KO Early High Count

Last week while using KO at an 8-deck game with 5 players the count jumped to +2 after 3 rounds! ( I believe only 1 ten value card showed up) This called for an 8 unit bet.

Being that early in the shoe I was reluctant to bet that many units.

Any advice on situations like this?

Yes. If you're afraid to bet when great situations come along, you're doomed to failure.

Don

This looks like it is a very rare occurrence with ko during the first deck of an 8 deck shoe with an initial running count of -28. I ran around 385 million hands and there were only 21 hands played at a count of +2 during the first deck of all the shoes in total, and another 10 hands played at counts above +2. 

For the second deck of the shoes there were 19,199 hands played at +2 with a win rate of 1.626% on these bets. There were another 35,575 hands played at counts above +2 during the second deck of the shoe and were mostly profitable as well. 6,747,650 8 deck shoes were played.

So, clearly, none of this has anything to do with what could happen on a few hands at this condition, :). 

Thanks,

Phil

data:

ko     8               7                 6                       5                      4                        3                        2                1

Bets for each of the 8 decks at +2 count. The first column is the first deck out, the second column is the second deck out, and so on. The last column is the total for the count.

The win rate part doesn’t make sense to me. During deck 7, the win rate is 1.626%; during deck 2, the win rate is 0.743%. I’d imagine that the win rate % should increase with increasing dealing penetration, but this is not the case in the above table. 
 

The general trend should be, a positive HiLo true count is more valuable at a deeper penetration level.  Right?

P.S.  I thought about this again and kinda got what you meant.  You fixed the KO Running Count at +2 to compare the win rate % numbers, but I fixed the HiLo TC at +2 to compare them.  This might expain the inverse % trend in your above table. 

Not sure, but the totals at all count levels for each deck level does follow the pattern you mention. However, at a particular count level it often does not follow that pattern. By the way this was K-O count. 10-1 bet spread starting at $10, max bet at +4 and up, 8 units at +2, 9 units at +3, dealt about 6.5 of 8 decks.

  This is the total for all counts at each deck level for the run above, then total for everything:  

                  8                      7                        6                     5                         4                           3                       2

net  $4,395,105      $4,174,810       $-2,428,125      $1,467,975         $7,029,505          $16,808,925        $15,034,505

bet  $742,817,420  $745,328,350   $857,118,465   $1,079,209,095   $1,525,080,030  $2,140,249,735   $1,547,880,785

 %      -0.592%            -0.560%             -0.283%           0.136%                0.461%              0.785%          0.971%      

                                                                                    Total

                                                                        net:   $29,342,870 

                                                                        bet:  $8,637,683,880

                                                                                   0.340% 

I agree with Don S advice above, of course.  If you are using KO as your count of choice, I highly suggest that you pick up "The Color of Blackjack" by Daniel Dravot, it's a quick read that you will easily comprehend if you've read the other good blackjack books out there.  Dravot's book has the exact information that you are looking for in your question.  Bottom line is, as compared to "regular KO preferred" from "Knockout Blackjack", TCOB details a KO true counting method for identifying (more) betting opportunities early in a shoe (your exact question), as well as avoiding over betting late in a shoe.  Good Cards!

Are you the author Daniel Dravot? However, this statement sounds impossible from the point of card counting. How do you explain this mathematically?

No, I'm definitely not the author.  ALWAYSAHEEL never responded after you and PJSATZ threw some stats and sim results at him.  Generally, Dravot's book does what I said it does.  With 8 decks and IRC shifted to zero, KO preferred betting calls for an increase in bets at a KO count of 22.  In the example above, assuming 3 (SMALL) cards went to the dealer and each of five players in 3 rounds, 54 cards would be dealt.  In his question, +2 would equate to a count of 30, so he bets 8 units per KO betting. So far, so good. But suppose one deck in the count is +21, with regular KO you bet minimum.  Read Dravot's book and you bet more than minimum because the player has the advantage at one deck in thru 4 decks in with a count of 21.  With regular KO you bet min the whole time.  But 5 decks in a count of 22 is no advantage at all, so you would be back to minimum, while KO preferred has you erronously betting 2 units.  Basically Dravot describes an easy way to true count for betting purposes only, but with no division.  I will not describe it more than that because it isn't fair to the author.  Bottom line, there is a lot of value in counting one more card (the 7s) versus hi-lo.  With a little creativity KO is a better count than hi-lo, except maybe in single deck.  Level 1 balanced count folks don't generally buy into this, they want perfect true counts for playing purposes.  But true counts are never perfect in actual play.  Counting 7s and using estimated TKO for betting is a better system for almost all players vs hi-lo.

Don, When I typed this above tonight, I did not realize you had a new book out.  I own BJA2 and BJA3, but not your new Hi-Lo book.  I will buy it and compare to my above statements and to Dravot's TKO strategy.

Thanks, Bob

The new book focuses on Hi-Lo. Subsequent versions will do the other most popular counts. if you want accurate comparisons of Hi-Lo, K-O, and Red 7, see P. 176 of BJA3.

Don

And never listen to aceside, he is full of ...

NOTHING he says means anything, a troll that should be banned of all serious BJ sites.

Using KO Preferred or Norm Wattenberger's REKO with Dravot's depth based betting with one set of 14 compromise index plays, plus 4 more for surrender as applicable, is a strong system on par with Hi-Lo.  In double deck, play all, H17, DAS, a game found all over the country, Norm found his REKO system with 14 compromise indexes (by itself) to be superior to Hi-Lo on P. 103, Modern Blackjack, at all realistic 26 to 52 card shuffle points.  Although it is slightly more complex to sim, I would like to see a more detailed analysis of KO Preferred or REKO with depth based betting, and two very easy improvements to it are standing on 16 v 10 with any positive TKO, and hitting any 12 v 4 with any negative TKO.  If using depth based betting it's easy to add those 2 "estimated" index plays to the mix.  One great cover play that I have sometimes used once per session if I'm feeling heat is, with a minimum bet out, doubling hard 12 vs 4, especially if the TKO is just very slightly negative.  That play, and taking even money or insurance (at most once per hour) with a minimum bet out, are the only cover plays I use.

+ for Color of Blackjack...highly recommend