Looking for advice/refinement on my play. A bit lengthy

Hello all Advantage Players!

Quick introduction, I am new to counting, have been following threads here for a few weeks and have read Thorpe (Beat the Dealer), Wong (Professional Blackjack) & Griffin (Theory of Blackjack).

For the past three months I have been counting, averaging 1-2 trips to the casino per month, with 3-4 hrs of play per visit. My bankroll, though originally 5K has grown over this period to just under 7K.

When I visit the casino, my standard practice is to bring $500 (what I call a trip unit), with access to the rest if necessary. I typically play $10-$15 tables with the following rules: S17, DAS, DA2, LS, 8 Deck, ~75% penetration.

My betting strategy has been to stay at table minimum on all negative counts, and green chip on all 0+ counts with a 1-3 spread and on some favorable occasions play two hands. I have also created a rule for myself where at the end of any shoe of any table session, I will get up and leave that table, if my chip count is at a session high (for that table) and exceeds a minimum of $200 in winnings. I should also note that when I initially sit, I change $300.

I mentioned the $300 buy-in because with my minimum $200 win rule, I often get colored up to a purple chip upon leaving the table, which has drawn some mild attention. On a couple occasions I have had pit bosses congratulate me on my play, and my ability to leave while I�m ahead.

I utilize Hi-Lo, which I follow on counts �1 through +3 (the only set of #�s I have been able to put to memory thus far), and strict basic strategy on everything else.

My experience with this formula has been profitable. With the exception of one session during which I had to buy-in an additional �trip unit�, I have never depleted my initial $500. Also, I have had only one losing trip, which was for $300.

I will also note that my average win rate to date has been ~$90/hour, which I realize is well beyond my expected win rate (based on my wagers)

Questions:

1. Am I drawing unnecessary attention to myself by coloring purple when I leave the table? Should I just walk with all green?
2. With my betting strategy, amounts and bankroll, how safe am I from a statistical bankroll ruin?
3. Is this an extreme short-term streak, or is this performance within expected parameters?
4. What is a good rule of thumb for determining when it�s time to leave a table (cut losses or pocket wins) or the casino for the day?

I appreciate any advice you more experienced players could offer.

Questions:

1. Am I drawing unnecessary attention to myself by coloring purple when I leave the table? Should I just walk with all green?

That depends on the casino. What's going to draw more attention is your bet spread.

2. With my betting strategy, amounts and bankroll, how safe am I from a statistical bankroll ruin?

Not too good. I didn't quite understand your exact strategy. Is the 1-3 spread from your minimum bet to your maximum or only when you are positive.

If your spread is really only 1-3, you are playing a marginally positive game. If your max bet is $75, you are probably playing with too high a risk and your spread may draw attention. To answer your question more precisely, you will need to show how much you bet at each true count.

In any case, playing all on 8 decks with 6 decks dealt is a poor strategy, even if you have an extreme spread. www.bjstats.com shows that with a 1-20 spread, the SCORE for this game is about 24. SCORE is a standardized measure which takes into account return vs risk. SCOREs lower than 50 are considered a waste of time. You should seriously consider leaving on negative counts.

3. Is this an extreme short-term streak, or is this performance within expected parameters?

It's entirely posssible. Just remember you will encounter bad losing streaks as well.

4. What is a good rule of thumb for determining when it�s time to leave a table (cut losses or pocket wins) or the casino for the day?

Although it may be psychologically satisfying, there is no mathematical basis for cutting losses and/or pocketing wins. If you are playing with an advantage, you make your money by putting time in at the tables. If you leave early to cut losses or pocket money, you are wasting time.

True, there will be times when you give back your wins and times when you lose even more, but those will be offset by the times when you continue to win and the times when you regain your losses. You can't predict which will happen a-priori.

You might want to read a post I made on this subject a couple of months ago: http://www.bj21.com/boards/free/free_board/index.cgi?read=132254

The three books you note are excellent. One more highly recommended,
especially for the types of questions you are asking is
BLACKJACK ATTACK by D. Schlessinger.

Question 2, Risk of Ruin:
Your playing parameters are not completely clear, but for the game
you mentioned, spreading 1-8 units with $10 units the ROR for a
$4,000 bank is about 37%.

