ROR Question . . .

Hi i dont post on here much but im wondering what you guys think of this. A friend and i were talking bj and how ROR is the chance that youll lose whatever you start with before you win enough that youll never lose. This is correct right? Well then he asked me what if your goal was to win only one unit? Then how many units would you need to start with? We took it a step further and said what if you only played when the TC was say +1 or +2 or higher, and once you were up one unit you left? This could be profitable if your units were high (100, 500, etc.). Obviously this is not plausible considering the amount of heat you would attract, but we were wondering if in theory it would work. Would you go up one unit with out losing your roll enough times for it to work? I dont know if this is a well known way to fail, but im just throwin it out there for you guys to think about. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Hi i dont post on here much but im wondering what you guys think of this. A friend and i were talking bj and how ROR is the chance that youll lose whatever you start with before you win enough that youll never lose. This is correct right? Well then he asked me what if your goal was to win only one unit? Then how many units would you need to start with? We took it a step further and said what if you only played when the TC was say +1 or +2 or higher, and once you were up one unit you left? This could be profitable if your units were high (100, 500, etc.). Obviously this is not plausible considering the amount of heat you would attract, but we were wondering if in theory it would work. Would you go up one unit with out losing your roll enough times for it to work? I dont know if this is a well known way to fail, but im just throwin it out there for you guys to think about. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

You have two concepts here, a stop-win strategy and wonging (where you play only in positive count situations).

Let me start with wonging. If you play only in positive count situations, you will naturally have an advantage over the long run. (BTW, this is how I play.) You mention attracting heat. If you play six deck games rather than 1 or 2 decks, you will not only attract less heat, but the count will remain positive for a longer continous period.

The stop-win strategy has no basis in mathematics. You must view your entire BJ experience as one long session rather than several short ones. If you have the advantage, the more you play, the greater your expected value. Therefore, instead of leaving as soon as you are up, you should continue playing until you no longer have the advantage. At that point you leave and reenter when you have the advantage again.

by playing like this wouldnt you be able to minimize your time and your fluctuations? If your units were 500$ and your goal was to be up one unit, almost 50% of your days you would only play one hand, win, and be finished (up 500$). I know this makes no mathematical sense in the long run, but most of the time people are using 5 or ten dollar units, so to make any good money you would have to be up several units. Hence you would have to play for a long time. In Revere's book he states that he would play until he won or lost 30 units, and he was a master of money management. I dont know if that means anything, but it came to mind when you talked of a stop win limit.

Your point is certainly interesting.

But do you know the biggest problem of your strategy?
Your unit is too big. Most experts recommend a bankroll
of at least 1,000 units, hence in your case a half million
dollars, to keep the risk of ruin at a considerably low
probability.

On sunny days, you can easily win one hand and go home;
but on rainy days, you'll be far behind. If your bankroll
is small, you have a high probability to go bankrupcy.

TJ

traditional risk of ruin is the chance that youll lose your initial roll before you make ENOUGH of a roll that you can NEVER lose it. This would obviously be many units. So the ROR for winning ONE unit would be considerably lower, thus your bankroll could be far less than 1000 units. Also, by playing only positive counts and flat betting you would need even less of a roll. I think that makes sense. Is there some software out there that can calculate ROR for a single unit with wonging? Someone should punch it in, as i have no software.

ROR calculations are based on hands per hour (usually 100 per). So a calculation that is based on wonging and only playing positive counts that has bankroll requirements of Y and ROR of X% after 100 hours would be based on 100x100 or 10,000 hands. SO using your play 1 hand per day scenario, you would have the same Y bankroll requirement and the same ROR of X% for the next 10,000 days (a little bit over 27 years).

Easy to see you will get nowhere very slowly with your stop at 1 unit up per day method. You have an X% chance of going broke before the 27 years is up, otherwise you might retire or die up a couple of units. (I would suggest cashing in the chips periodically instead of carrying them, the casino might go out of business or change hands, and not honor your old chips during the entire 27 year period).

