Chebayev analysis---a call to ee majors and Hams who count!

Just read a post from Ted. He says he backed out of his post, but had hit post twice. He allows you the benefit of doubt saying you were not responsible. But message from Sisypus, groups.yahoo.com/group/blackjackcardcounterscafe #14245 clearly was dragged over from a post busted by YOU. There is also messages from others. One of the best compared things to the "Inquisition taking over the Church of Blackjack" Another pointed out that, "Gwynn and Seri had some views similar to yours, that the best way to deal with the alleged FA would be to use more indexes and higher PE counts. It must not be for accident that Gwynn and Seri ceased being mentioned in BJA, from about the same time as they expressed these views. Thanks Clarke and I hope that you keep things honest as this whole matter stinks, with the farts coming from Don and Parker most of all!"

One other email, I don't have permission to mention I will quote briefly, "I never agreed with the idea of holding back on how many indexes I used. I fully think that some people using just the i18 have clearly been talked into claiming there is a problem going further. Clearly though you have shown that more PE pays as part of explaining the FA issue, and I really hoped to see Schlesinger try to rebut, on rge21.com, your rounding error claims. I get tired of people claiming they don't understand you (watch the typos please though:) when it is clear that they plain the hell just don't want to." The email was long and included their owns sims from CV, with the view rotated to show the true count exclusion limits I have mentioned in other posts. They requested that I not repost it yet until they went over the original sims posted by Norm, as they might be posting stronger views--I don't think Norm was fudging unless he was somehow pressed by Don just to show how the data supports or something.

Now Cant is saying Don and his clones are in some kind of battle with the forces of light who use other methods to exploit.

While I am in complete agreement with you on the FA stuff, and for that matter with Cant's obsession with DS in general, I can't agree on this point.

There have been numerous instances:-baccarat, the issue of card latency in continuous shuffle machines, card sequencing, even internet gambling, where Schlesinger's comments were negative and unproductive. In every case subsequent information proved him wrong. These are all major issues, not minor points of theory.

Incidentally, I don't agree with the term "clones". Parker, DD' and you for example all have a healthy scepticism about things but you will hear an argument out and point out any flaws with reference to logic and basic analytical method. Schlesinger doesn't, he invariably just says "This is horseshit. Ignore it". When he does actually contribute something substantive -positive or negative- it is always worth reading but such musings are often few and far between.

The battle is between accurate information and inaccurate information.

I don't think it is that simple. When DS says for example, as you can see on the bjmath.com beginner pages, that a given continuous shuffle machine is not beatable, without studying the device, or studying the associated literature, he is not producing accurate information. He is violating the basic analytical method, commenting on a thing on the basis of gut instinct and guesswork rather than study and experience. This is not an isolated example, but sympotamatic of a general pattern of behaviour.

Now, you may say Cant is clearly mad, and I would agree. However, mad people may occassionally produce something interesting in moments of insight. In particular, his comments about the card warps caused by peek readers, in spite of what I suspected, withstood extensive testing and analysis on my part. I try and encourage Cant's occassional moments of lucidity and discourage the repetitive attacks on DS et al.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that for advantage play to develop someone must make a leap and occassionally take the risk of being incorrect. It is easy to provide information which is always accurate by saying nothing controversial. But without the occassional mad vision the science of advantage play would wither and die.

A reasonable and well thought out post IMHO.

I have never met Don but I consider him a buddy through emails and telephone calls. For various reasons I have never studied alternate ways of exploiting various games but I would tend to agree with you from what I do know Don tends to reject too quickly these methods. Of course, about the absolute best is holecarding with the right dealer or exploiting inaccurate dealer payoffs. But at the risk of putting words in Don's mouth, I would suggest his opposition of making a big thing out of latency in shuffle machines and things like that is the thought even better gains can be made with straight card counting. As a person like Don who is not looking for any change in life style from gambling and looks at it as an intellectual exercise, I realize that if five decks are put in and there is a latency of two decks, an advantage (albeit) small can be gained and for the professional there is built-in cover. But I would not mess with that. I would rather play six decks cut to one or even one and a half. I think Don thinks in turns of comparison while you and the other "New Wave" people think in terms of possible exploitability, however small. One serves one purpose; the other serves another. A person having a limited time and limited opportunity to play needs to think about the game differently than the professional. In fact we have to. A team with a bunch of money could possibly eak out some money with two deck latency but one person with even good bankroll resources would be doing something terribly risky. It needs to be discarded by people like me. If I did that I would be putting $50-100 thou (top of head) at some fair amount of risk to make what I do at my day job at almost no risk. That does not scan.

I can have some critical thoughts about Don's applying his own standards to others but I think I know where he is coming from. Not from the stance of a pro but from the stance of comparing blackjack with other things. IMHO that stance might be limited but it is not improper.

As to original, nonorthodox thinking, I agree with you completely. A different slant might be wrong most of the time but advances are made from having different slants. But solid mathematics in gambling cannot be overlooked in the search for different slants. Five decks with two deck latency is simply a piss poor game for most of us. And there is an optimal mathematical way to do that too.

Cant's "banger" thing seemed to me the first time I heard it as possibly making sense although I had never seen conditions which would bring it on. Again, though, if it is exploitable at all there is certainly an optimal mathematical way of exploiting it and that is a very important thing to take into account.

