How about an "AP Evaluation Chart"?

We should devise an AP knowledge criteria chart that requires various levels of accomplishments that would determine the quality and what level every player is at. For starters here are some ideas for categories:

1. Counting Skill
2. BJ Math
3. Actual Play Time in a Casinos
4. Cover Skills
5. BJ IQ Test

The given levels for AP's might be noted as:

1. Novice - Starting to play with an advantage.
2. Intermediate - Recreational with at least $10 per hour return.
3. Advanced - Serious application, resulting in $40 per hour return.
4. World Class - Top 100 players in the world.

Each player should be able to visit the chart to evaluate themselves as to their personal skills, play level and what is needed to advance to the next level.

We should devise an AP knowledge criteria chart that requires various levels of accomplishments that would determine the quality and what level every player is at. For starters here are some ideas for categories:

1. Counting Skill
2. BJ Math
3. Actual Play Time in a Casinos
4. Cover Skills
5. BJ IQ Test

The given levels for AP's might be noted as:

1. Novice - Starting to play with an advantage.
2. Intermediate - Recreational with at least $10 per hour return.
3. Advanced - Serious application, resulting in $40 per hour return.
4. World Class - Top 100 players in the world.

Each player should be able to visit the chart to evaluate themselves as to their personal skills, play level and what is needed to advance to the next level.

None of your criteria is what it takes to make money at the "next level". Advanced techniques, practice time, the guts to put the money on the table, bankroll...

Personally, I am a pretty crappy card counter.

Math Boy

Guess I'll have to join to know what's in it. It would be nice if you or Al will give us a hint or at least a little teaser.

Your top categories are questionable:
"3. Advanced - Serious application, resulting in $40 per hour return.
4. World Class - Top 100 players in the world."

I don't know but would guess "World Class" is at least
$300 per hour or more.

And this post will self-destruct in an undisclosed period of time:-)

There is not a evaluation chart that is part of, or attached ot, Green Chip at BJ 21. I think Math Boy was trying to say that your chart was an evaluation chart for low-level players, who aren�t very skill.

As he said, you have left out some of the most important aspects of Advantage Play. In my view, the single most important is the ability to put the big bets out on the table, and accept the negative fluctuations that come with it.

There are other expert players who would say that willingness to accept back-offs is the most important skill. One prominent team manager has said that the biggest flaw he sees in green chip players, is their fear of back-offs. Again, this is something that you have not mentioned. In fact, by promoting �cover skills� so prominently, you may be taking the opposite point of view.

Your third category was 3. Advanced - Serious application, resulting in $40 per hour return.

Now I will say that playing with $40 an hour EV is an achievement. It means that you do have something to show for all the effort that you put into blackjack. But it is still a fairly low-level of play. Most of my considerations don�t come into effect here.

A player at that level will seldom see downturns of more than 10K. 10K sounds like a lot of money, but most people spend a lot more than that on their cars. Downturns of 50K are a a different matter.

And Rejections are much less a problem at that level. I had very rejections, even when I was playing at a higher EV. For example, in 20002 I made $130 an hour (higher than my actual EV), but had only 2 rejections all year.

Finally, you jump from level 3 ($40 an hour) to �World Class�, which you have suggested are the top 100 players in the world. There is a big difference between your level 3 and World class, and you have jumped over most of the professional players.

And as Math Boy tried to point out, there are relatively few counters among the top 100 players in the world.

Evaluating an AP's ability is a tricky task. I agree with MB, by definition, someone who counts cards exclusively is a poor AP.
They are not going to be able to take advantage of cut-juice promos at sports, commission-free baccarat, a table of full of calling stations at poker, for example, all of which can be much more profitable than blackjack. If you aren't going for the highest SCORE available in your locality at the time, you aren't a hotshot AP yet.
Technical ability isn't much help either, a blackjack player who can memorize five-side counts and use them in actual play is only a marginal favourite over a KO or hi-lo counter.

Money isn't much of a guide either. Poker tourney players can make more money that most other AP's, since they can make millions from a single event. But I'd hesitate to call anybody who throws his hat in the ring with other highly skilled AP's a world-class AP-why make life difficult for yourself? Often such players owe their huge financial success to positive flux similar to that enjoyed by slot jackpot or lotto winners.

Another question: initial bankroll. I tend to ignore the advice of players who started with wealthy backers or who had a huge initial bankroll from work in some profession or business. It is too easy to make money with a big starting bankroll. Give me enough money and I could get a five-year old to make big bucks. On a million-dollar bankroll you could play ace-five and make big money.