Question 3, hourly expectation:
It sounds like you've played less than about 20hrs. The expected win
rate for the play described above for the game you note is (from
Schlessinger's table) about half a unit per hr ($5 per hr.). Given
that you are up $2,000 it does sound like a nice winning streak, up
more than 2 standard deviations above expectation, and not enough
hrs to be statistically significant.

Question 4, when to leave table:
I like this question because it is the one major bj playing question
that cannot have a mathematical basis. The answer is based on
intangibles like fatigue, possibility of making errors, possible casino
scrutiny, and yes ... intuition!

The answer to your question, with respect to my 1-3 spread, is that I bet $25 on a true count of 0-2, $50 on a true count of 2-4 and $75 on a true count of 4+. I realize that I may be stretching my range beyond traditional methods, but as of yet, I don't feel entirely comfortable placing higher bets, on less advantageous counts. It is a rarity that I get to wager $75, as those counts are few and far between, though I have seen it a couple times.

I am interested in reading more about SCORE and will certainly follow the link you provided. I also intend to read your previous post.

Thanks for the insight.

I realize now that I do need to expand my spread with smaller increments between them. To date I have been betting $25, $50, $75 as the count permitted, and table minimum on all negative counts.

I knew I was doing well, though I didn't realize I was beating my expected hourly win by that much.

Thanks,

5large

You can almost afford a max of $100, in which case you should have fluctuations of $500 to $600 every hour. You should lose your $500 trip stake with regularity... nothing to be worried about.

You are playing against rather poor conditions with that 6/8 game, although surrender is a good thing there, worth the equivalent of about a half deck more of penetration.

You can't afford to play all, even with a $10 minimum. If you come into fresh shoes & you play all spreading $10 to $100 your win rate is only $17 per hour with a very poor DI and SCORE. If you leave the table as soon as the count hits -1 TC then you improve things a bit but are still overbetting the Kelly criterion by a little. The optimal bank for this strategy is 772 units, or about $7720 using a $10 unit. You can't afford to play the $15 table at all unless you intend to backcount.

Play all at this game and table minimum requires a bigger bank and bigger spread to be remotely worth while. Your results at this stage of the game are nothing but random fluctuations. I believe you are barely playing with any edge.

Your wins of a few hundred are not going to attract any unwanted attention at a casino that has mostly $10 to $15 minimums. The pit boss is probably sincere in his congatulations and hopes that you'll be back.

I also suggest BJ Attack, BJRM (software), and a greenchip membership. Good luck.

I'm glad I made the posting.

My eyes are opening to the fact that I have had perhaps more luck, than advantage on my side.

I did check out the interactive tools at bjstats.com and realize that this is an area I need to become more familiar with (SCORE).

As far as my spread, I am changing strategies today (actually this weekend). I will attempt a 1-10 spread (at least)in $10 increments and try to get into shoes with existing positive counts, and remove myself from the poor ones.

Question: What tool did you use to determine a theoretical bankroll of 772 units?

I don't understand why you want to bet green between TC 0 and 1. There you are still in negative EV-territory and you should keep your ammunition for better opportunities.
I would say 1 green between TC 1 and 2, two greens between TC 2 and 3, 3 greens between TC 3 and 4. You can even go to 4 greens for TC 4 or higher.
Don't worry too much about heat. At this betting level there shouldn't be any.
Good luck!

Francis Salmon

Question though,

When players recommend using greater spreads, say 1-10 or 1-20, are they in essence recommending larger bets as fractional increases are realized in the true count?

using ev/variance. For blackjack we can use the average win per hand for ev and the square of the average SD per hand for the variance. This gives the optimal fraction for your entire system. 1/f is the optimal bank size. Eventually you will want to have a much larger bank than this so as to have less risk and volatility.

I assume you want to make some money with Blackjack but in an 8-deck-game favorable situations are not very frequent. That's why you
have to take a rather bold approach. However two main principles should be respected.

