I mean, my parents tell me I was born sneering, for crying out loud.
Ah well, I'll get you back for this, Don.
Meet you in 3001, sucka! :)
M.
I mean, my parents tell me I was born sneering, for crying out loud.
Ah well, I'll get you back for this, Don.
Meet you in 3001, sucka! :)
M.
.. I think a good working definition of 'pseudoscience' would be:
Use of the scientific method is used to draw faulty conclusions from a faulty premise.
Maybe I'll send that off to Merriam-Webster :)
M.
Thank you for your nice post.
Yes I too have gone back to red chips and I'm happy about it. I do believe that is the final answer to my question and it is not profound and it has been said before, only bet what you are comfortable betting with. If the bet makes me uncomfortable then that's when my emotions can get the better of me, so why do it?
Thanks again for all your input, and now we can probably archive this thread as Moose wants us to.
I wonder if the steely eyed temperament card counters have a passion for the game or not. I know I do have a passion for the game and unfortunately that is what gets me in trouble. As you say, I recognize it and know it cannot be controlled, and when it becomes an obsession rather than a passion is when the trouble starts. If I see that happening in myself, I have always been able to catch it before it gets to the point of financial and emotional ruin.
Wong's Hall of Shame
Your emotional feelings are smarter than all the
math-manure on this board. Listen to your subconcious
mind, it happens to be right.
and get nowhere, BUT it is a central issue, ignored at ones peril.
Once again, I think maybe you are bringing together 2 things that might perhaps need to be kept separate: passion and obsession. As in my above post I made the distinction between the passions and the intellect. GBV appoves of the operations of the intellect being successfull defenders against ruin. I think he is too optimistic. (This does not make me a pessimist by the way...)
My dictionary has:
OBSESSION: a persistant idea or thought dominating a person's mind.
However, there is reason that a PASSION (feeling) could do the same Dominate a person's mind). I would like to ask you whether you think it is a feeling that causes you to lose control or it is a negative thought.
Personally I do do not believe an obsession would necessarily cause you to become unstuck. It could save you from becoming overemotional. Thus an obsession with not losing the RC would be a factor in your favor. Momentary obsessions of this kind can be conceived as the intellect & emotions working together in harmony.
Down 'Sigmund' Under
"Therefore in return I would like to nominate you as "Ivory Tower Egghead of the Milenium".
A lot of people spell "millennium" with just one "n." But, you're pretty special, Frank. You're the first person I've seen spell it with one "l," as well.
As usual, your comments are too ignorant to respond to.
Don
Please place YOUR math and spelling(typing included)
where your head is.
to people who spell better than you and who know more math than you do. Why the jealousy? Why can't you learn from people who know more about gambling than you do? Are you afraid to learn?
Don
P.S. Much harder question: Why on earth am I wasting my time trying to have an intelligent conversation with you?
Plese folks keep the cat cr*p clumps and clumping litter technology to your daily litterbox duty [off-computer] and not here.
I've already done my cat's duty today. :-)
... and after a while, they go away. Posters like him thrives on getting a reaction. Let's just concentrate on learning to become better players.
to have a passion for something is not " a problem " in itself. The problem starts when the passion gets in the way, or becomes an obstacle to, the very goal one seeks. This is particularly true with skilled blackjack which requires DISPASSION or emotional detachment to not only reach the goal but to enjoy ( relatively speaking ) the trip or journey to the goal--which is long term profits.
Certainly, in many other activities, passion is hardly ever an obstacle or problem, but rather is THE ingredient which acts as the fuel to accomplish one's goal. Any activity which is *personally* conceived and which depends on the solitary--in mind or heart--participation of the individual to accomplish it, requires, before all else, passion. NOT A PROBLEM...DU!
THE PROBLEM with skilled blackjack, is that FROM THE START, it requires temperance and emotional detachment to succeed based upon a belief in a given count system, and if you don't already bring these " stronger " qualities to the game you are bound by your fears ( not your passions ) to fail.
Passion occurs IN THE MOMENT, and propels, in and of itself, all other moments to be--from ITSELF conceived--MOMENT BY MOMENT. But momentum, willfulness, passion, and/or emotional feeling, is the very thing the skilled player must do without, and falls under the domain of the flighty momentary gamble. But we all agree that skilled blackjack is not even remotely the domain for this sort of thing--don't we?
This then is what Lapper--and I believe--what all other players, who are presumably still human, must grapple with: TO PLAY THE SYSTEM AND NOT ONESELF, as though you were merely at the control of a machine ( the system ) and pushing its pre-programmed buttons like you were pushing them to open or close a window in your autombile...with hardly a thought or care.
Does it require passion, DU or Lapper, to do this? No it doesn't, and hence, passion is not THE PROBLEM here. Rather it is a failure to truly BELIEVE in the system and the consequent FEAR that it will fail you. It is not passion that is getting in your way Lapper--it is the emotion of fear--which all players have to deal with and which is the only consolation I, or anyone else for that matter, can give you: to suck it up bro, and just go forward...Pete
of sorts. Dispassion required to place bets, to not fear loss, indifferent to gain, a clear head, conscious only of the here and now. Not easy when you remember that you can only play as long as your bankroll lasts.
Maybe Nietzsche was right: we must teach men to forget. Requires courage, huh?
To forget...and to move forward...completely unarmed by the past and its muscular grip.
Which is also why I recommend having a bankroll at least twice the size that passionless, bloodless theory say's is necessary.
