Choosing a counting system for Single deck

Couple of months back I started doing lot of research on net and read lot of books to pick a counting system for single deck. Since Playing strategy for single deck is important I chose to go with AO11 and bought "Balckjack for Blood" by Bryce carlson. Practised AO11 for a month with just Ill 18 indices before hitting casinos in Reno.

I am a red chipper with spreads of 1-3 or 1-4. I didn't do any Ace side counts
and I expereinced I was bit slow in TC conversion for playing strategy.I was up 60 units after playing for 12 hours last weekend.

Recently I came across www.bjstats.com. Using their Blackjack Counting Results Calculator for EV and SCORE I stumbled upon this.

GAme conditions: Single deck, H17 DOA, Penetration 35/52,Spread 1-3

1)Hi-Low with Ill 18 -- EV:1.03% SCORE:60.30(for 10K bankroll I beleive)
2)KO preffered: EV:1.03% SCORE:61.58
3)AO11 with Ill 18 -- EV:1.02% SCORE:62.92
4)AO11 with full indices
with Ace side count -- EV:1.40% SCORE:112.92

Finally assume that I play for about 100 hours with a trip to Reno every month.
There is a good chance I can do (2) without any errors , (3) with some errors
and I don't think I can remember all the 180 odd indices and use them effectively in present casino conditions.

Since I am a red chipper extra gains in using (4) over (2) will be in cents.
My confusion led to the fact that every where I read KO is not good for single deck and either A011 or H011 are good for single/double decks. But It's damn difficult to chat with PC and dealer while playing withb AO11 and I am pretty
confident I can do that with KO.

To the experts out there which one should I choose?
Stick with A011 which has better gains by adding indices and Aces side count or KO which is easy to implement in casinos?

REgards,
AOKO

For what its worth, I would recommend that you KISS, Keep It Simple, Sam.

No mistake, AOII with a side-count of aces is a premier system. AOII without the side count is good, but not much better than simpler systems. Chances are, the mistakes you are likely to make will mean that a simpler system would have done you just as much good without all the headaches involved.

You should also take into account that as your career advances and you spend more time at the tables, you probably won't be able to stick to just single deck games, for a variety of reasons. KO or Hi-Lo are versatile systems. I would recommend that you go with one of them, given the facts as you have presented them in your post.

Which one? Take your choice. They will both get the money.

Ao2...it will enable you to use a tighter spread and beat the game. Alternative is to use HiOpt 1 for SD and HiLo for shoes.

I don't recommend KO for single deck.

Buy Casino Verite if you don't already have it and get in some serious practice, then go get 'em. I took the opposite approach and learned simpler stuff first and finally decided to move up to Uston APC which is very comparable to AOII. To me SD and DD are more fun than shoes, with a lot more movement of the count and more action and these 2 systems are arguably the best for SD and DD. If you get to be a pro and have to grind out your living on shoes it would be easier to move down to a simpler count, certainly.

If you are not enjoying the game because the complexity of the count is dragging you down then by all means simplify. I would suggest HiLo since it is sort of an "industry standard" but KO will get the money too.

If you can hang with the AOII it is very powerful and will get the money faster. As you get more adept you can start adding the ace side count and memorizing additional indices.

Post how it goes no matter which route you choose. Good luck.

Isn't it true that to fully become efficient with AO11 one has to play atleast 150 hours per year.

you will have to move on to double deck sometime.stick to an unbalanced count like ubz2.

El Lobo, I have a question about uston apc. i have uston's book and am considering learning this count. do you know how accurate the indices in the book are? have you done any simulations to check the accuracy of uston's numbers? i guess its time for me to invest in one of the computer programs so i can do this myself. how long did it take you to learn this count? thanks for any feedback youre able to provide.

Generally speaking, I advocate Simple counts. AO2 is an excellent count for single deck, but it is very hard to play. As you noted you are having trouble using it, and have not even incorporated the Ace side count.

Don's original SCORE article has stats for S17 SD, 31/52. (See BJA 2 page 294). This is not the game your playing, as you were looking at H17. However, it will give us a general idea. It scores A02 at about 110, HiLo at 100 and at 99. So the much harder A)2 count gains you about 10%.

