Important strategy question about aces.

I'm very concerned about the strategy I use for insurance and recently became aware that I may be making a mistake when re-adjusting the RC count (hi-lo) during a round of insurance.

An example would be 3 decks remaining (hi-lo) at an RC of +9 with 3 aces(dealer has ace up) and four core cards laying on the table.
At this point I am only concerned about whether I should take insurance or not so I give the aces a value of zero because It is not a ten value card and my RC remains at + 9 which calls for insurance.
Had I including the aces my RC would have been +6 (no insurance).
After insurance has been established by the dealer I simply re-adjust the count to + 6 by giving the aces their true value of minus one.

I'm trying to understand why this adjustment may be wrong, but dont quite see the reason because I re-adjust back to +6 and the aces I excluded should not be counted for insurance anyway.

Any help or comments of why this is or is not beneficial would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tom

are you going to ask the same question? It has now been read 25 times here, and 54 times on the Theory page, and 79 people have ignored you, because the question has already been answered.

Please stop posting on multiple pages.

Don

do I have to explain to you I dont understand your answer?
Which was "You're doing it wrong,not right."
Then you say,
"What if the last 3 aces of the 156 cards were the first to come out."

I replied by using your exact hypothetical situation and showed you the results of why it does not matter that only 3 aces have been dealt out of the first three decks. Yet you have no comment on my results. I've asked you 3 times but you refuse to give an answer other than flames that have nothing at all to do with the issue.
The only thing you keep saying is "Your wrong."
I may be wrong but can sincerely explain why instead of beating around the bush? It's plain and simple please explain why I am not benefiting from ace adjustment or if you are not sure, be sincere and say so.

TG

...that if you have not been tracking aces, especially in a shoe game, how do you know how many aces you have already seen in the hands already played? Normally, you wouldn't know and it doesn't make sense to adjust your play based only on the cards seen in one hand, especially if much of the shoe has already been played. The best all-around advice is to play the system. In other words, go with the horse that brought you there. The hi-lo plus three number that is given for insurance in multiple deck games has taken into account the fact that this is an ace-reckoned system. You can create scenarios in which what you suggest will work, but only if you have a certain knowledge of the cards that have been played.

I do make adjustments in my system if I am playing one or two deck games, especially early on. I play KO, which counts the sevens. In KO against a one-deck game, you don't raise your bet until you are at +2. However, if I am at +1 and I haven't seen any sevens, I will raise my bet then. By the same token, if I have seen one or two rounds of play and no tens, but one or two aces, I might take insurance if the count is positive but not at the +3 required in KO to take insurance. I don't do it in shoes because I don't have that kind of memory. If I did, I wouldn't need to count the cards. :-)

Hi

I gave a simple answer with the following post.

http://64.71.133.211/greenchip/handheld/index.cgi?read=18097

Others have expanded the math behind it.

D.

1) Original question was asked, and I answered much in the vein of bootlegger above.

2) TG responded with a one-deck analogy, which completely changed the scenario. He tacked on a sarcastic remark, indicating that I really didn't understand things as well as I had indicated.

3) I responded that we should stick to one question, not change in mid-stream, and that nobody likes a wise-ass.

4) Dreamer put up a spectacularly detailed post, to which I have little to add. It was quite impressive.

5) TG posted more insults and then went over to the theory page, where he berated me some more and completely changed the scenario yet again.

6) Then, he came back here to ask the question for the third time, since 80 people read his posts and ignored them.

7) I urged him to not cross-post.

8) He responded that he didn't understand my answer, but what he really means is that he doesn't like my answer.

I am entirely done with this thread, no matter how much TG threatens to burn BJA (!) or to tear up his membership card in my fan club. I'm just going to have to deal with the disappointment.

Don

I commented on Don's case. I spent a lot of time on it, because I thought I might help you out. I was surprised you seem to be unappreciative. You might read what I wrote more carefully, before dismissing it offhand. The conclusion was:

"Summary: Don't take insurance for Don's case. In order to get a RC of 6, at the same time being short 9 aces, chances are that more than the average number of 10's (the average is 48 in 3 decks) have already been dealt."