1.Bet as little as possible when the house has the edge (table minimum or not at all)

2. Your attacking bets should be a function of your advantage and your bankroll.

Principle 1 was the object of my previous post.Principle 2 requires some further explanation:
At TC +2 you have an edge of roughly 0.5%.According to theory you should not bet more than 0.5% (actually even a bit less) of your bankroll here.Your bankroll being 7k you would be slightly overbetting with $50 but as I assume that your bankroll is replenishable we should actually work with a therotical BR of 10k, so the 50$ bet is just fine.At TC+3 your edge is already 1% and a $75 bet is entirely justified. At TC+4 your edge is already 1.5 % and a $100 attack is called for. I wouldn't go beyond 100$ at this stage because otherwise session desasters would be too frequent, which would have a demoralising effect on you.

Francis Salmon

I can understand your other non-mathematical reasons for stopping but making bets or not making bets based on intuition is total nonsense. This is an act of a gambler, NOT an AP.

kRis

someone to say that!

You are quite wrong. In situations where one must make a
decision, and where it is not possible to inform the decision
with quantitative methods, and it is proven that even if one
had perfect knowledge quantitative methods cannot resolve the
decision; in such cases intuition is the ONLY way to make the
decision.

One may hold a sort of theological belief that the world should
be in theory entirely calculable, but that belief has been proved
to be inaccurate -- many aspects of the world behave in noncalculable
ways.

In the situation you describe you should NEVER make a bet. If you cannot calculate an advantage and acceptable risk you have no business making bets. If you make bets in this situation you are not an AP, but just a gambler.

This is Gambling/Trading for profit 101. Common knowledge. There really is no room for argument here.

If you're serious, please read the message that I wrote, and respond
to that. Here you are redirecting the issue. And with your jumping
to words like "nonsense" I can see you are emotional about the issue;
please respond to the actual argument not the personal aspect.

It is well known that the general question of when to end your
playing session is not calculable -- other than that one should
of course leave on bad counts.

JUST ONE HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE GOES AS FOLLOWS:
Suppose you are on a two day playing trip. You know that you will
have 6 hrs total of ability to play without fatigue, and you know
that 6 hrs applies whether you sit there 6 hrs straight or you
play 3 2hr sessions, or whatever combination. You are playing single
deck and there is only one good single deck table available so you
can't Wong out whenever you want. Your rule is of course that whenever
you decide to take a break you will leave the table on a bad count.

Now suppose
you've been playing 2 hrs (and you don't need to be concerned about
being barred) and you're thinking there are other things you
could do, there is one more round to come out of the deck and the
count goes moderately bad.

If you stay and keep playing you are deciding to use up more of
your 6 hrs of good play now, rather than possibly later that day.
In such a situation the decision to stay for more decks or to take
a break now is noncalculable. Yet the decision must be
made -- it is made by intuition only.

You describe a hypothetical situation...or a situation constrained by a limited mind. Ask any pro...what you describe is total nonsense. Nobody....I mean NOBODY who plays blackjack seriously decides anything on intuition alone. The entire idea of an absolute 6 hours, whether played at once or split up, is in itself quite silly. You might never understand so perhaps there is no point in continuing the discussion.

kRis

Leaving when the count is negative IS a decision based of mathematics, NOT intuition. It is simply "wonging" out. But yet you claim the decision is made purely on intuition alone. 100% total NONSENSE! lol

Would it make sense, when deciding whether or not it is time to leave a table, to compare your winnings against your expected hourly win rate.

In the event that you have far exceeded your expected win rate by x standard deviation(s) and your tired, and paranoid that 'They're watching', would it be mathematically correct to say "I have ridden this short-term fluctuation long enough?"

If so, I believe this is a nice mid point for the two of you.

Take it easy on me, I'm an amateur

Five-Large:

Actually it would never be "mathematically correct"
to say anything like
"I have ridden this short-term fluctuation long enough?"

That is the sort of thinking of a gambler rather than an
advantage player.

The key to understanding those types of questions is that
these types of fluctuations are non-Markovian, meaning that
future fluctuations have no dependence on past fluctuations.

Certainly if your are tired or paranoid
enough to affect your play then you should stop.
____________________________________________________________
Thanks for the effort at a middle ground between me and kRis,
but I doubt that is possible. He seems fixated on some
ill-formed ontological belief, and is set off by the word
"intuition".

Maybe if I goad him enough he might get so excited he'll
have a psychological breakthrough and then there may be middle
ground.

Hey kRis, Intuition Intuition Intuition Intuition Intuition Intuition
Intuition Intuition Intuition Intuition!