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HI KEN!what is the meaning of advantage?for example,when true count is 5 the advantage is 2.0%x76%,equal to 1.5%,is that means we have 51.5%/48.5% Winrate,or just 50.75%/49.25% winrate?thank you very much!
Don’t bother trying to think about blackjack in terms of win rates, because it’s more complicated than that. If we were betting on a coin flip, then an advantage of 1.5% would imply 50.75%/49.25%. But with blackjack your win rate never reaches 50%. You make your extra money because of splits, doubles and blackjacks. It’s complicated. Just know that if you have an edge of 1.5%, your expected long-run profit is $1.50 for every $100 you bet.
The advantage increases by 0.5% per true count. I can see that the table above is a bit confusing. Under the advantage column, just ignore the “X 0.76%” part. That just shows how he is converting the advantage at each true count to the optimal bet which is shown in the final columns. The 0.76% comes from the Kelly ratio based on the variance of blackjack.
Hi ken !!thanks for the advise.after only one week of hard training i can keep follow easy the rc and many times to estimate the correct amount of cards that are in the tray so i am going to stick to the hi-lo.i see now how logical was your words that in now time the maximum target is just to make the correct betting for each hand based on the tc.after when i will be ready i will start thinking of deviations in b.s based on the index numbers.thanks for the response
Ken Smith hi again.sorry if i write in a wrong section but i want to ask two things.when the true count is high and its time for us to bet as back counters or betting more like players on the the table and there are three or five bases/players we bet where for better results ?first base ?the last one?or it dont matter.?second guestion i have read that to survive the long run and play all good luck and bad luck we need 50 times the max bet.if i decide to play flat bet of 5dollars it means that i need 250 dollars.right?at this fynny amount of money what profit per hour can u gain?000000.1 cents ????.and last in another post u answered me that its not how much hours a counter can play continiusly but how much he should play?please inlight us.if he plays more or less hours what the results?thanks for your time !!
It doesn’t matter which seat at the table you choose. The only difference is that you get to see a few more cards before making your decision if you sit at third base. But that effect is a minor one. For your other question, you ask about bankroll needed to flat-bet $5, and how much profit that will yield. I assume you mean you will play only in positive counts, otherwise there of course will be no expected profit. How much earn per hour? Not much. Off the top of my head I would estimate that a $5 flat bet in positive counts might yield around 50 cents an hour in expected win. And you’ll still need that $250 bank you asked about to weather the ups and downs. Your final question about results based on hours, it’s a straight linear relationship. 10 hours will earn 10 times what 1 hour will.
Also when one player wants to play with just the maths and overcome the good and the bad luck i cant understand how much time is needed in continious game?or should i think not in time but in hands??and i cant understand if the tables or the cazino have united memory !i mean that if i play 10 days in the row every day of 5hours each day and i loose every time for those 10 days and i decide to go after on month for 10days again of 5hours each day the maths those days will have to give me profit ????
It sounds like you are wondering whether things have to eventually even out, so if you’ve had a losing streak the coming days “will have to give you profit”. Nope. It never works like that. The cards don’t know you’ve been on a losing streak. Each time you play the odds are the same. There is no “memory”, between casinos, or in the same casino, or in the same session, or over 100 sessions.
When discussing how long you need to play to have a good chance of making a profit despite luck, a useful concept is a statistical measure known as “N0”. That’s N-Zero. It is a measure of how many hands you must play in a game before your expected win is equal to one standard deviation. Even after N0 hands, you still have a roughly 32% chance of being a loser despite playing perfectly. In really good games, N0 can number in the low single thousands of hands. In marginal games, it can be as much as 50,000 hands. In bad games it could be over 100,000. That’s a lot of blackjack!
Yes, hit/stand decisions and index numbers are not affected by european rules. Only decisions that involve betting more money are impacted by the no-hole-card rule. That means splits or double downs only.
“Backed off” means you get the tap on your shoulder, and are told you can play other games, but are no longer allowed to play blackjack. If you are playing the game with an advantage, you can count on this happening sometime in your career, probably pretty early. It’s a cat and mouse game.
All these with spread 5 /60 ????? If yes for each tc plus 1i raise two betting unit ?if was playing 10/100 spread that woud be twice times the numbers up?
Whether it’s worth splitting tens or not really depends on where you are playing, and how likely you are to have trouble because of it. If it causes you to get backed off, it’s certainly not worth it, no matter the count.
I don’t have surrender index numbers handy at the moment, so I’m no help on the latter question.
You also ask in another comment about whether you should play one hand or multiple hands at TC+10. Spreading to multiple hands has lots of benefits, so if you can, it’s probably a good thing. You don’t need a rare true count of +10 to do it either. 🙂
Buy insurance at a true count of +3. (+2 in single deck.) Split TTv5 at +5. Split TTv6 at +4. However, ten splits probably aren’t worth the extra attention they draw for most players.
HI KEN!what is the meaning of advantage?for example,when true count is 5 the advantage is 2.0%x76%,equal to 1.5%,is that means we have 51.5%/48.5% Winrate,or just 50.75%/49.25% winrate?thank you very much!
Don’t bother trying to think about blackjack in terms of win rates, because it’s more complicated than that.
