More Edge In Aggressive Card Counting: A Backup Analysis

MORE EDGE IN AGGRESSIVE CARD COUNTING: A BACKUP ANALYSIS

by Dan Pronovost / BJINSIDER #98
March 2008

Dan Pronovost is the owner and president of DeepNet Technologies, makers of a wide range of advantage gambling training products and software (blackjack, poker, craps). Their web site is: www.DeepnetTech.com, and all products are available for free trial download. Dan is also the creator of the easy-to-use card counting system Speed Count, taught in the Golden Touch Blackjack course which is now available in Frank Scoblete's new book, "Golden Touch Blackjack Revolution!": www.GoldenTouchBlackjack.com/scbook.shtml.

When Card counting is not so great

Last month, BJI author Alan Krigman provided an excellent study of risk of ruin when counting cards in blackjack (see www.bjinsider.com/newsletter_97_agg.shtml). His surprising and counterintuitive conclusion was that using more aggressive strategies as a card counter to get your edge higher might actually mean less chance of winning, depending on your bankroll (i.e., you may have more losing sessions than winning sessions). This just doesn't seem right on the surface... surely if your method of play means a larger mathematical edge over the casino, then you'll have a better chance of winning (by increasing your bet spread, for example)? As it turns out, bankroll is everything: to make more money in blackjack as a card counter, you generally have to bet more when you have the edge, and that means more volatility in your bankroll. If you don't increase your cash to play, then you may well go broke before seeing the extra theoretical advantage over the casino. In the long-term, given a sufficiently large bankroll and time, a positive edge over the casino through card counting is your ticket to play for profit. But the reality is that we all play with limited funds for a very small amount of time in relation to the volatility that large card counting bet spreads inevitably bring on. Understanding this and using that knowledge to back your play with healthy session bankrolls, is the key to success as a card counter.

Alan's study was very interesting to me, since I wrote a similar article a few years ago ("The Unbeatable Card-Counter Myth", http://www.bjinsider.com/newsletter_34_bankroll.shtml). I took a different line of attack on the problem, but Alan and I effectively leveraged the same principle: your bankroll as a card-counter must be matched to your betting strategy and risk of ruin. Many card counters make the mistake of thinking that a 0.5 percent to 1 percent edge over the house means they are unbeatable, no matter what money they start with in their pocket.

Proper bankroll and risk of ruin is the most important lesson a new card counter can learn, and it is probably the most common mistake I've seen in years of teaching novice players (www.goldentouchblack.com). So, I decided one simply can't say enough on this subject, and asked Alan's permission to expand on his article and data. Alan kindly obliged, and in fact includes his own further analysis on this subject in this issue as well ((Dead link: http://www.bjinsider.com/newsletter_98_agg2.shtml) _www.bjinsider.com/newsletter_98_agg2.shtml)_.

The hypothetical game

In Alan's prior analysis, he made these assumptions:

MORE- http://www.bjinsider.com/newsletter_98_agg.shtml

It's a shame that Dan continues to write articles on subjects about which he has no understanding.

Teehee.

One theory I had was that maybe Dan's proposed theoretical "aggressive" betting ramp caused him to exceed full-Kelly... hence the inevitable increase in risk of ruin. However, I got to lazy and stupid to try to debug the math.

But still, the general point, that betting more when you have a small bankroll is risky, is good, while a bit "duh".

EasyRhino said:

Teehee.

One theory I had was that maybe Dan's proposed theoretical "aggressive" betting ramp caused him to exceed full-Kelly... hence the inevitable increase in risk of ruin. However, I got to lazy and stupid to try to debug the math.

But still, the general point, that betting more when you have a small bankroll is risky, is good, while a bit "duh".

Click to expand...

Clearly overbetting is bad. But, if his conclusion is that increasing spread causes an increase in risk - once again he is wrong.

