sun trip

Maybe relying on your experience that in the *vast* majority of cases these situations do NOT turn around.

Well of course not, if you have left the table.

Talk about circular logic!

You didn't even bother to inquire *when* the experience took place.

But, fine, you go ahead an "tough out" all those deadly (and expensive) situations, and I'll keep on dodging those bullets.

At the end of the week/month/year, I'll have more money that you will.

But look at the bright side -- I'm taking some of the rockets that would otherwise be aimed at you.

First, you misquoted.

Second, "knowing how to play" *does* include knowing how to keep and play the count.

Knowing how to win is entirely different. It includes things like knowing your own strengths and weaknesses (e.g., a personal history of doing better playing in the morning than playing late at night -- i.e., are you a "morning person" or a "night owl?"), knowing how to overcome or at least neutralize the house's "depth" advantage, and (most often utilized) knowing when to get the hell off a table and take a break and knowing when to keep playing.

especially when they have years and years of 'experience' to back up their superstitious ways.

Coot,

The question you avoid is why would there be a reason; why would there be a reason that I would lose one day and not another?

If I look at it mathematically (it appears you hate to admit the possibility that random chance plays a large role in our lives), I can see why I lose sometimes - there is a distribution of results, and sometimes I'll be in the "bad" side of the distribution, and sometimes on the good side.

But if I accept this model (which has been shown to be awfully good at predicting all kinds of things; not just blackjack results), then I have to accept that the fact that I lost the last 12 hands tells me nothing about what I'll do on my next trial (other than what the count tells me and assuming that I play correctly.)

You appear to reject this model (flawed?), but if you reject it, then pray tell what we should believe - that there are BJ Gods (I know some Godesses, but that's another subject) who determine that I will win or lose today? (that model did have some empirical support in college, but that was a different kind of BJ Goddess.) That streaks will continue? (That puts you in the same company as the chicken - the farmer will wring your neck one day.) Or what?

Here's a suggestion for you, though, that seems consistent with you beliefs: "wong in" on the roulette tables when you see one that's had 5 reds or blacks in a row so you can hop onto the streak. The casinos don't bar people for that, so you can get some big bets down.

"First, you misquoted."

I copied & pasted what you wrote. The only exception was that instead of "If you know how to play *and* win..", I wrote that this implies you know how to play and win! If this is not what you meant, my apologies...

"Second, "knowing how to play" *does* include knowing how to keep and play the count."

You equate "knowing how to play" with keeping the count?? That's novel. But inaccurate. How about how to bet?? Ever hear of, for instance, optimal betting? Or how about someone who is an advantage player, sits down and never counts a damn card? You want me to recount the non-counting advantage techniques here, what.

"Knowing how to win is entirely different."

Here it comes.

"...knowing how to overcome or at least neutralize the house's "depth" advantage,"

What on Earth is the house's depth advantage, if you please? (And you gotta tell us what is the shallow advantage, in that context.)

"...and knowing when to get the hell off a table and take a break and knowing when to keep playing."

Let me cut to the chase, OCFV : There's no way you can know in advance if your lucky (or unlucky) streak is gonna continue or not. Not even Superman knows that. If you get up from the table because you have a certain premonition or because you keep losing despite playing an advantage game, you don't show that "you know how to win": you just get up from the table.

Nor do I reject the effects of "random chance."

For *many* years I shared the "zeal of the new convert" regarding card counting. I started counting cards in 1973. In fact, after returning from Africa in '74, I moved to Vegas and made pretty good money playing single deck 21 during the day, and taking money from drunk Texans with more money than brains at the poker tables at the Dunes during the early morning hours.

But my new bride got tired of being a "casino widow;" so, in September of '75, she declared, "I'm moving to Phoenix. You coming?" I went, of course, and we moved back east 6 months later.

Actually, the timing was just about perfect; for it was only a *very* short time later that most places on the Strip went over to 4 decks and the heat rose considerably downtown.

Now, can you lose a max bet or two at a high count in SD and DD? Sure. But then you get a shuffle which ends the bad run, and you start over with a minimum bet. The damage is limited and sustainable.

But with 4, 6 & 8 decks, I found that it was suicide to "tough it out" (which I stubbornly did for a *long* time, convinced that "the count" would eventually turn things around) and lose one max bet after another at seemingly juicy counts. Instead of losing just one or two max bets, I found I was losing 4, 5 or 6 of them in a row -- often wiping out wins it had taken me many hours of "normal" play to accumulate -- and sometimes actually putting me in the hole. I was getting too many stiffs against dealer blackjacks at pat 20s, hand after hand after hand. And, of course, with the high count, whenever I did hit those stiffs, they broke.

So then I tried putting a limit of losing two consecutive max bets, then dropping to the minimum bet until a win. In *my* experience, the *vast* majority of times I just kept on losing right up to the shuffle. Same thing: stiff after stiff after stiff against strong pat dealer hands.

So I then tried just sitting out until the new shoe, but the results thereafter were almost never good. This doesn't seem to make mathematical sense, but it happened nonetheless. Perhaps it was more a psychological effect than anything else. But whatever the reason, it still happened, and is therefore something to avoid.

In *my* experience -- and it *does* work for me -- the *only* way to handle those situations is to just get the hell off the table, take a break, and then go find another table.

The *consistency* of those gawdawful situations is what makes me at least consider the *possibility* that there is a reason for them. Do I know what the reason is? No. And it's quite likely I never will know, assuming there actually is a reason.

I am a firm believer in the philosophy: "Never make a bet you cannot afford to lose." Some bets you can't afford to lose for financial reasons. Some bets you can't afford to lose for psychological reasons. Those extremely expensive strings of losses -- max bets at high counts -- qualify, at least for me, under *both* criteria.

Since they are bets I cannot afford to lose, I will NOT make them, and I don't care if the true count is +5, +10 or +100,000.

Check your cut and paste job again -- you messed up.

And EXCUUUUUUSE me for not detailing *every* detail of *every* blackjack tactic that can be found in hundreds of thousands of pages of literature in my one post.

The house "depth advantage:" that's what puts you out of the game if you experience an extreme negative variance. They can survive really bad runs of "luck" or "variance" (or whatever you want to call it) and come back to win -- but you can't.

As for the rest of it, I refer you to my post headed with "I do not reject...."

experience proves to be more instructive than all the damn theories
and "other" math crap. I know you don't believe it yetm, but experience is the best teacher, however cruel.

I love how you guys love yourselves!

Coot, if you're saying that loss limits are a good idea, I won't argue with you because I use them myself.

However:

I don't go around puffing my chest out and telling people "I know how to win" because of it. Get a grip.

non-stop.