My list to determine world-class AP, which I'm sure others certainly wouldn't agree with:

1) Work rate
2) Range of techniques
3) Hourly Ev averaged over a long period
4) Fluctuation in EV
5) Ratio of initial to current bankroll
6) Theoretical Understanding
7) Game selection
8) Knowledge relative to other AP's

Further complicating the issue is the fact that these factors aren't equally weighted and some are subject to the law of diminishing returns. I score myself reasonably on all but 1) but 1) is a huge factor. At the extremity, the player who does no work at all can never win any money at all, however talented he may be 2) and 6) can actually become counter-productive over a certain level. Bothering yourself with technicalities of blackjack card-counting may cost you EV - the time may be better spent learning the basics of some other form of AP gambling.

MP and Mathprof emphasize the importance of courage and getting the money down. I agree up to a point. If your game selection is very good, getting the money down is easy. If you have access to large advatages you simply never experience enough negative flux to make Kelly or Kelly-fractional bet resizing psychologically unnatural, which is not the case for stuff like card-counting, handicapping or mid-stakes poker. Also, if your portfolio of plays is unexceptional compared to other AP's, you are not going to encounter very many exceptionally positive-EV situations, and must put down big money in low-EV high-flux scenarios, which is where courage becomes important. This is because other AP's will mostly burn out the good stuff before you get to it.

A player at that level will seldom see downturns of more than 10K. 10K sounds like a lot of money, but most people spend a lot more than that on their cars. Downturns of 50K are a a different matter.

I think it was Pascal who said people value a sum of money with regard to their initial fortune. If you have 10K then a 5K loss is devastating. If you are Bill Gates a 500K loss is money down the back of the sofa.

I don't believe a 10K loss is any less devastating to a low-roller than a 50K loss is devastating to a high-roller. If anything the opposite, as a sum of money is generally considered more valuable than its simple linear accumulation.

The main problem with high-stakes play is cover, as you rightly point-out. If you are playing blackjack full-time I believe this disadvantage is not as big as the disadvantage lower-level players have in overcoming expenses, which are for all practical purposes a commission paid per hand. You can travel and will find bog-standard games everywhere. If you are tied to a job and a location, this is more of an issue. Howeever, for US players, the expansion of Gaming is ameliorating this problem somewhat.

> It would be nice if you or Al will give us a hint or at least a little teaser.

Why? Just join GC and find out for yourself. In the grand scheme of things, it's practically free. Of course I'm not a member, but .. I don't care about the chart.

Mathboy was right. Other than as a novelty, what's the point?

So, what do estimate the per hour EV to be for the average world class player.

You are using the term "AP," but you're really talking about evaluating card counters. Many folks who would be termed "advantage players," rarely if ever count cards. They make their money in other ways, and the really good ones make quite a bit more money than players who confine their game to blackjack and card counting. That's not to say there aren't some very good card counters out there who make a good bit of money at it, but if card counting is the only thing they are doing, they are not in the same class as many other advantage players. Of course, there can be exceptions to every rule, but they are just that: exceptions.

"Advanced" is probably better applied to a higher rate than $40/hr.

The term "professional" is probably not useful in this context,
because it simply means someone who is focussed on making money,
and with some skills in that direction, as opposed to recreation
only. I was labelled a "professional" and tossed from a local
casino early on when I had only a small 4 figure win there, and
was poorly skilled as an AP.

I now play some games with EV over $300/hr, some with EV about $120
per hr, and some with EV roughly $50/hr. Maybe roughly evenly
distributed among the three. I consider myself, largely from
significant Green Chip interaction, early intermediate level.

But the question, where is the per hr. cutoff for the top 100
Blackjack players (that is casino, not tournament, and employing
only legal AP methods) is sort of interesting.
And similarly, where is the per hr. cutoff for the top 1,000, etc.

Win rate or ev should be based on real data, not just on an estimation by evaluation software.
On the other hand,the real data should cover a sufficiently long period.For instance I had $150 per hour this year, but only $100 last year and if I consider the whole 10 years since I keep records I'm down to $70. Now I don't know which is due to progress and which is due to luck. I think to reduce the impact of fluctuations, the data should cover a period of at least 1000 playing hours.