I tested this proposition frequently while learning to count last year and found that my aggressive play (in relation to my session BR) when I found my self losing resulted in several large losing sessions compared to many smaller winning sessions where play was usually less aggressive. The end result was that a few large losing sessions negated all the hard work of those many small winning sessions. This is not exactly on point, but it shows that perhaps the very worst time to play aggressively is during a losing session. Although such playing sometimes bailed me out, the size of losing sessions that did not go my way were far too high for my limited session BRs. So I found out the hard way that steaming behavior on a limited BR is no good even when you are otherwise playing perfect BS and counting accurately. I hope this makes sense.

Your betting should not change based on your results thus far in a session.

The guy's a Golden Touch "employee"...what do you expect?

a fine line

just skim read the article. hopefully will read it closer eventually. it's a really subtle point i think hidden with in this aggression/conservative debate. that fine line of wanting to have your cake and eating it to lol..... or not wanting to lose money but wanting to win money. no answers here but faced with being a real human being with limited resources, abilities and having courage issues to boot going up against games the nature of which have a host of limitations as well makes this area of consideration one of paramont importance. sort of the fine art of having been given a bunch of lemons and making lemonaid.
one point that comes to mind is Schlesinger's statement about maybe a new counter with some bankroll starting out and that if they don't get you early on they might not get you sort of thing.

This is exactly the thread I have been looking for and any help would be great. After being confident enough to head to the casinos and play, I have made 5 trips to AC and ALL were losing sessions...totalling a little over $3,000.

I bring 1,000$ each trip with me and use around a 1:10 bet spread. 10$ units.
I play very aggressive for the amount of money I bring..I think, but could this be why I have yet to see a winning session? I pretty much always wong in at + counts so I figured one of the times I would be ahead at the start of my first few bets, not yet though.

I also have CVDATA, but am kinda confused about using the ROR calculators and BR calculators so if anyone could assist me it would be appreciated.

rollem411 said:

This is exactly the thread I have been looking for and any help would be great. After being confident enough to head to the casinos and play, I have made 5 trips to AC and ALL were losing sessions...totalling a little over $3,000.

I bring 1,000$ each trip with me and use around a 1:10 bet spread. 10$ units.
I play very aggressive for the amount of money I bring..I think, but could this be why I have yet to see a winning session? I pretty much always wong in at + counts so I figured one of the times I would be ahead at the start of my first few bets, not yet though.

I also have CVDATA, but am kinda confused about using the ROR calculators and BR calculators so if anyone could assist me it would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

If this is 8 deck, your spread is far too low. And your risk would be huge with $1,000.

QFIT said:

If this is 8 deck, your spread is far too low. And your risk would be huge with $1,000.

Click to expand...

if he is only wonging, i dont think 1-10 is too small, even on 8-deck. i wouldnt go any lower spread though

as for RoR on 1,000 BR - i dont think his total BR is 1k, just his session BRs. BUT, your risk of tapping out a 1k session BR with $100 max bets is still indeed big, as QFIT points out. you should do some searches here or on other sites to learn about sizing session bank rolls so you dont prematurely tap out.

tapping out on three 1k session BRs with 100 max bets wouldnt be that unusual i would think, just some bad variance. try using QFIT's CVBJ software to test/drill yourself to make sure you are indeed actually counting/betting/playing as properly as you think you are.

Sorry, missed that. I need all the rules, bets, strategy.

rukus said:

...make sure you are indeed actually counting/betting/playing as properly as you think you are.

Click to expand...

Yes. And possibly related to this...

rollem411 said:

I play very aggressive...

Click to expand...

I always wonder what this means, exactly. Do you mean betting aggressively, or something else?

rukus said:

if he is only wonging, i dont think 1-10 is too small, even on 8-deck. i wouldnt go any lower spread though

as for RoR on 1,000 BR - i dont think his total BR is 1k, just his session BRs. BUT, your risk of tapping out a 1k session BR with $100 max bets is still indeed big, as QFIT points out. you should do some searches here or on other sites to learn about sizing session bank rolls so you dont prematurely tap out.

tapping out on three 1k session BRs with 100 max bets wouldnt be that unusual i would think, just some bad variance. try using QFIT's CVBJ software to test/drill yourself to make sure you are indeed actually counting/betting/playing as properly as you think you are.