If we were betting on a coin flip, then an advantage of 1.5% would imply 50.75%/49.25%. But with blackjack your win rate never reaches 50%. You make your extra money because of splits, doubles and blackjacks. It’s complicated. Just know that if you have an edge of 1.5%, your expected long-run profit is $1.50 for every $100 you bet.
hi ken!I have seen other forum posts,says increase tc+1 has 0.5%advantage,instead of 0.5%x76%,Which one is right?thank you very much~~~~
The advantage increases by 0.5% per true count. I can see that the table above is a bit confusing. Under the advantage column, just ignore the “X 0.76%” part. That just shows how he is converting the advantage at each true count to the optimal bet which is shown in the final columns. The 0.76% comes from the Kelly ratio based on the variance of blackjack.
Hi ken !!thanks for the advise.after only one week of hard training i can keep follow easy the rc and many times to estimate the correct amount of cards that are in the tray so i am going to stick to the hi-lo.i see now how logical was your words that in now time the maximum target is just to make the correct betting for each hand based on the tc.after when i will be ready i will start thinking of deviations in b.s based on the index numbers.thanks for the response
Ken Smith hi again.sorry if i write in a wrong section but i want to ask two things.when the true count is high and its time for us to bet as back counters or betting more like players on the the table and there are three or five bases/players we bet where for better results ?first base ?the last one?or it dont matter.?second guestion i have read that to survive the long run and play all good luck and bad luck we need 50 times the max bet.if i decide to play flat bet of 5dollars it means that i need 250 dollars.right?at this fynny amount of money what profit per hour can u gain?000000.1 cents ????.and last in another post u answered me that its not how much hours a counter can play continiusly but how much he should play?please inlight us.if he plays more or less hours what the results?thanks for your time !!
It doesn’t matter which seat at the table you choose. The only difference is that you get to see a few more cards before making your decision if you sit at third base. But that effect is a minor one.
For your other question, you ask about bankroll needed to flat-bet $5, and how much profit that will yield. I assume you mean you will play only in positive counts, otherwise there of course will be no expected profit. How much earn per hour? Not much. Off the top of my head I would estimate that a $5 flat bet in positive counts might yield around 50 cents an hour in expected win. And you’ll still need that $250 bank you asked about to weather the ups and downs. Your final question about results based on hours, it’s a straight linear relationship. 10 hours will earn 10 times what 1 hour will.
0.76 i think is for canculating the optimum bet based on your true count.
Also when one player wants to play with just the maths and overcome the good and the bad luck i cant understand how much time is needed in continious game?or should i think not in time but in hands??and i cant understand if the tables or the cazino have united memory !i mean that if i play 10 days in the row every day of 5hours each day and i loose every time for those 10 days and i decide to go after on month for 10days again of 5hours each day the maths those days will have to give me profit ????
It sounds like you are wondering whether things have to eventually even out, so if you’ve had a losing streak the coming days “will have to give you profit”. Nope. It never works like that. The cards don’t know you’ve been on a losing streak. Each time you play the odds are the same. There is no “memory”, between casinos, or in the same casino, or in the same session, or over 100 sessions.
When discussing how long you need to play to have a good chance of making a profit despite luck, a useful concept is a statistical measure known as “N0”. That’s N-Zero. It is a measure of how many hands you must play in a game before your expected win is equal to one standard deviation. Even after N0 hands, you still have a roughly 32% chance of being a loser despite playing perfectly. In really good games, N0 can number in the low single thousands of hands. In marginal games, it can be as much as 50,000 hands. In bad games it could be over 100,000. That’s a lot of blackjack!
Here are a couple of threads…
https://www.blackjackinfo.com/knowledge-base/blackjack-theory-and-math/n0-n-zero/
https://www.blackjackinfo.com/knowledge-base/blackjack-theory-and-math/whats-your-n0/
U got exacly what i ment.thanks again for your precious advice/answer !
Yes, hit/stand decisions and index numbers are not affected by european rules. Only decisions that involve betting more money are impacted by the no-hole-card rule. That means splits or double downs only.
“Backed off” means you get the tap on your shoulder, and are told you can play other games, but are no longer allowed to play blackjack. If you are playing the game with an advantage, you can count on this happening sometime in your career, probably pretty early. It’s a cat and mouse game.
Is this also for european bj?
All these with spread 5 /60 ????? If yes for each tc plus 1i raise two betting unit ?if was playing 10/100 spread that woud be twice times the numbers up?
thank you so much!but what is the meaning of “If it causes you to get backed off”,can you explain it?thank you^^
Whether it’s worth splitting tens or not really depends on where you are playing, and how likely you are to have trouble because of it. If it causes you to get backed off, it’s certainly not worth it, no matter the count.
I don’t have surrender index numbers handy at the moment, so I’m no help on the latter question.
You also ask in another comment about whether you should play one hand or multiple hands at TC+10. Spreading to multiple hands has lots of benefits, so if you can, it’s probably a good thing. You don’t need a rare true count of +10 to do it either. 🙂
hi Ken Smith!when we are at a true count of +10,we should play one bet or several bets in one game?thank you so much~~~~~
thank you very much!you are so kind!Do you mean split ttv6 is not worth even at a true count of 10?
besides, can you tell me when should we surrender while 17vs10 and 18vs10,A5vs10,A6VS10,A7VS10?thank you!!!!
Buy insurance at a true count of +3. (+2 in single deck.)
Split TTv5 at +5. Split TTv6 at +4. However, ten splits probably aren’t worth the extra attention they draw for most players.