When you're in the throughs of a losing streak it's a lot easier to let go of it emotionally if your money is beyond all scaring.
Which raises the question--DU--whether money itself, as a repository of past value in our collective imaginations, has its basis in fear and its unholy grip, rather than in passion and its freeing up expressiveness. Why are the majority of rich men tight-wads, afterall?
Ah yes, the joy of letting go,
--Dad, would you please, ah, give me that inheritance now, um, you know, I, I, need it now, and you you, you cannot ta ta ta...take it with you, and and it woo woo...would help me with my my ba ba...blackjack playing...ba ba...ba ba buisness down in Biloxi.
Ah yes, fear and money--the unholiest of alliances is found here--and never has it been otherwise.
"But woe to you, the rich ones,
for you have already received your consolation"
Now, I ask you, why on earth would anyone, ANYONE, choose a consolation prize over FIRST PRIZE? I ask you...
verses 35 - 38 are good too! Well, the whole fucking book, actually!
with sugar. Seems a certain Transylvanian Terrorist don't like sour blood!
I have not been on this page for over a month so this post lags horribly.
Don't ever forget that the absolutely toughest thing to overcome psychologically about serious blackjack is that no matter how high the count goes (barring end-play, of course) is that the player is ALWAYS the underdog to win the hand.
If you have a 2% advantage on a given hand the Uston 51-49 bean demo is misleading. There are actually still less white beans in the jar than black ones. Some of the white beans are fatter than the others. Only after pulling TENS OF THOUSANDS of beans does one ever realise that one can survive at all in this game.
Survive. Only if you do *EVERYTHING* right. Survive. I can't repeat that word enough. Please forget any idea that you might flourish and prosper. I don't know anyone else who works for as little as 0.5% commission.
You are sitting at the table KNOWING that you are losing more hands than you are winning. You suffer it all waiting patiently for that blackjack. Your earned income is less than 1/4th of the extra bonus payoff. All the rest, bet and payoff, goes back into the mill.
You are hitting stiffs more than you are doing anything else. You break them more often than you don't. The ones you make don't win much more than half the time either.
The wrong card turns and an entire hour's worth of expectation is gone. But the cards bounce 'right' the next hand and you feel a little better.
Or do you?
One hundred or more roller coaster rides you will endure to get that cash register to ring just once. Almost half of your days will be spent riding the waves 500 or more times and end up paying out of your own pocket for the nausea and dizziness.
Intellectually you know you gained $237 in expectation today.
Emotionally you're praying that your wife/children/friends don't ask you to explain why you actually have $569 less than you started out with. You're a great player and a big loser all at the same time. The reality of this keeps you from sleeping soundly at night, 3 out of 7 times a week.
Tommorrow it's different. $312 in expectation but you're flush with $878 *pay*. "Let's go to a nice steakhouse and get that Trinitron for the bedroom." Then your bubble bursts as you come back to earth, do your accounting and put off your dreams until you double the bank. Even then you might just pay off your debtors and try to face doing it all over again.
"I must be out of my mind. I should call my boss and see if he'll have me back. What the hell was I thinking?"
You put out that *BIG* bet when the count flies. Now your gut wrenches just before the cards come out because you realise that the dealer is just as likely to have a blackjack as you are. The cage is fluid to the tune of 7 figures. If you're one of the rare, obedient ones you are playing to 5. Not much fun flipping coins with a guy who has dollars for every penny you have. Paper pennies with Benjamin Franklin's face on them.
You double 11 against 10 while the ploppies, the dealer, and the pit winces. They think you're the village idiot during the 5 times out of 11 that you lose. They think you're a lucky bugger during the 6 times that you do win it. You start to wonder if you should even be doubling that hand because, in the moment it happens, the sting of the five doesn't seem to be compensated by the relief of the six.
Chances are good you'll lose track of how many times you've won or lost this hand by the time it happens 11 times. That's just great. MORE uncertainty. 40+% of the time you'll have actually lost more of them than you'll have won.
Soft double? More often than not you won't even make a hand. There you are, stuck praying for a dealer break that you know will happen less than half the time. How many years will you have to do this until you feel confident that you are actually winning your share (a whopping 53%)?
Did your mechanic-gripping dealer sneak a peak and deal you a second undetected any time in the last hour? If so, you may be the world's greatest blackjack player but you're losing at the rate of a ploppy. Actually, you're in worse shape than the ploppy is. He actually knows the score.
It is a grind at best and a drag at worst. When you lose you'll feel way too bad. When you win you'll feel way too good; for about three minutes. Then you'll switch over to worrying about whether or not the pit is sweating it.
It almost seems like a lose-lose situation. Do it long enough and you'll just pray to survive. But that's actually a good thing. You've finally adopted the right attitude. It won't feel good, but you'll know you've arrived.
The math promises but only the sands of time delivers. If you believe otherwise, pro or con, you have just been distracted by the flashy, glittery gamble of the situation. Rest assured, that stuff is NOT the gold. You will have to endure an eon of fluctuation, fortunes won and lost, in order to squeeze out your earned nickels.
The trick is to be able to play 30,000+ hands before you even start to care about whether you are winning or losing. Until then just worry about whether you are playing correctly, getting good penetration and not being cheated. Until then you have *NO CLUE* as to whether you are winning or losing. No sense counting your money ten times. You won't know anything at all.
Is it any surprise that the vast majority of counters aren't winners?
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