Choosing a counting system for Single deck

Good for you. But if you spread black chips in Reno this won't happen. Beware of preferential shuffling too. With a $2K bank your top bet is around $40. But surely you can replentish funds eventually and consider the $2K a partial advance on a larger lifetime bank of $5-6K? I would strongly consider trying $5-2x$95. Then you avoid green or black chips, get comps, and make $50 per hour. In this case you are wasting time with an advanced system because your time is better spent scouting tables, and after you get your hands on more money you won't be able to play these games anyway.

I was nodding my head in agreement with your first post in this thread but stopped nodding when I read "I would strongly consider trying $5-2x$95."

Huh?

Other than getting lots o' shuffles and possibly the boot from several joints I fail to see the reason behind such a spread. 1-38? The biggest I've pulled off was $3-2x$50, and that was in a shoe. Not to mention my bankroll is bigger. Unless you posted that as a type of hail mary approach. But I dunno - I'm just a peon.

-J.

Panama Rick wrote:

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.

Yes, I think it is "real=world" bets, but I don't how they are defined. I don't think rounding to the nearest nickel is "real world" for everybody. For example, I would not have a bet of 135 in my betting schedule, I would either have 125 or 150. A red chipper might have a bet of $7. That is, at some levels rounding to $1 makes sense, at other levels rounding to $25 is "real-world".

This would mean that at some bankroll levels we have to get worse, and our performance would suffer.

But where the position of dividing line is a very subjective issue. You and I may have different views. Depending on what we chose, the relative performance of these Win Rates will change.

This is one fo the reasons why I think SCORE is a much better indicator.

First I again notice that you refer to A02, and later A02 full with Ace SC. Is this the convention with A02, that if we don't specify the Ace Side Count, we presume the default is not using it? I had always assumed that for these counts the presumption was that you were using the ASC.

You noted that all the heads up figures are better than the others. I was wondering how these3 figures were computed. There are a number of ways that heads-up play can be better. They are simply faster. All things being equal, a game which is 20% better is going to make 20% more money, and get into the Long Run 20% faster.

But there are other effects of heads-up. It can effect penetration, particularly in pitch games. 4 rounds to 2 is a different game than 5 rounds to 1. It also effects playing ability, seen you see all the cards before you make a decision.

Now to the extent that speed is a factor in your statistics, then we should realize that speed might depend on the count system you use. You can play very fast with a simple system like HiLo and KO. There are players who play A02 that fast, but it is much harder. I used to use an Ace Side count with HiLo, but I gave it up because I realize that it was slowing down my heads-up play too much. I was giving more in speed than I was gaining with the Side Count.

BTW, our friend said he had 90% penetration at Reno. This is obviously an exaggeration. In a single deck, this would mean that there were only 5.2 cards left unseen before the last round. But I suspect they burned a card, and will not deal the last card. This means only 3.2 cards left to deal, which is not enough to start another round.

I think that 75% penetration is the most that you can realistically obtain. However, I have been told that they do deal deep in Reno, and that this is attainable there.

I don't know that I agree within your 5-95 recommendation either. But I am not sure what your getting at, so I will wait until you respond later.

I just used Norm's calculator. Given it's equality with High-Low I suspect AO2 Ill 18 did not use a side count. Norm provided a heroic number of sims, but omitted a few that would provide comparisons for the incremental value of a side count (without changing the heads-up condition).

SCORE is based on rounds per 100, so speed does not affect these numbers. Importantly Norm based his SCORES on optimal betting which makes them comparable. Otherwise a system might perform better because it bets better.

Yes, heads-up may get better effective penetration because the small rounds allow you to come very close to the cut-card. Also the heads-up player can change bets more frequently.

By spreading from $5 to two hands of $95 you can use red chips and appear to be little threat. But 2x$95 is equivalent to one hand of around $150. So this red chip spread probably makes as much money as a green/black spread of $50-$200 with much less heat. O.K., this spread is unrealistic even with red chips, but it shows you can avoid "cheques play" and be more aggressive.

