BJ no counting

I've been playing BJ on and off for plenty of years using the Vas Spanos system (SPC). I know it's not the ultimate in return, but it's deeply engrained and second nature for me now. If you know Vas or his methods at all, you know that he does NOT always correlate bet size to true count...

Acting has always been a huge part of the play for me; I've been softly barred just once.

I've been experimenting a bit with George Pappadopoulos's system!? of betting progressions and basic strategy, which work great on choppy tables. BTW, the progression is 2-1-2-3... the big key being the first bet is MORE than the second bet. You start this sequence when you sit down at the table, or after any loss.

Curious if anyone else has worked with this, perhaps using it only as betting but still using the charts for strategy?

progressions don't work.

...but progressions are not included in our repetoires.

Cobbson

Go to the link on your left under "Advantage Play" that is entitled "Progression Systems" for a rundown about using them. The bottom line is that they don't work.

Assuming you are one of the many who "are aware of playing winning BJ w/o counting", and you actually played winning BJ w/o counting, I would be interested in hearing some of your techniques or AP's.

My original post may have been a bit misleading, what I meant to imply was that the 2-1-2-3... progression has merit on a choppy table. All tables are not choppy tables, therefore the progression has trouble on other types of tables. The problem is, how does one determine a choppy table, or for that matter, a table with stability, i.e. things are going your way and the count is providing a good correlation to the outcome of a hand ? We either use past events to decide, the counts, or feelings.

As counts are the only one of these that we usually plug into a simulator, we generally choose counts as our criteria for determining table favorability.

We know from experience though that counts on a choppy table can help lead us to either winning or losing sessions.

There is no such thing as a "choppy" table or a "stable" table. Progression systems of any kind do not work, period. Don't waste your time trying to justify them.

http://www.bj21.com/bj_reference/pages/10537.html

"...do not work, period" tells me you believe they never work?

A winning player is more aware than the average plopper. Winning players notice more and use that information.

What ever happened to "the trend is your friend"? If the count goes into orbit and you can't make a hand, yet the guy next to you stays on all stiffs, and is winning, who is right? At the moment, your neighbor is. That doesn't mean he is always right, or even smarter than you for one moment. He probably won't change his strategy at the next 10 tables and will walk away a loser from them too. But at the moment, luck or skill, he is doing what's necessary to win at this session.

How many times have you seen the win 1, lose 1, win 1, lose 2, win 1, ... scenario? The counts give you a basis for strategy, but if it remains positive with a good ace count, its use for betting can be your worst nightmare. I'm saying that a conservative, short term progression may be best in this scenario. The trick is to be aware and notice the game changes as they happen.

Any progression might work for a few sessions, but all of them will fail in the end. Flat betting often works as well, but it won't get the money in the long run unless you are hole carding or using some other advanced technique.

"The trend is your friend" is nonsense. You don't know a trend has occurred until it is over. What appears to be a trend could end on the very next hand and you can't predict that in an honest game.

fubar,

I ran a 400-million-round sim in CVData for a 6D, S17, DA2, DAS game with 75% penetration for a basic strategy player using a 2-1-2.1-3 progression. By the way, I assumed this meant that the player returns to the "2" bet after any loss and after the "3" hand, win or lose.

I had to modify the progression so that the first and third bets were not identical, because the program looks only at the last bet, rather than the last several,so if both bets were "2", the program would not be able to differentiate between the first and third bets. In fact, I actually used 20-10-21-30, since the program doesn't use fractional units.

The results are shown below. The IBA is -0.426%, which agrees with the B.S. EV for this rule set. As you can see, you are at a disadvantage regardless of the number of units you bet.

The short version was already given by Bootlegger and others:

Progressions don't work!

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

Progression 2-1-2-3

Thursday, June 25, 2009, 01:20 PM

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Summary

Strategies

There is no such thing as "trends" in blackjack. Sometimes you have the advantage and lose anyway, and sometimes the idiot sitting next to you wins big. But that's 100% due to luck (variance). No progression system of any kind will EVER help.

You are completely deceiving yourself if you think you can identify and predict "trends". This is completely wrong, and you are guaranteed lose eventually following these systems.

I thought I had a full proof system.

Bet 10...if I lose, bet 20...etc etc. I figured you can't lose all of the hands....you will win a few.

I tried it....on one shoe (10. min) I scored $275!!

I later found out it was the Martingale system I thought up on my own.

Anyway....next time I tried it....My bank roll was not big enough and a terrible shoe put me at max bet...$500. I lost.

They don't work. Period.

Stick to Basic Strat and counting.........

Thanks for the analysis, I like a good debate.

I understand that the progression is a long term loser, no doubt. But short term, can we agree that anything is possible?

I am not the type to sit on any stiff just because it would have been a winner the last 10 times I got into the situation this shoe, but I will say that if the player next to me is winning doing this, then he is "right" and I am "wrong." Long term, yes, he loses, but the goal is to win $, isn't it? In doing so, however, we can't let short term wins define our long term strategy. But I surely can't rag on the player for "winning" or his method of winning.

On the subject of "the only game changes (in terms of the cards) that need to be bothered with have to do with the count" I need to disagree. I'm probably a bit naive, but I do NOT correlate bets to the counts 100%. I base my correlation more so on the relationship to stability, whether the deck is acting like I expect it to, i.e. are the cards coming out as expected for my hands and the count. If not, I do not jack up the bet just because the count goes up (also a camaflauge play). I have to have stability too. I will, however, break into 2 hands if I have poor stability to attempt to change it, but won't toss big bets on an unstable "spot." Some won't understand this type of play, because it does involve have a feel for the game. And since using strategy is the accepted practice, feelings are usually discarded as many are short term moment to moment indicators.

