betting smaller with a bigger bank. If your bank grows faster than your bets then your long term ROR moves asymptotically towards zero. If a guy playing to a 10% ROR and does not increase bets, then he is playing to a 1% ROR after his bank doubles. That's what I'm talking about. When he triples his starting bank his ROR is 1/10 of one percent.
google.com! Search, "free," search within results, adding, "books," "Help Yourself to Better Sight." A free online version of an early adition (first edition was in the 1920s) may still be available. I would html it myself but I don't want to leave you stuck with my typos.
I can email you a text that includes text instructions on making a muscle pulser that resembles the Beck devices, that can strenghthen the eye muscles too for better support, and costs less than $10 to build. Mayo Clinic's website has the details on the trials, sponsored by the Lasek folks, on using dye lasers (relax it is just lasers that can change color) to zap floaters and directly handle the scar tissue problems. Attralya is not only a very good doctor, but, from Pakistan no less, has a wonderful sense of humor and has one of the best collections of politically incorrect ethnic jokes stored in his head that you can find anywhere. He helped invent laser eye surgery and many, many procedures for retinal and refractive procedures.
artbell.com has a listing from waynegreen.com of several edge thinking books that can help and are suprisingly well documented and proven. waynegreen.com does not have as much bandwidth, so it will be slower to link through some of its lists. Both ways you can link to some very useful advice.
Keith has not come back to me by email yet but it is that season. I can pass on some of his tips now however.
Hi- Opt I, without side counts, is recomended in that for its values there is the highest difference in appearence between included and not included cards.
Keep quiet and don't even tell friends and relatives that you are taking independant steps to help save your sight other than the medical contacts I have mentioned. The reason for this is simple: the less your friends and family know, the MORE you can "milk it" in the casinos (that you are near blind), and the more they will help (wihtout having to depend on their acting ability), and the more ultimate cover you can have. That should help you make lemonade for sure!
The executive order of president Lincoln limits the total that can be paid to any attorney who assists in suing the VA to $5. People have sucesssfuly sued the VA pro se, but the EO, written later into law in 1869, limits the expenses of pro bono attorneys to $5 too, as interpreted by the courts. Few victims of medical neglect have the ability to prevail under these conditions and are just plain SOL except as they can do their legal work totally unaided. About the only one I know of, to do this sucessfully, is the edge subject author, Howard Blum (pronounced Blume, author of Out There, The Lucifer Effect etc.). He won to help establish the SSI/SSA and VA rules on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, with the help of Dr. Harold Peterson, of the Hennepin County Medical Center, in Minneapolis MN.
The courts also interpret the conscent of patients to VA treatment to be the same as their conscent to treatment by military medical personel. A VA patient is considered to be a military guinea pig, serving the same, as a guinea pig, as he served when formerly in uniform.
...studied by a half dozen medical students from a local medical school. It was them, dressed in surgical pajamas, that I saw move horizontally then vertically as the head surgeon manipulated my eyeball and droned "notice how the suture passes through the ligature, securing itself..." et cetera, et cetera.
I do feel for you and your situation but I have a different take on the subject of VA medicine. I firmly believe that VA/military medicine should go away except for keeping a small contingent of military medical people for war time or overseas situations. It is a failed, bloated bureaucracy. Military members, dependents, and veterans should get low cost insurance through the gov. like civil servants get. The problem is whenever any such cutback is initiated the veterans groups lobby and pull at the patriotic heartstrings of congress. As much as they complain about the care, they definitely don't want it to go away. Here is the big reason why this occurs:
It is free! Totally free. I see people come in to military/VA emergency rooms to get Tylenol (then complain about the three hour wait!) I've seem them in the ER for pimples, to get chap stick prescribed etc. I've seen veterans claim to be suicidal to get admitted for a few meals and a warm bed. Please let me know if anyone else's insurance or HMO would allow such abuse. Every time some of them get a cold, they are seeking medical care, there is no disincentive. This overloads the system, creating the frustration that leads to the attitude of Igor's nurses, and possibly even the potentially poor care he described. (I'm not condoning the attitude, just explaining it.) The masses scamming for cheap but unnecessary care dilutes the care of those truly in need.
Unless they start a co-pay, deductible, or some other form of payment, I just see more of the same continuing. In the capitalism of the U.S., cost gives value and until the veterans value the system enough to give a token amount of money to it, it will remain worthless. Even $3-5 a visit would end much of the silliness.
I think that is enough off topic posting, I just wanted to present a different side of this situation as, like card counting, VA/military medicine is something very easy to villianize by those with little understanding of it.
Why are you so negative on a person having a $20,000 bankroll and playing to a 1-2% ROR? Depending on the system you use and how well you use it, this can generated around $50 an hour (net after discount for variables like playing/betting mistakes; penetration; etc.)
. What's so bad about that if you can take the ups and downs of SD? Better yet, why do you think a $100,000 bank is the minimum for turning pro? You seem very negative DD--am I misreading you?
You are simply not going to make it for any length of time on a bankroll that small. A person who makes 20K per year or so, which is all you are going to make on a bank that size, is living at near subsistance in the first place. It is unlikely that he will be able to afford to keep an amount equal to his annual income in cash. He will be totally unable to indure any long periods without income before he has to dip into his bankroll for living expenses. And if he begins to lose his bankroll he will be unable to reduce bet sizes to offset ruin because his win rate is barely enough to make a living in the first place. Most who start with banks this size do not make it. The few who do are those who start on a lucky streak and are able to triple it fairly quickly. 20K is a good bank for a part time player with another good source of income.
Smaller stakes players can get away with considerably more. Sometimes they have the mistaken impression that they would have the same unit win rate, number of hours, and scarcity of barrings if they were playing for 5X or 10X as much.
Where in the hell are you getting this crap???
Military members, dependents, and veterans should get low cost insurance through the gov. like civil servants get.
Military members and dependents have had civilian insurance for decades. It was called CHAMPUS and was administered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It is now called TRICARE/CHAMPUS and it has a deductible of $200/year/family with a 20% co-pay. Not hardly a freebie.
It is free! Totally free.
Again, more bullshit!!! As a veteran your eligibility is established by your degree of disablility, whether or not is was service connected, and a means test. From there you are placed in 1 of 7 catagories with each having it's own standards for treatments and co payments.
From the www.va.gov
VA does not charge the veteran for insurance company copayments and deductibles; we waive them. Some veterans are required to make VA copayments for their care and/or medications. Most nonservice-connected veterans and noncompensable 0% service-connected veterans are required to complete an annual means test or to agree to pay VA the applicable co-payment. The means test is based on their family�s income and net worth.
In addition there is a $3 per prescription and is soon to increase to $7.
I see people come in to military/VA emergency rooms to get Tylenol (then complain about the three hour wait!) I've seem them in the ER for pimples, to get chap stick prescribed etc.
Now tell me, you lying piece of shit you, just how the phuck you see this stuff happening when you don't even know the phucking rules? You certainly have no affiliation with the VA or you would not have posted the garbage you did.
Next thing you will tell me is you are a veteran.
Get a clue asshole!!!
RB
