Fluctuation question

Is there such a thing as positive and negative fluctuation or is it just called fluctuation?

I was playing at a table last night where the count stayed neutral or slightly negative but the dealer kept busting (these strange shoes came out one after the other for a couple of hours). The "Gamblers" at the table made a small fortune whereas I bet the count and made a couple hundred bucks (Im not complaining). Is this phenomenon of the dealer busting hand after hand on neutral and negative counts the same reason why sometimes the player loses hand after hand on very positive ones?

There is no way to expolit it however since positive and negative flux are all completely random. You don't know that the dealer busted "hand after hand" until after the fact. Hindsite is always 20-20.

I know exactly how you feel. Just last week, I was playing an 8 deck shoe where the dealer busted EVERY single hand he had. No, he didn't have 17 or above at any time during that shoe, he busted each and every time(even on As and 10s). The ploppies at the table were guarding the two open spots like watch dogs, so no one else can jump in to the game and "mess up the flow of the cards". Like you, I left that table a few hundred ahead, but that was nothing compared to what the ploppy betting pinks left with. Ahh well.

Bigplayer wrote: "Flux goes both ways. There is no way to expolit it however since positive and negative flux are all completely random. You don't know that the dealer busted "hand after hand" until after the fact. Hindsite is always 20-20."

Dr. Kenneth T Pittman, Ph.D., CIS wrote "...On more than one ocassion it has been a friendly dealer that has quietly and discreetly let me know that the cards were cold - or, that the shoe currently being dealt from was a "bad shoe" - or, that the players currently seated at the table were a bunch of knuck-heads. --- I can't even begin to count the amount of money that I've saved just by simply having a congenial relationship with the staff and fellow players..."

According to Bigplayer, luck is unpredictable. I assume that a good shoe may turn into a bad one in an instant without warning, and it'll rob you of your entire triproll when pumping your bets to the max during an unpredictable run of cards.

On the other hand, Pittman, a PhD in computer science, implied that luck is predictable. He seemed to state that he saved money when he walked away from hot dealers, and made more money when he played against cold dealers.

I personally don't know what to believe. Is Bigplayer right, or is Dr. Pittman wrong? However, commonsense tells me that vicissitudes of lady luck do exist. With that vicissitudes in mind, I should abandone a table when a "lucky" dealer beat the sh*t out of me, i.e., his 10ace vs my 21, his 20 vs my 19, his 19 vs my 18, his 22 vs my 22, etc... After getting a bloody nose for a while, I'll move definitely to another thin-cut dealer. My retreat in the face of defeat may not be for the badluck reason, but it's surely for the psychological reason. I believe the psycho-war is a part of the game (for me at least).

How would you guys handle killer dealers? After taking a beating, do you still stay on and on with the same dealer to a point where you would underbet during high count situations? Personally, it's psychologically difficult for me to push out those big bets when the dealer becomes the magician who flips his cards to beat me like these: his 10ace vs my 21, his 20 vs my 19, his 19 vs my 18, his 22 vs my 22, etc... So any enlightenment is greatly appreciated.

I'm sure your Dr. Pittman didn't get his title for a study on probability theory. Bigplayer is the much better expert in that field.
For behaving in the face of a "hot" dealer, my advice would be to stay on as long as the count is high and certainly not to underbet.You should stay for more shoes if this "magician" has managed to chase other players away so you get in more hands per hour .
When I lose maxbet after maxbet I usually get horribly upset and continue charging like mad as long as I have the edge.Being "stubborn" in these situations is also good for cover purposes. You will look like a compulsive gambler and very often get an invitation for dinner after such a dreadful shoe.
Blackjack is not a game for superstitious or anxious people and cheating can almost always be ruled out.

Francis Salmon

I don't know what the usually lucid Pitman is getting at, but the "hot/cold" dealer phenomena doesn't exist, unless a dealer is cheating. The more you play, the more you win, on average.

Positive and negative fluxuations will continue from table to table, dealer to dealer, # of decks dealt to # of decks dealt, and casino to casino.

This is what constitiutes the "streak" phenomena that are session wins and losses, e.g.; 15 wins in a row, 7 losses in a row etc.

Remember, it really is just one long session with breaks that we record. Think of sessions kind of like a baseball season, in that the better teams will have a winning record at the end of the season. This means YOU since you're the better team [as in you have the edge over the casino]. In blackjack, the end of the season only happens if and when you quit playing blackjack forever!

The most important element are your game conditions. Yes there "hot" dealers, as there are "hot" players, players who can't seem to lose, even though you may be. And it's certainly disheartening [only if you question the math and your play] to lose and others are winning, even if it's only the dealer, or lose hand after hand etc.. I admit, this is a learned skill, a painful one, but learned nonetheless.

This, however, IS the game of blackjack, and the only way you WIN is to play where the GAME CONDITIONS INCREASE your eV [mathematically] and that is through the combination of game rules and deck penetration, with deck penetration being more important. [proper bet spread is assumed as well as playing environment]

So, if you're in a 6 deck game with H17, but RSA, DAS, and LS with a dealer who is cutting a deck or less, you STAY and continue to play as opposed to moving to a table with 1.5 decks cut regardless whether you think the dealer is hot or not.

BTW, I find people are more inclined to pose these types of questions or question themselves when their primary games are SD or DD. It matters not, really.

If you find yourself emotionally unable to handle both the losses or the lack of proper betting, i.e.; when a max bet is called for, and you don't push it all out, then your not playing optimally and then you should STOP and not before.

cheers
bfb

Assuming you come across a "cold" dealer. How can you mathematically take advantage of such a situation? You can't!
A dealer I knew advised me once not to play against her, because she was "hot" that day, having annihilated several players. I told her I liked the challenge, and sat down to play one on one at her table. Spreading $25 to $300, I was winning almost every single hand to finish the show at +$2,000, using heavy cover. She got tons of tips. I used the Ian Anderson method for tipping: I put a red chip on top of my pile for her, and she only gets the winning, not the orignial chip. I only had to replenish that chip a few times.
Ten minutes later, I spotted her alone again, sat down, got another hot shoe, and made another $2,000. The pit boss was shaking his head, advising me to leave, which I did, only to get barred a few weeks later.
I believe in hot shoes, not in hot dealers. I also believe that some positive shoes can kill you and turn out to be ice-cold, but you need to persevere and believe in your advantage: it's the only way to make money. All of us know that we lost most of our money in positive shoes where our bets were at the maximum. Having an advantage is not a guarantee against losses, it's just a statistic, a long term statistic that you have no choice but to believe in.

A noteworthy distinction between bigplayer and Kenneth Pittman appears to be that only one of them knows gaming theory.
Assuming you have accuaretly paraphrased Pittman, he does not know blackjack and it appears has less than a full command of probability. If you stay with the game, you will learn that those "vicissitudes" that you speak of only reveal themselves in the past tense. Since every bet you make is placed in the present tense and waged upon a future event, those "vicissitudes" will never be of any assistance.