General Advice and RoR

I have been playing part-time (8 hrs/week) for about 7 months after reading Fred Renzey's BJ BB II utilzing the unbalanced KISS lvl III count (although I do use half-pts on deuces for a slight improvement over the 96/55 bet/play calc he provides in his book). My betting system is as follows w/ a departure from the table at any -2 count.

0: 1U
+1: 2.5U
+2: 3U
+3: 4U
+4/over: 5U

(Yes I feel like this is not a wide enough spread)

I very much so would like to take my game to the next level and have BJ be a reliable secondary source of income. I have also read BJ Attack and most of Prof BJ. My major questions are as follows:

1) Mr. Renzey provides for a comparison against level 2 and 3 systems and claims the KISS III is comparable, any thoughts?

2)I generally bankroll $500 which I feel is not sufficient, if I were searching for a 15% RoR, what would I need to bring w/ me on a typical 4hr session w/ my current betting system?

3) ANY OTHER GENERAL ADVICE.

Thank you in advance for any and all thoughts/opinions, I am planning to procure Mr. Wong's BJ analyzer and do everything I can to learn more about this amazing game.

Alex

You didn't say what your unit size was, and the $500 bankroll you mentioned sounds like the money you bring to a session or "trip". If you're thinking of playing on a continuous basis, you should think in terms of lifetime RoR, not your Trip RoR. In both cases, your RoR will depend on rules, units in your bank, how many decks, penetration, your counting system, your bet schedule/spread, etc. it would be useful for you to pick up some software, like CVCX, or BJRM to start understanding how these factors drive RoR.

I don't use Mr Rensey's count, so I can't comment on your bet ramp, but am guessing it needs some work.

As you already suspect, your bet spread however is not big enough. You didn't mention what kind of games you are playing. It might be ok for a decent double deck game, not enough to realize any decent profits from a shoe game, especially a low limit, higher house edge game, as most low limit games are.

I am going to agree with Intermediate. I don't like to think in terms of trip BR, or session BR. You are going to need to set aside much more funds to be used exclusively as a bankroll.

Lastly, this idea of BJ being a secondary source of income gets difficult if you are playing low limit games. These games are just too bad now-a-days, with a higher house edge to overcome, to realize any kind of regular profit that you should count on. At this level, I would recommend more long term thinking and use any profits to build your bank, so that you can eventually move up to more profitable higher level games.

I know these comments are not what you want to hear, but conditions for most low level games have deteriorated to the point, between playing rules and crowded conditions, that the idea of starting at the very bottom and working your way up is becoming a long shot.

Great thoughts guys. In my area, I am only able to play a 6-shoe game, A-6H, no surrender, DAS, re-splitting allowed which from my calcs gives the house a .53 advantage from the start. My unit = $10 as these are $10-$500 tables.

Agreed, these comments are discouraging, but are what I sadly suspected. Renzey estimates earnings of about $16/hr with a $10-$100 spread, but as you can see in my spread, I am nervous to make this leap w/ a $500 bankroll. I believe I could devote several thousand to this endeavour, but I am not sure that would be enough as I have experienced both the high ends of std dev as well as the very low (often perverse) ends even with an accurate count, which I believe my system provides.

As more of a general question to those that do use BJ to earn a secondary living..what size bankrolls and unit wagers are they using? I do okay earning a living on the "outside world" :)..but I would really like to be able to avg $5-6k annually from BJ.

Lastly - is any of this even possible with the shoe game I am faced with?

Thanks again for everyones' time.

AMT44,

We also need to know what the penetration is on your game, as this will have a dramatic effect on your edge.

I fired up CX and loaded the canned KISS II sim, but found that the EV did not become positive until the RC reaches +18... CVCX showed RC's from +12 to +35. Are you starting with a different Initial Running Count than Renzy used?

At any rate, I used another Running Count system, REKO, and found that, with 75% pen and a $10:$100 spread, the IBA is +0.509% with an Average Bet of $21.49 with a Std. Dev. of $40.40 per round. I would expect that KISS III would have similar (or perhaps slightly better) results.

Using these, we see that if you play 200 hours per year (4 hours per week), your Expected Win will be $2,190.

If you instead play a $25:$250 spread, your expected win will be multiplied by 2.5, to $5,474/year. If your bankroll is $40,000, then your Risk of Ruin will be 11.7% for this spread.

Let's face it... these results are not encouraging! But let's be fair about it, this is a really poor game ;-)

What can we do better?

1. If you increase your spread, a $10:$200 spread will give an annual "income" of nearly the same amount as the $25:$250 spread: $5,188/yr. However, now a BR of only $20,000 (half the $40K needed for $25:$250) will provide you with a smaller 9.1% RoR.

2. If you find a game with better penetration, say 5.5/6 (I know that's pretty rare, but you never know) and increase your spread modestly to $10:$120, then a $10,000 BR will provide a 5.9% RoR with an expectation of $5,596/yr.

Feel free to give a few more details, and I (or one of my esteemed colleagues) will provide a bit more guidance.

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

Thanks Dog Hand. Yes, this is def more discouraging..but still really great/appreciated information.

I generally get 75-85% penetration and get up after 2-3 hands if its any worse. Additionally, my running count for KISS III starts the same as Renzey's (+9) with my first big bet coming at roughly +19 (I continually fudge my numbers so I can still keep track of the TC and know when TC +1 has arrived).

But yes, this does appear to be a really poor game. I also wouldn't be able to BR more than $10K..says the mrs anyways..

Using that very first calc you provided (w/ $2,190 of earnings)..what would my RoR and earnings be if I played 400 annual hours w/ a $10K BR?

In the mean time...I'll start searching harder for a double-deck game in the area, assuming any exist.

Thanks again, really appreciate the input from everyone.

AMT44

AMT44,

Again using REKO rather than KISS III on a 6D, H17, DAS game with 75% pen and a $10:$100 spread, 400 hours of play will provide double the 200-hour expected win, or $4,380. Unfortunately, for a $10K BR, your RoR is rather high: 26.1%, which is nearly 1.5 Kelly.

On the plus side, though, if you can get better pen, your prospects become rosier. For 80% pen, your EW is $5,492 with an 18.0% RoR. For 85% pen, your EW is $6,712 with an 11.5% RoR.

Thus, you can see that shopping for better pen is well worth your effort: playing 85% rather than 75% pen increases your EW by more than 50%.

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

Thanks again Dog Hand - if nothing else you convinced me to leave the $10 6-deck game.

However I found a diff game (somewhat far), w/ a $5 minimum, same rules as before. Now, as annoying as the characters are at $5 tables, this game allows me to have a full 1-12unit spread with a bankroll of 12x my max bet of $60. I believe this should provide me a good RoR and I just got back from a fairly productive 4-hour session w/o a single shoe getting worse than 80% penetration.

Thanks again for helping me re-think the current conditions I was operating in!

AMT44