Calculations for periods shorter than 100 hours (and even 100 hours itself) are pretty meaningless, because of the variance, almost anything can happen in a short run. Maybe base your calculations on 1000 hours of play (100,000 hands) and plan on your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren carrying forward with your system.

"SO using your play 1 hand per day scenario"

Your probably right, but i did say play until up one unit, not play one hand. This could take many hands.

IF you win your first hand, come back tomorrow. If you lose your first hand, sit down and start a mini-marathon until you wind up one unit. So unless it takes you over 24 hours to re-coup your initial loss, you are pretty much playing 1 hand per day. Like I said, in order to duplicate even a 100 hour wong result with your 1 unit stop win system, it will take years to play an equal number of hands.

Of course, at some point, maybe years down the road, there is the X% chance you enter into a marathon session trying to get your 1 unit stop win and lose your entire bankroll. (Go broke, hit the ruin barrier, etc.)

Then you will look back at all the years and days spent building your bank 1 unit per day, and ask yourself "Why did I waste all that time? I could have been at this point within my first month of play, rebuilt a new bank and quadrupled it by now!"

I guess you would need a stop loss limit aswell. These are just some random numbers, but say somehow your ROR for each day was 5% with 10 units (to make one unit). Out of 100 days, you would lose 10 units on 5 of those days (-50 units). And on 95 of those days you would win just over 1 unit each day (with bj's or double downs, etc.), about +100 units. So after 100 days youd average up about 50 units. May seem small, but like i said, large units. Like i said these are just random numbers, but if this was the case it seems feasible.

> I guess you would need a stop loss limit aswell.

[Sigh!]

Shrek: ...when you see him tomorrow.
Fiona: Tomorrow? It'll take that long? Shouldn't we stop to make camp?
Shrek: No, that'll take longer. We can keep going.

Stop win and stop loss limits do nothing for the advantage player except waste his time. What is the difference between waiting 24 hours for the next session and just starting the next session right away?

that your expected return does NOT change by setting stop-loss/stop-win limits.

Many people already stated that "it's just one lifelong session", and that's a very good way to look at this issue. Here lemme just try and point out the fallacy in your argument in one of your previous emails:

>> These are just some random numbers, but say somehow your ROR for each day was 5% with 10 units (to make one unit). Out of 100 days, you would lose 10 units on 5 of those days (-50 units). And on 95 of those days you would win just over 1 unit each day (with bj's or double downs, etc.), about +100 units. So after 100 days youd average up about 50 units.

Let's suppose your edge against the house is 0% so that your long term expected return (that is, if you played *continuously* without arbitrary stop limits) is zero. (You can use positive EV, but it does not change the logic explained here.) Now let's divide your lifelong session into multiple small mini-sessions with fixed stop-win and stop-loss limits.

[A] Stop-win: $100, Stop-loss: $100
You will end up a winner 50% of the mini-sessions and you will quit as a loser 50% of the times.
--> Your expected return = 0.5 * 100 + 0.5 * (-100) = $0

[B] Stop-win: $10, Stop-loss: $100
You will be a winner 10 out of 11 mini-sessions and you will quit as a loser 1 out of 11 times.
--> Your expected return = (10/11) * 10 + (1/11) * (-100) = $0

[C] Stop-win: $1, Stop-loss: $100
You will be a winner 100 out of 101 mini-sessions and you will quit as a loser 1 out of 101 times.
--> Your expected return = (100/101) * 1 + (1/101) * (-100) = $0
Note that you will win far more frequently, but your occasional losses will totaly wipe out your cumulative wins. (Counter-example to your argument.)

[D] Ad infinitum....

Again, adding any positive EV in your setup does NOT change this argument. [[Your expected gain from a long (continuous or not) session without stop limits are EXACTLY the same as the one from many small mini-sessions with stop-win/stop-loss limits (whatever those limits are).]]

I hope my argument is clear enough to renounce the idea of "using stop limits to gain EV". Having said that, setting stop limits are *extremely* important in my opinion. I am not going go into details here, but most recreational gamblers end up losers not because they don't know how to play blackjack but because they don't understand this concept behind stop limits (usually set implicitly by the amount of their "pocket money").

HTH,
~Black Jack in the Box.