And therein lies my disdain for Cant. He posts posing as a mathematician and most of his mathematics is absurd. And being absurd it is misleading, especially to persons not even as poorly grounded in math as I am. I am at least well grounded enough to see the absurdities.

If there are two "sides" here I am not on either side. Different strokes for different folks. Different aims for different folks. Different methods to meet the differnt aims of different folks.

This silly floating edge thing has not been precipitated by me for any reason other than to point out the inadequacy of Cant's math. I originally posted on the matter to Sotsong the effect was only exploitable in helping Ev in only limited instances when he had supposed it might could be of more significance. At the best it is trivial but some marginal mathematical advantages which can be attached to accurate definition.

Cant is simply full of shit when he posts mathematics and that is the only point I have attempted to make.

A reasonable and well thought out post IMHO.

Thanks.

For various reasons I have never studied alternate ways of exploiting various games but I would tend to agree with you from what I do know Don tends to reject too quickly these methods.

I admit to some difficulty understanding people who have no interest in these things. For me this is an absorbing and wonderous science which fills my mind and keeps me sane. I guess people who spot trains think the same way.

I realize that if five decks are put in and there is a latency of two decks, an advantage (albeit) small can be gained and for the professional there is built-in cover. But I would not mess with that. I would rather play six decks cut to one or even one and a half...Five decks with two deck latency is simply a piss poor game for most of us

Although I acknowledge you have no interest in this, I must clarify this issue in case people are thinking I recommend attacking games with poor penetration (in any circumstances).
The latency inherent in a continuous shuffle machine is NOT equivalent to standard hand-shuffled penetration. The cards keep a constant number of cards out of play all the time, that is, each and every hand is played at the point of deepest penetration. You never have to play the initial unprofitable hands off the top of the pack as you do with a hand-shuffled game.
The difference is expected gain is quite dramatic-it can be worked out in reference to the TOB table where an extra unit is bet at each level. I don't have TOB handy but I seem to recall that in your 2 of 5 example gain from playing the deepest point of penetration is about 250% larger than playing a 2 of 5 hand-shuffled game (someone correct me if I am wrong). The game may still suck from your perspective, but I think this may not be so obvious.

Cant's "banger" thing seemed to me the first time I heard it as possibly making sense although I had never seen conditions which would bring it on. Again, though, if it is exploitable at all there is certainly an optimal mathematical way of exploiting it and that is a very important thing to take into account.

David Morse was proposing this method independently, so I am almost certain it is valid. Morse's methods are usually justified with impressive intellectual rigour. I would like to see, as Wong initially suggested, some data from Cant.

Cant is simply full of shit when he posts mathematics and that is the only point I have attempted to make.

To be honest I've never taken much interest in Cant's calculations-I tend to concetrate on his ideas. That might explain the difference of perspective.
It is frustrating when he comes up with an idea such as a formula for calculating the gain from shuffle-tracking, which is a great idea, yet I can't trust the numbers. It would be fantastic if Don or you or someone with enough grounding in math could make the seed germinate, so to speak, but I suspect it won't happen.

in points I have made just because they are opposed by DS. Gwynn and Seri began this point on how true counts must carefully be examined, and rounding taken into account. My formula for how a true count is discrete just puts this formaly.

You are out and out lying about the bow effect. You know damn well from Griffin, and from your own description with the phrase, "conservation of the mean," which is a good way to put it, that the bow effect, to the same degree that it raises the edge in middle ranges, cuts the edge in higher TC ranges. The upper range in any spread includes the TC ranges where the edge is less than indicated.

But most of all you ignore the clear fact that the mean is not an absolute. Perhaps one of the best collections of math papers on this can be found at MIT, in a collection of undergraduate papers from Macually's students, critquing Asimov's Short StoryThe Election, where future federal elections had been reduced to finding the average man, where the average man then was taken as having the average view etc. You are throwing in the same mistake knowingly to try to prop up Don's SAFE FA BS! Griffin felt that it was sufficient to just state it was "a leap of faith" to use this absolute means idea in regard to indexes and mean composed decks.

Basic strategy edge simply does not rise with penetration, once you remove traces of TC rounding error. That view, when held by Gwynn and Seri, in oppostion to Don's first version of SAFE, is what lead to them breaking off contact. Those discussions from Blackjack Forum in the late 80s and early 90s, are carefully left out of Blackjack Attack's selections.

You confuse totally disagreement with lack of knowledge, but do so clearly in a lying fashion where it is useless to try to respond to you.

Glad to see you are being polite to John May, but there is a simple reason why I don't have more to say about the math of bangers. Stanford Wong either already included the math for his past work on warps or the recomendations should be obvious. Where the peek device used does not give aces and tens different diagonal bends, the math and needed accuaracy and strategy is exactly the same. Where the peek device gives different diagonal bends, the advice is different for only 2 decisions, from warp strategy: you definitely hit stiffs verses 7, with and ace hole card, and you don't take insurance with a dealer's ace/ace. The only difference in edge is that insurance has greater accuracy. Wong's warp advice is that your plays don't matter with 16 v. 7 and 15 v. 7 with only warp advice.