Breaking even

Question about couting cards and breaking even. Lets say you have been couting cards perfectly on a 6 deck show with average rules, not being specific, and you run into many very bad hourly sessions in which the losses are quite high. I read that in some cases it could take 90 hours to break even. I'm starting to believe, in certain cases, it could be even longer if "luck" was not on your side.

At worst case, how long would it take to break even if you properly counted cards? Could it be greater than 90 hours? I'm just curious.

Thanks,
Brendan

I read that in some cases it could take 90 hours to break even.

Why do you think that true studiers of blackjack run simulations of hundreds of millions or even billions of hands? There are a lot of good blackjack books that cover standard deviation. Read some of them.

At worst case, how long would it take to break even if you properly counted cards? Could it be greater than 90 hours? I'm just curious.

There is no guarantee that you will win money during those 90 hours. For a game with a SCORE of 50, the N0 is going to be 20,000 hands, or about 200 hours of play. This means you will have an 84% chance of being ahead for those 20,000 hands, 16% chance of being behind.

Lost over 63% of my bankroll over 187 hours of play earlier this year.
Took 122 hours to get it back.

Since then I've more than doubled it.

But it's been a wild and scary ride.

It is a testimony to Paddywhack's gumption to continue after such a devastating loss. The important thing to remember is that at the point that he had lost 63% of his bankroll, there was no guarantee that the losing would end. All he had was the knowledge that he was playing with an advantage, and that sometime he would come out ahead. However, he did not know if this truth would manifest itself on the next hand he played, or sometime in the future. You can come up with averages as to how long it takes things to happen, but that has no bearing on what will happen over a short period of time.

As others have noted, your 90 hour sample is but a blip in the course of a blackjack journey. You should understand that it is quite literally impossible for anyone to guarantee that you will break even when playing blackjack or any other probabilistic game. You can only say that, given certain conditions, there is a certian chance this will occur. Were our world to last long enough, it is a virtual certainty that some person some day some where would lose every one of a million consecutive hands, purely out of bad luck. And there is no reason that person couldn't be you.

At times, I've felt like a lost a million hands in a row...and then I remembered that a pushed a blackjack on one hand. I lost 80% of my bankroll in one year but now a few years later I am at my highest bankroll ever. My bankroll was replenishable but I can't really say if I would have continued playing if I had lost it all. I've written about this many times on this board--the swings in BJ are tremendous. Blackjack is not for the faint of heart.

and most six deck games require something like 200 to 400 hours to have an 85% chance of being at break-even or ahead...and that is with very aggressive play and little to no cover and changing tables or sitting out of the worst 10% of negative counts. To have a 97.5% chance of breaking even you would need to play 800 to 1600 hours...depending on rules and penetration.

This may sound very discouraging but consider that you have almost zero chance of breaking even after 400 hours just playing basic strategy.

Blackjack School from bj21.com

thank you for this. That is a long time to play and have the faith to keep going and get it back.

From Lesson 9:
"Now look at the results for 90 hours of play. Most of you will be -- at worst -- about breakeven after that many hours. A few might be up by $2300, but some of you could be down by $1160 or more. Boy, I'd hate to hear the names you'll be calling the old GameMaster then! But it can happen and it won't be unusual if it does, so ask yourself right now if you can deal with playing a disciplined game for 90 hours, still be at a loss and continue playing and betting as I've shown you. It's sad, but most of you won't be able to deal with that and you'll be another victim of standard deviation."

This is a far cry from your starry-eyed interpretation: "I read that in some cases it could take 90 hours to break even." Technically, if most will be breakeven, 49% might be losers! Sounds like he's saying exactly what we're saying.

The fact is there have been competant, experienced professional counters (back before they were an endangered species) who had losing years. That would be at least 300 hours of play (probably more) with a net loss.

ETF

That's the important thing. In the long run we have the advantage. Whether it materializes or not is up to the cards and a good deal of luck.