But if fatigue forces you to play shorter sessions and take more breaks, so that you get in 10% less playing time, you really haven't gained anything. There where come a time in your career where you can only play short sessions, for cover reasons, and so the fatigue will not be a big issue. But as a red-chipper you are a long way from that.

Now these SCORES are for A02 with the Ace side count. Dropping an Ace count will hurt significantly. I would be surprised if A02 does better than HiLo or KO for reasonable game conditions.

Now if you are using high betting cover, then the loss of the Ace side count will not be a big factor. Here betting cover could mean a small spread or cover betting with a big spread. An extreme case is flat betting, where A)2 without Ace clearly outperforms HiLo or KO.

Now I was a bit surprised at the stats that you quoted:

  GAme conditions: Single deck, H17 DOA, Penetration 35/52,Spread 1-3 



    1)Hi-Low with Ill 18 -- EV:1.03% SCORE:60.30(for 10K bankroll I beleive) 

    2)KO preffered: EV:1.03% SCORE:61.58 

    3)AO11 with Ill 18 -- EV:1.02% SCORE:62.92 

    4)AO11 with full indices 

    with Ace side count -- EV:1.40% SCORE:112.92





Now I think these Stats were from Norm, and he does excellent work.  So if you have quoted them properly, we should assume that they are correct.  (I followed the link, but the Website is only open during certain times of the day.)



I am confused about number 3.  This can't be with a side of Aces, because A02 would be doing much better.  But I would think that without the Ace side count, A02 would be doing much worse.  However, it is only with a 1-3 spread, and that my be low enough that A02 without Aces outperforms HiLo. 



But this is only 1-3.  As a red chipper, you should be spreading a lot more than that.  I suggest you put 1-4 or -16 into your calculator, and compare the results. 







                

Math prof,

Here are the results from www.bjstats.com using BJ income calculator

Game conditions: Single deck, H17, good penetration, 1-4 spread

$2000 bankroll

Hourly win rate:

1)KO preffered: $17.62
2)AO11 Ill 18 : $17.70
3)AO11 with full
indies and Ace side count : $29.76

Considering the fact that there is a big jump with 3 compared to
1 and 2 is it worth the trouble to go for 3(acheiving 3 is very difficult)

Thanks,
AOKO

I notice that I mangled the formatting of the last 3 paragraphs. So I am re-posting them here:

Now I think these Stats were from Norm, and he does excellent work. So if you have quoted them properly, we should assume that they are correct. (I followed the link, but the Website is only open during certain times of the day.)

I am confused about number 3. This can't be with a side of Aces, because A02 would be doing much better. But I would think that without the Ace side count, A02 would be doing much worse. However, it is only with a 1-3 spread, and that my be low enough that A02 without Aces outperforms HiLo.

But this is only 1-3. As a red chipper, you should be spreading a lot more than that. I suggest you put 1-4 or -16 into your calculator, and compare the results.

Now your latest stats show A02 making the same as KO for you 1-4 spread, but doing nearly twice as well with the full system. You asked if it was worth the trouble?

No I think the answer is obviously YES, if you can get in the same number of hours play for both system, or at least not suffer a big decline with the full AO2. And if you have access to lots of these deeply dealt single deck games, which you will be playing exclusively.

But you may find that to get lots of hours in, you have to play other games as well. It is much harder to keep an Ace Side count in a shoe game, and without the Ace Side Count, you will be doing poorly in those.

Now, it still isn't clear to me what the Income Calculator is computing., It may bot be a SCORE, and the instructions were not completely clear to me. In particular, I did not understand "doubling the Bankroll will often increase the win rate by more than double because a more optimal bet ramp can be calculated."

Maybe Norm can explain the data.

[your response]

No I think the answer is obviously YES, if you can get in the same number of hours play for both system, or at least not suffer a big decline with the full AO2. And if you have access to lots of these deeply dealt single deck games, which you will be playing exclusively.

>> I am confused here could you please elaborate the above.

But you may find that to get lots of hours in, you have to play other games as well. It is much harder to keep an Ace Side count in a shoe game, and without the Ace Side Count, you will be doing poorly in those.

>>How about doing A011 with atleast 75% of indices(not full) only on single deck and KO on shoes. Since Reno is 3 hrs drive from my place
intially I will be playing Single deck only.

Once my bankroll started growing I can use KO for shoes. I think my
2k bankroll is not sufficient for shoe games where bigger spread is involved.