Francis Salmon

Our economist friends, Dr Lee, Karel, and (I think) Lefty would say that �bankroll� refers to your entire Net Worth, or at least to your �investment capital�. Now with that definition of bankroll, I agree that �fluctuation is relative to bankroll�

However, most recreational players use a different definition of �bankroll� . For them, bankroll is �money they can afford to lose�. By definition, the loss of the entire Bank is not �devastating�. Most of the players in SB�s �advanced category� use this definition of bank.

Now on the black chip level, things are different. There are a few wealthy counters who are recreation black chip players. But for most us, our bankroll is NOT something we can �:afford to lose�.

You are aware of the Kelly betting system. Under Kelly, and under other proportional betting systems, the loss of Bank has utility of minus infinity. Try to contemplate Negative Infinite Utility. It is not something that you can �afford� to suffer.

There may be exceptions. There may be players in SB�s �advanced category� for whom their bankroll is the primary component of their Net Worth. For these players, the loss of 10K could be a serious life crisis. However, if our in this situation, then I would question whether you should even play BJ. Take the time and work a second job (or overtime on the first) until you build a stronger balance sheet, which can be used to support a stronger bankroll.

It sounds like you are thinking in terms of solo card-counters. There are very few professional solo card-counters I know one person who is verify successful. I now other players who are solo, but they have other source of income as well.

Most of the card counters who are making large amounts of money play in teams. The team players who are at the top of their career are investors in the team bank. These people make a lot of money, but I don�t think it fits neatly into you category.

I don�t know what a team like the MIT group makes per hour. Judging from the stakes, it must be over $500, and maybe over $1000. However the players don�t make that much; a lot of it goes to the investors.

Now even for Solo players, I don�t know that I would look at just EV per hour. There is a tension between EV per hour and between total hours played. You get high EV per hour by traveling a lot more, and by playing a style with low-longevity. It is possible to play only �A� games, but that requires extensive travel and little play. If you want to increase your hours, you will have to incorporate B and C games.

If you adopt Ian Andersen�s philosophy, you will have much lower EV per hour, but you will get in more hours. I am not endorsing the Andersen approach, but I don�t think your metrics should have a structural bias against that.

should be a pretty good value. As noted recently on the GC pages,
due to statistical fluctuation, players are not necessarily expected
to converge on their theoretical EV. But the EV itself is fairly
well established.

Less rigorous AP methods, like shuffle tracking, probably have much
more uncertain EV.

I think it is very difficult to estimate �theoretical EV�. In my view most players overstate their EV.

I know one player who computes an EV estimate for each session. After many years of play, his EV estimates track very well against his estimate. But he is very remarkable.

Here are some considerations:

Game Speed � most players don�t have a good estimate of it. If they use 100 rounds per hour, they will be over-estimating it

Errors�all players make errors, some of us admit to it. It isn�t that easy to measure the cost of these, particularly if the person does not detect the error.

Cover � If you use �zero cover�, then it is easy to estimate. For other cover schemes, it can be harder. If you employ mechanical rules in your cover (Always hit 16v10, never lower your bet after a win , etc ) then you can simulated it. However, I think cover is better when it is not mechanical, but based upon a realistic assessment of the current situation.

Penetration: You can make an estimate of penetration and get a ball-park idea, You may know that this game is �about� 1.5 decks and this one is �about 1 deck � But the precise values to the exact card is difficult. The difference in EV between 55 cards and 60 cards cut is non-trivial.

Number of Players: This is related to both Game Speed and Penetration. Number of players affects both. Again, if you always played with 3 players, and the cut was always at 60 cards, you could sim it. But the results would be different than if had 2 players, same cut. And if players come and go �

Here is some data on my own performance. I can compute a �paper EV� for the games that I play, based upon simulations and 100 rounds per hour. I know that my real EV is less than than. How much so?

Over the last 4 years (2002,03,04, and part of 05) I am at about 74% of my paper EV. This is over 1400 hours.
In terms of specific years:

 

   This year I am right about EV 

   Last year I was at 65%  

   2003 I was at 20% (Ouch ) 

  2002 I was at 148%  : ) 

practically used theoretical EV. I had in mind some sort of pure
theorectical EV wherein all the factors you note are included.
With shuffle tracking, I think even the pure theoretical EV has
more uncertainty.

And true, almost noone records all those factors for EV estimate
in practice. I only do a very rough estimate of EV, and have been
searching for an easily implimentable method for better tracking
EV. I do keep enough data, I think (min. bet, max bet, exact rules,
and strategy used, notes on numbers of players), on each session,
to go back to my spreadsheet sometime and run better EV numbers.