Have you ever decided to leave the table a loser even though you haven't depleted your session bankroll? If so, was it always because of the count? Or is it ever because you have a bad feeling about the game, or the situation? Learn to trust your feelings, then apply the strategy. They don't have to be at odds.

I know you can recognize trends...and you feel good when your chip stack is going up, and not as good when it's going down. When, over time, it is consistently going down, aren't you watching for the overall trend to change, so you can pounce on it? When I am losing a big percentage of my hands and can't get traction, I'm looking to bail, or change something. Trying to impose a hard set of rules on each table, well, we know the outcomes. It can cause plenty of pain, the difference between what is and what you want it to be. What I am suggesting is, as an option, consider moving into a progression...it doesn't have to be long term.

I only believe "it is right to make wagers according to probability" if you include your knowledge (counts) and the game flow into your probability. Sure, the wind can switch directions, but when the game is not panning out, when the stability isn't there, the only reason I'd be donking off big bets is to practice my steaming act; otherwise I am patient.

In the mean time, if you see a guy going 2-1-2-3-4... while "his" game is choppy, then switch to pumping his bet, I may be the guy next to you who recognized the change in MY hands stability. Regardless of whether I use the progression short term or not, I still will be using the counts though. The progression using basic strategy long term is a loser, I am sure (based on others calculations).

the kind who tries to MAKE something happen; and

the kind who WAITS for something to happen.

Gamblers, progression players, etc., are in the first group.

Card counters are in the second group.

Those who try to MAKE something happen may have notable short term successes, but are doomed to lose in the long run because they've conceded the edge to the "house."

Those in the second group may have notable short term failures but, because they have the edge, are destined to win in the long run, provided they've deep enough resources to ride out the bad patches.

Whoever has the edge WILL win in the long run.

It's really as simple as that.

I agree, if you have the edge and the BR and the time to play long term, you should come out a winner. Seriously speaking, what is long term in BJ ? (I won't even get into the video poker debates about long term play on advantage machines here).

When you say card counters, and I am a part of that group, "wait" for things to happen, we run into a paradox. We many times have waited for a nice count, but if we lack stability, we are jumping bets in an effort to "make" things happen, aren't we?

I definately like your statement about waiting though; patience is a good thing.

Thanks for the detailed analysis ! I agree, progressions, namely 2-1-2-3 don't work long term.

One thing I need to clarify, I abbreviated the betting sequence in my posts as 2-1-2-3...but it actually goes on out to whatever you max bet is. It can go up incrementally by +1, can stay at the same level, or can jump by +2. Once I have stability, I ramp up quickly, especially if a win came from a double down or a split.

I don't, however, have anything close to long term data on it, as I don't use it at every table, only those that appear to be in a choppy trend. Yours is the best analysis I have seen.

"There is no empirical evidence of any kind that those things exist, or could be exploited to the advantage of a player if they do."

Gut feelings, hunches, whatever you want to call them...right brain behavior. Strategy is left brain. Does discarding half the brain make sense? Since there is no evidence of its performance, as it isn't programmable, I guess there are plenty who say dump it, don't even consider it. It may seem logical to toss out unproven things, but the world isn't based on logic alone, or perhaps we have decided it is?

I'm not talking about flying by the seat of my pants on every hand. But knowledge is useful, even if we just choose to disregard it. The point is, should we decide to dump the strong hunch long before it has even materialized at the table? I surely don't get them at every table. If you KNOW something but can't figure out how you know it, should you forget that knowledge? Try a 2-1-2-3 progression on a choppy table next time you see it, live a little. We can all get this game right playing 20-20 hindsight.

If you wish to refer to me as a classic gambler, so be it. I keep the true count, aces, and on double deckers, fives too. I play the cards by the strategy, but betting isn't always by the count.

Feelings, gut, instinct, and all of the progression nonsense you're describing is voodoo, and doesn't work at all. The only possible way to play to win is based on mathematics and statistics. Yes, anything is possible in the short term, but unless you can see into the future, that fact is entirely meaningless.

Your brain is deceiving you. How can you possibly think that you brain has some magical ability to see the upcoming cards? This is classic gambling behavior, and will NEVER help your winnings, it will only hurt.

Playing blackjack is a game of statistics and logic. Any departure from this necessarily diminishes your win rate. You are completely wrong here.

Try a 2-1-2-3 progression on a choppy table next time you see it, live a little.

Total nonsense. However you define a "choppy table," how can you determine if it will remain "choppy" or become a "formerly choppy table," now called an "unchoppy" table? Hey, "Choppy" rhymes with "ploppy."

Seriously speaking, what is long term in BJ ?

It may surprise you, but that too has can be calculated. One method is Brett Harris's N0. This is the number of hands one must play before your EV = 1 standard deviation. In other words, the number of hands you have to play before you have an 84% chance of being positive. You will have to play 4*N0 hands to reach 2 standard deviations and 9*N0 to reach 3 SDs (97%+ and 99%++ chances of being ahead). Depending on the game conditions and bet ramp, for a typical counter, N0 is between 10,000 and 20,000 (or 100 - 200 hours based on 100 hands/hour).

However, this is based on betting based on your advantage. If you deviate from this by using an arbitrary betting scheme, such as a progression, you will either reduce the EV or increase the standard deviation. The result is that you will increase N0, meaning it will take longer for you to achieve the long run (if ever).

All gambling is based on mathematics. (Even bluffing in poker is mathematical.) The casinos know this, most players don't. That is why Las Vegas isn't a just a truck stop between LA and SLC.

Fortunately for you, you've found a site where you can learn about the realities of BJ and gambling in general. Stop posting for a while and just read. Read all the free material. Then, if you are things you don't understand, post questions about them. Once you think you know all there is to know, join greenchip and it will blow your mind.