Click to expand...

I figured the 1:10 was good because of NO play all. I don't have that software, but I do practice often with exact casino rules and usually stop play and count the discard tray to make sure I am estimating correctly.

QFIT said:

Sorry, missed that. I need all the rules, bets, strategy.

Click to expand...

AC Rules: 8D, S17, DAS, DOA, NS, I shoot for 75% pen or better. I know I am using the calculators for CVDATA wrong, because the ROR you all say is way higher than what I was getting...I think it was around 15%.

Canceler said:

Do you mean betting aggressively, or something else?

Click to expand...

Yes, in proportion to my session BR, 1,000.

QFIT said:

It's a shame that Dan continues to write articles on subjects about which he has no understanding.

Click to expand...

If he is saying that an incresed spread will increase ROR, that can't be right...
unless he's calculating spread from the bottom up, which is incorrect.

Did I read it right, or what is the criticism? zg

He Was calculating spread from the bottom up, although he had it done to maintain the same "average bet", which seemed interesting, but probably wrong.

The real guts of the story were linked from the artigle that ziggy linked. Unfortunately, it's a subscriber-only story, so I don't think copy n pasting would be appropriate.

rollem411 said:

I bring 1,000$ each trip with me and use around a 1:10 bet spread. 10$ units.

Click to expand...

A $100 max bet on a $1000 trip bankroll for a full weekend of play would qualify as "maniacal". so you'd have a lot of tapouts, and the occassional big win (which you didn't have the luck to experience in those 5 trips).

But to be fair, I'll go into a weekend of light play with about 14 max bets... with the backstop of two ATM cards if it gets bad.

QFIT said:

If this is 8 deck, your spread is far too low. And your risk would be huge with $1,000.

Click to expand...

But if he's only wonging in at plus counts, wouldn't that make it sufficient? I agree for "play all" it is woefully low.

On The Article

Ramping your bets up would raise your hourly swings but your long term time horizon would be shorter. Of course provided you are not overbetting.

Learn From Experience

rollem411 said:

This is exactly the thread I have been looking for and any help would be great. After being confident enough to head to the casinos and play, I have made 5 trips to AC and ALL were losing sessions...totalling a little over $3,000.

I bring 1,000$ each trip with me and use around a 1:10 bet spread. 10$ units.
I play very aggressive for the amount of money I bring..I think, but could this be why I have yet to see a winning session? I pretty much always wong in at + counts so I figured one of the times I would be ahead at the start of my first few bets, not yet though.

I also have CVDATA, but am kinda confused about using the ROR calculators and BR calculators so if anyone could assist me it would be appreciated.

Click to expand...

So the first time you went to AC you tapped out?
Did you think, I need to bring more money or bet less?

The second time you went to AC you tapped out?
Did you think, I need to bring more money or bet less?

The third time you went to AC you tapped out?
Did you think, I need to bring more money or bet less?

Do you see a trend?
Do you see some ways to stop the trend?

I don't need a sim to answer the questions.

EasyRhino said:

He Was calculating spread from the bottom up, although he had it done to maintain the same "average bet", which seemed interesting, but probably wrong.

Click to expand...

Yes, completely wrong and meaningless. Pronovost has no understanding of risk or strategy comparison or optimal betting or SCORE. This is how he ended up with sims "proving" that Speed Count was nearly as good as "professional level strategies." In his comparison sims he had Hi-Lo increasing bets at a true count of zero in order to force the standard deviation to be the same as SC. Of course HiLo doesn't perform well when you increase bets with negative expectation. What "pro" plays that way? He gutted HiLo, played it like an idiot with no indexes, no insurance, raising bets with negative EV and said Speed Count was nearly as good as a "professional level strategy." And people have to pay to see articles by a person that simply does not understand card counting.