question for BJ players

Independent trials don't have equilibrium. True, your winnings go up and down, but a recent win doesn't make a future loss more likely. That's the definition of "independent." Flip a coin a bunch of times. The likelihood of getting tails doesn't depend on any recent streak of head. It's alway 50%, no more, no less. If you got a streak of heads and decided to "quit while you were ahead," you'd miss out on the continuation of the streak half the time, because that's how often the next flip would be heads. There's no way to tell in advance when a streak is about to end, because the trials are independent. That means they don't depend on any past (or future) trial.

Your kind of faulty reasoning, and my responses, are better suited for the progressions page; please take your arguments there in the future.

to it. I know your not going to believe this, but i'm entitled to mine also, as is everyone in this room. I choose not to go into the progressions to discuss this. I know you feel you have developed this great science about how your going to beat the casino, but it's just gambling and nothing else. You could be betting football,basketball or many other things. Count if you want,to give yourself a better chance, but your still just gambling.
You buy into all this stuff about 8 billion hands of simulations. Well, wouldn't that be wonderful if you were playing 8 billion hands. You're not. If you're lucky, you are going to have a good day and if your not you won't. I'm having my best days when i'm getting cards and my worse days when i'm not. This is regardless of how good the count is. If you get the card instead of the dealer you go home happy, if you don't you go home sad.
Your life will change drastically,when you know what the hole card is. But, that is not going to happen.
You have a very very high plus count, so you send in your maxium bet. You get 2 cards of 11. So you double. My goodness how can that be, with such a high count I got a 3. But i'm ok, the dealer still has that six showing. Low and behold he turns it over and it's a five in the hole (not the 16 I was hoping for)he goes to draw on his 11 which was a 6,5 seconds ago. A 10 for him and your out of there. So you see, count all you want, if you get the card you win, if he gets the card you lose. Just gambling. If you think its more then that, then I have a way you can play them even all day. Try the change machine. You'll always go home with what you came with.
I'm a counter, and it helps me a great deal, but i'm not nieve enough to think that luck does not come into play in a big big way. You, think when you get great cards it's because your such a good player. And then you resent people disagreeing with you. I think the Schlesinger guy is the greatest BJ mind of the century,but when he is not getting cards, he is not winning either. You can have all the BJ knowledge you want, as long as you don't know the whole card and you are drawing first and the dealer is entitled to the same cards that you are,then I repeat When your gettting the cards you win and when you are not,YOU LOSE.

"I think the Schlesinger guy is the greatest BJ mind of the century,"

I take back everything I said about you; I obviously badly misjudged your intelligence! :-)

"but when he is not getting cards, he is not winning either."

Making this observation doesn't tell us what we should do differently, if we are skilled counters. We count to get an edge. That edge pertains every second of every day forever. Only we play with a partner -- standard deviation. Why not reread BJA, pp. 17-19.

What you call luck, others recognize as the fluctuations inherent in the endeavor. We don't expect to control them, but we do need to understand them. We also need to understand that, the longer we play, the SMALLER the standard deviation becomes as a percentage of our expectation. Put another way, in the short run, what you call luck is simply the fact that the SD/EV ratio is very large. As we play more, that ratio gets smaller and smaller until, eventually, the "luck" factor is entirely inconsequential.

Best I'm going to do for now.

Don

"All the counting we do in the world does not assure us anything. It merely improves our odds AND THE DEALERS."

Possibly the biggest fallacy in your reasoning.

It's not possible to improve the odds of the player and the dealer at the same time. It's a zero-sum game; either you win and the dealer loses, or you lose and the dealer wins. A positive count helps the player more than it helps the dealer.

dealer. That is a fair point. But does it? You never know what the hole card is. I never get killed at a table during bad counts. Because during bad counts, I flat bet. It's only during the best counts, that I either win alot or have my butt handed to me. No one ever gets hammered at a BJ table when the counts bad. It's ALWAYS the exact oppisite.
Strong knowledge of BS and counting gives us an incredable edge. But, even with that edge if that dealer is getting the cards your're dead.
It's kind of when I flat bet because the count is against me and I win 10 in a row. That's when i'm getting the cards and not the dealer. The problem is under those conditions I hardly win any money, because as you know I was supposed to lose, because after all the count was against me, but low and behold I got the cards instead of the dealer. I just feel luck plays a much bigger role in all of this then the pros imply. They call it something else (as though it's a curse word), but I prefer that word considering we are gambling.
To tell you the truth I wouldn't listen to anything anyone but Mr. Schlesinger says in here anyway. He is not only by far the most knowledgable, but also the most sincere. I never get the feeling this guy is motivated by anything other then the love of the game. I love disagreeing with him because he always comes back with such sound answers.
Next time your playing and the dealer gets your card, rethink what i'm saying. You may not agree (and thats OK) but it's an interesting thought.

"I never get killed at a table during bad counts. Because during bad counts, I flat bet. It's only during the best counts, that I either win a lot or have my butt handed to me. No one ever gets hammered at a BJ table when the counts bad. It's ALWAYS the exact oppisite."

See BJA, top of page 336.

Don

about you. You gave me a new perspective on this. Why the hell didn't you say that in the first place? That's why I love your posts. Your always giving me work to do, now I gotta go back and re-read your book.:-)

As always, thank you.

My copy of Blackjack Attack doesn't have that many pages.

"My copy of Blackjack Attack doesn't have that many pages."

Then, it's about time you got the second edition. :-)

For your edition, it's p. 258, "On Very High Counts."

Don