Regarding the importance of indices I would like to add them in the following way mostly the positive ones.

1)Hard standing
2)Hard doubling
3)Soft doubling
4)pair splitting

Thanks,
AOKO

Now, it still isn't clear to me what the Income Calculator is computing., It may bot be a SCORE, and the instructions were not completely clear to me. In particular, I did not understand "doubling the Bankroll will often increase the win rate by more than double because a more optimal bet ramp can be calculated."

I think that it is calculating the win rate based on a real world bets, i.e., divisable by $5. If you increase the bankroll, you can use real world bets that are percentage-wise closer to optimal.

You can use the same website to calculate the SCOREs for these games. For the conditions specified the reported SCOREs are 90.65, 89.80, and 148.67.

Since you are comparing AOII with full indices with HiLo I18 -- not a valid comparison.

If you are going to attempt to memorize full indices, compare it with HiLo using full indices also.
(or ZEN with full indices -- no side count).
Now your gain is even smaller for the additional work of multi-level count and side count adjustments.

SOTSOG,

I did a compare between, HILO Ill18, KO preffered, AO11 Ill 18 and
AO11 full indices.

Here is SCORE comparison between HiLo full and AO11 full

Single deck,H17, Good penetration, 1-4 spread

HiLow full: EV:1.52% SCORE:113.04
AO11 full : EV:1.71% SCORE:148.67

THanks,
AOKO

Since Reno is 3 hrs drive from my place intially I will be playing Single deck only.

In your case, being relatively close to Reno, your best games are going to be the single decks games there. (This is not the case in Las Vegas, where the 6 decks games are the generally the best.)

I doubt, however, that you are going to get 35 cards dealt. Remember, this is the number of cards dealt before that last round, not after. You probably should be using the 31 cards dealt tables, in which case your win/hour will be around 14-15 for the 1 and 2, and 21-22 for 3.

Once my bankroll started growing I can use KO for shoes. I think my 2k bankroll is not sufficient for shoe games where bigger spread is involved.

This is a misconception, if you are wonging, you can make decent money with 1-4 spread. You can read Blackjack Attack 2 for the details.

Being somewhat anal I bought SBA and ran indices for a variety of rules, as well as a set of risk-averse indices which is what I use now. The Uston #'s are fine until you get well along. I would be more concerned about learning the system thoroughly, getting a lot of practice in (Casino Verite is an excellent software for practice), and getting a little casino play time with the system. You might even start with the Illustrious 18 index #'s and build from there. DO utilise the ace side count. It's easy enough to do with ENOUGH PRACTICE. Uston's book was very helpful in guiding my learning process.

The problem is the penetration assumption. I doubt you will find an uncrowded single deck game with greater than 50% penetration. Veterans will remember those old optimistic assumptions with 2% win rates.

You must decide on balanced or unbalanced, level 1 or 2, side-ace. Here are some more relevant comparisons, using Poor (50%) Penetration, H17, 1-4. Divide by 5 to get the wage per 100 on a $2K Kelly bankroll.

1) High-Low Ill 18 SCORE = 33,
2) AO2 Ill 18 SCORE = 33,
3) KO Preferred SCORE = 35,
4) Hi-Lo Lite Full SCORE = 37,
5) Zen Ill 18 heads-up SCORE = 46,
6) Halves Full SCORE = 47,
7) AOII Full w/side ace SCORE = 49,
8) UBZII heads-up SCORE = 51,
9) Zen Full SCORE = 51.
10) High-Low Full heads-up, SCORE = 52.

Zen Ill 18, UBZII and High-low Full have the advantage of being heads-up. But here are some conclusions.

1) The wage is pitifully low compared to flipping burgers.
2) The heads-up effect is more powerfull than system choice.
3) Ace-compromised single-parameter compete with ace-side systems.
4) Unbalanced systems compete with balanced.

I am confident Zen Full would be best heads-up. You could truecount UBZII and get similar results to Zen. The conclusions are:

1) Get a bigger bankroll,
2) Find good conditions (heads up, better penetration),
3) Use KO or UBZII or their balanced versions (High-Low or Zen).

Kim lee,

Playing at Reno last before week at Atlantis and Boomtown during graveyard shift penentration was about 90%( I am not kidding )
in heads up game. I was loosing at that time and may be that's the reason they dealt that deep.