Your results are incorrect. I dislike putting it so bluntly, but evidently you don't know that, or you wouldn't still be implying you proved Don wrong and yourself right.

To restate another way, the remaining shoe is poorer in tens than you thought. If you take insurance, you place a losing bet, and not by a little bit, either. The EV is in the ballpark of -19%

Good luck, and I mean that in all sincerity, as "hope you win a lot at the blackjack table!"

I wrote:

"4) Dreamer put up a spectacularly detailed post, to which I have little to add. It was quite impressive."

The credit goes to "Doubledecker."

Sorry!

Don

What Don meant by "What if the 3 aces were the first to come out of the 156 cards?" is he was putting my strategy in the worst case scenario. The odds of only 3 aces coming out after the first 3 decks have been dealt are about the same as getting struck by lightning.
I used his exact situation and still came up with a call for insurance by the decks composition of the remaining 156 cards.
I may have made a mistake, can you double check the situation and post back the details?
(Here's the spec's, 156 cards remain that consist of 21 aces , and 3 extra tens per deck bringing the total to 9 rich at a TC of +3)
I pointed earlier out to Doubledecker who was doing some figures on the above situation that he made the mistake of not readjusting the aces to a value of zero, instead he included them as -1 which as a result brought the TC down to +6. After I pointed this out no other comments other than a few snaps that had nothing to do with the issue.
Can you clear me up on what's going on?

Why not take a more practical situation that occurs every day such as after 156 cards have been dealt about 3 extra aces came out leaving 9 aces remaining in the last 3 decks. If you take this typical common situation you will see it can be an eye-opener.

TG

Yes, I remember reading your post but I'm still a little uncertain.

Thanks,
Tom

Here's my original post in regards to your figures.

" We counted the difference between (aces and 10's) and (2,3,4,5,6). We know there are 6 more (aces and 10's) than (2,3,4,5,6) in the unseen cards."

The above is exactly why hi-lo has a low efficiency rating in respect to insurance and why I choose to adjust the value of aces to zero.
Due to my ace adjustment I remain at a RC of +9 in respect to tens, so you can easily see in this situation how I benefit .

"We know there are 6 more (aces and tens) than (2,3,4,5,6)in the unseen cards."

As you know hi-lo gives the ace a value of minus one for betting correlation and this only.

Do you understand why a counter may use this strategy and believe it to be beneficial?
I would appreciate any other comments or why an ace adjustment is wrong, for the time being I just can't see it.

I dont think it's fair that Don bailed out without giving a slightly more conclusive reply that will help me understand a little more clear.

Am I actually making a terrible costly mistake?
I beg for help....from anybody out there.

Thanks for your time,
TG

Notice the "Thank you for your time."?

You did not respond to my reasoning of why the RC due to ace adjustment is +9, this is what I did not understand.

Was my figures correct or did I make a mistake?
I would appreciate a sincere reply.

Thanks,
Tom

If you do not count the aces what will be the call?
I need to be asured I did not make mistakes.

Thanks,
Tom

You gave an example of three decks remaining, with three extra tens per deck. The number of aces remaining, which you gave as 21, is really irrelevant in the insurance question. In the scenario you mention, the ratio of non-tens to tens is 1.74:1 (rounded). In such a situation, insurance is a good bet, since it pays 2:1. As to whether this is a common situation, I could not say without doing a lot more calculation that I want to do. While the insurance efficiency for Hi-Lo is not that high, it is still high enough to be right more than it is wrong.