Note powerful systems seem percentage-wise much better in crummy games. You think "Wow, High-Low makes $5 per hour while AO2 Full makes $9 per hour." But betting more money more aggressively in good conditions changes these numbers to $37 and $52. Now the comparison is not clear compared to game conditions.

Note Mathprof is also skeptical about 90%. My point is if you have such a good game then you should play it bigger and stronger. This dwarfs any effect from system improvement. AO2 looks substantially better than High-Low only under unrealistically good conditions. If you play these conditions aggressively then you will quickly get heat or become too rich too play without deteriorating conditions. In this case you will no longer benefit much from the incremental power of AO2.

Dr. Lee wrote:

My point is if you have such a good game then you should play it bigger and stronger.

I take the exact opposite view. If you have to playa mediocre game, then you should play it stronger and not worry too much about being backed off. Losing a mediocre game is no big loss. And in such a game, you don't have enough profit margin that you can afford to give away much in cover.

But if you have a good game, then it is worth trying to maintain you ability to play it. And you have enough profit margin that you can afford to give away some in cover.

Travel distance is also a factor. It wouldn't make sense for you or I to fly all the out to Northern Nevada, give up a full day in travel (at least half a day going out, half a day coming back) and then give up a large part of our game for cover.

If I had a good single deck game within a 3 hour car drive of my home, I would put a lot of effort in trying to maintain my longevity there.

For example Hi-low gives false positives and false negatives
thereby putting more money on table when the situation is not that realy advatageous. With LEVEL 2 counts since they predict advantage more accurately than Level 1 systems varience is less .

-AOKO

Norm made the bets as close to optimal as possible, and yet be "real world". I know because I asked him.

Yes MP, SCORE is better, but Norm's site gives you both: the SCORE and the option of playing around with different spreads, pen, BR, etc and getting an almost-instant response on win/rate per 100. That is not a bad thing!

Here is the classic problem. Unrealistic simulations may show AO2 appears much better than High-Low. There happens if conditions are unrealistically bad or good. If the game is very bad then it may be barely beatable by High-Low. For example, High-Low may get $1 per hour and AO2 may get $1.60. This is a large percentage difference, but not a large absolute difference. When you improve conditions then you might make $37 with High-Low and $42 with AO2. Now the superiority is not clear if you can play faster with High-Low.

The second problem is simulated conditions that are unrealistically good, involving deep single decks. These are only playable for small money. After a couple hundred hours of winning your bankroll will grow too large to play in those good conditions. Again the huge superiority of AO2 vanishes.

A good black chip game is worth preserving. But a red chip game is not. By the time you master a complicated system the game won't be available at your bankroll level. It's better to pick a system immediately.

My motivations for switching to level 2 would be to double my wagers or reduce round-off errors.

The variance of your estimated advantage is _much_ less than the variance of your outcome. For example, a really powerful system might tell me 3 of the next 4 cards are tens and one is an ace. But that doesn't help in retrospect if the dealer gets the ace!

SCORE is just the squared return/risk (mean/standarddeviation). It adjusts for risk.

Probably not. Of course you can do that to start. Or you could get a program or buy _Blackbelt in Blackjack_. Zen is roughly the sum of Hi-Opt 1 and High-Low. So you could simply add those tables. Zen is roughly an average of of AO2 and Hi-Opt 2, so you could average those tables. Finally, I recommend George C.'s UBZII. Or you could use my AKO {-.5,.5,1,1,1.5,1,.5,0,0,-1} with K0 tables.

I use High-Low. This is partly laziness. Once I wanted to do some shuffletracking which is slightly easier with a balanced count. I played with KO, but found it too confusing to switch within level 1. In contrast I had no problems with level 2 systems, even keeping a level 2 count for one (Over/Under 13) table while keeping High-Low for another. A balanced system makes wonging-in and -out easier for me. But there is a strong argument for an unbalanced system for wonging. I prefer level 1 because I can read the spots on cards from far away, while jet-lagged and sun-stroked. Finally, High-Low is the industry standard for team play.