However, I cannot see, in the original scenario you used, which, as I recall, was seeing in one hand 3 aces and discounting them for insurance purposes, how you would possess that information in an ace-reckoned count if you had not been keeping track of all the aces used from the start of the shoe? To get the +3 you need to take insurance, you would have needed a running count of +9 at the point you wanted to take insurance with half the shoe gone. The three aces reduces your RC to +6. If you have not tracked the aces, your knowledge as to whether or not that +6 or even the +9 you had at the beginning of the round is not perfect. If you deviate from the established strategy for an ace-reckoned count based only on the cards
you saw that round, you might be wrong as often as you are right. You might be wrong more often than you are right. Personally, I believe that it is better to stay with the strategy as designed than it is to use a strategy that is, at best, a guess.

One could construct any number of scenarios in which almost any count requires you to make the wrong choice on the insurance decision. My advice to you is not to let those scenarios drive you crazy. As I said above, stick with the horse that brought you there.

Thanks for the answer, I'm a bit disturbed that it took this long to get a simple straight forward answer. I could not get an answer on green chip because others who replied in the previous GC thread would not recognize my figures and chose to ignore or offend. This just caused further confusion and I started having flashbacks of the risk of ruin debate.

My question is about the example Don gave, wouldn't this be a worse case scenerio? This is where i'm having a misunderstanding. If the adjustment is effective even in the worst cases then this gives good reason for me to believe it is a beneficial strategy.

TG

Without going back to re-read the thread, I believe Don's asked what if the three aces had come out on the first round. His point was that without tracking the aces all the way through, you don't know how many aces have been included in the count already at the point where you have made your singular ace adjustment. The example you happened to use, citing 21 aces left at the halfway point in a three deck game is an extreme case in itself. It says that only three aces have been seen after three decks of play. In such a situation, with the high count you use at that point, an unusual excess of low cards have come out, making insurance a good bet. It is not a worst case scenario for the strategy adjustment you suggest, but a best case scenario.

It is my understanding that Don means since only 3 aces came out of 156 cards the rest of the 3 decks are now 9 aces richer in small cards. As in.... the aces that are remaining in the shoe are considered small cards. It does not make since that Don would post a "best case" scenario of where ace adjustment is correct and then say It's wrong.
This is what I'm a little confused about. Lets take another scenerio
where..If more aces came out of the shoe during the first 3 decks I would be forced to count all them as -1 which weakens the insurance correlation even more.
This is where I'm lost. Can you clear me up on this?

TG

"If more aces came out of the shoe during the first 3 decks I would be forced to count all them as -1 which weakens the insurance correlation even more."

What I mean by this is even though counting the ace as -1 will weaken the correlation of insurance the second scenerio should still be better because the deck is being depleted of aces which are considered small cards in respect to insurance.

It is my understanding that Don means since only 3 aces came out of 156 cards the rest of the 3 decks are now 9 aces richer in small cards.

I don't think that is what Don meant. I suspect that he was simply saying that you cannot take what has happened in one round of play and base your strategy on that, especially halfway through a shoe. He was only saying "what if three aces came out in the first round?". Other aces might have come out in other rounds, but would you base your strategy only on the fact that you saw three aces in the first round? It could have been the 5th round or the 8th round or any other round of play. If you would not base your strategy on what you saw in the first round or any other specific round of play that is not the round you are in at the moment, why base your strategy on the round you are playing at the moment?

To reiterate, the strategy numbers for ace-reckoned counts, such as Hi-Lo take into account it is an ace-reckoned count. If it was not an ace-reckoned count, the strategy number would be different. If you are not keeping a side count of aces and adjusting your strategy from hand to hand based on that side count, it is not a good idea to base your strategy on the aces that you see in any one round of play.

You can cherry-pick different card combinations and point out situations where the strategy would help you or hurt you, but there are more than 24,000 card combinations that could exist in a three deck sample of a six deck shoe. The strategy numbers take in the total universe of card combinations and tell you what the best move is based on that particular count. It may not be the correct move for any specific set of 152 cards that could exist in one specific example, but it is the best overall strategy based on the limited information the count gives you. Unless you have the exact information based on a side-count or other count you may be keeping, stick with the strategy numbers.