luck

aslan said:

You lost me--what are you calling knowledge as opposed to knowledgeable action?

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you mean how could i be any more vague? lol
sorry, like i dunno, i mean where a card counter takes knowledge (maybe from a sim or maths) and puts into action counting cards and following a game plan. that's what i was meaning by knowledgeable action.
just knowledge can be where you know all of that but maybe or maybe not do it. ie. as in the lack of actually counting cards, or maybe counting cards but not following some full blown game plan even though you infact know of some game plan. knowing but perhaps not doing sorta of thing.
kind of like how in the last weekend warriors game where zengrifters team did nothing but simulate the game. tsk, tsk, lmao.
but too, knowledge like Kasi's spread sheet provides where all you need is a supposition of a perfect card counter and you end up with knowledge about expected value, degrees of standard deviation, goal probabilities and risk of ruin facts and figures all against just maybe knowing some number of hands played. all with out really doing anything. just knowledge.

How is anything other than the rules of counting something one could call knowledge?

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well maybe it is the theory of blackjack or what ever we wanna call it but yeah thats the idea, just minus the action of actually doing it or what ever, maybe like i said for me voodoo fuzzy count & bets, plus knowledge.
like maybe you could choose to do the knowledge action thing or not based on knowledge.

How can you follow the rules that lead to a near sure thing in the long run and not follow them at the same time without jeopardizing the long run. How does lack of discipline translate into knowledge?

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no, yeah your right it doesn't, the lack of discipline doesn't translate into knowledge. but lack of discipline (ie. lack of orthodox blackjack theory translated into action) doesn't necessarily translate into jeoprardizing the long run, it might, might not and i guess a lot would depend on luck and knowledge based on decisions.

Doesn't it just compromise your near certain chance to win for the sake of a long shot that is a billion to one?
....

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yeah it probably would compromise the near certain chances. maybe slow them down or end up missing some good opportunities
i dunno about that billion to one long shot, it's more like the idea is the idea earlier you posted in the really blackjack forum about how you got way ahead playing sort of thing and knew your chances of draining that big win way down was pretty good if you played on. kind of on the order of that sort of thing, stuff lol. pretty much voodoo, huh? :cat::whip:
edit: ===>>> wait till you get as feeble as me and you'll start buying into this stuff, lmao.

sagefr0g said:

... wait till you get as feeble as me and you'll start buying into this stuff, lmao.

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Well, I guess you made it all clear now in a fuzzy sort of way. lol

I have a few comments on the whole card counting thing. I am interested in how you see it, or if maybe you agree with me.

The fallacy, or maybe I should say weakness, in card counting to me is that if you have sufficient bankroll to play with a minimal RoR, then the game is just not interesting enough to hold one's interest. There seems to be a principle involved here to the gist that the more money you have the more you need to win to feel that you have done anything worth the effort. What I am saying is that if you have a $10,000 bankroll to play a $10 table with your max set at, say, $100 (assume a 6 deck game), then you will not find the $10 an hour or so that you win to be very much interesting seeing that you "brung" $10 grand. And if you are playing a $25 table with a max bet at $250, and your bankroll is $25,000, you will not be jumping up and down at the prosepct of winning $25 buck an hour or so. That $25,000 will just seem to burn a hole in ypur pocket! My conclusion is that no matter what level you play at, your will be quite bored with the average results based on the amount of bankroll you are toting. Am I all wet?

The MIT guys were making money hand over fist, but then they began that long losing streak. I am guessing that the intial big winning streak was largely luck and when it started approaching a reasonable gain considering the amount of their bankroll they got scared (not bored) and bailed out. Hod they perfectly tracked the expected win rate, I wonder if they would have stayed with it for long. It just doesn't seem like you are getting much bank for your buck. Has anyone else experienced this?

And then there is also the prospect of losing big time, while it seems the normal case of winning is a slow drawn out process. Add the two together--boring but with the prospect for losing big time--and you become disenchanted with the whole affair.

PS--I believe that most people play the game with far less than the recommended bankroll, so I guess for most people the game is always highly interesting, if only for the fact that they have to be lucky NOT to go bust, or at least they have a high risk of going bust. All this is justified in their minds by the fact that they can go back to work and build a new bankroll which they call replenishment, but which I call kidding themselves. lol

aslan said:

Well, I guess you made it all clear now in a fuzzy sort of way. lol

I have a few comments on the whole card counting thing. I am interested in how you see it, or if maybe you agree with me.

The fallacy, or maybe I should say weakness, in card counting to me is that if you have sufficient bankroll to play with a minimal RoR, then the game is just not interesting enough to hold one's interest. There seems to be a principle involved here to the gist that the more money you have the more you need to win to feel that you have done anything worth the effort. What I am saying is that if you have a $10,000 bankroll to play a $10 table with your max set at, say, $100 (assume a 6 deck game), then you will not find the $10 an hour or so that you win to be very much interesting seeing that you "brung" $10 grand. And if you are playing a $25 table with a max bet at $250, and your bankroll is $25,000, you will not be jumping up and down at the prosepct of winning $25 buck an hour or so. That $25,000 will just seem to burn a hole in ypur pocket! My conclusion is that no matter what level you play at, your will be quite bored with the average results based on the amount of bankroll you are toting. Am I all wet?

The MIT guys were making money hand over fist, but then they began that long losing streak. I am guessing that the intial big winning streak was largely luck and when it started approaching a reasonable gain considering the amount of their bankroll they got scared (not bored) and bailed out. Hod they perfectly tracked the expected win rate, I wonder if they would have stayed with it for long. It just doesn't seem like you are getting much bank for your buck. Has anyone else experienced this?

And then there is also the prospect of losing big time, while it seems the normal case of winning is a slow drawn out process. Add the two together--boring but with the prospect for losing big time--and you become disenchanted with the whole affair.

PS--I believe that most people play the game with far less than the recommended bankroll, so I guess for most people the game is always highly interesting, if only for the fact that they have to be lucky NOT to go bust, or at least they have a high risk of going bust. All this is justified in their minds by the fact that they can go back to work and build a new bankroll which they call replenishment, but which I call kidding themselves. lol

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I believe you are right on with the psychological aspect of the game. What you've stated here is exactly why so many skilled players don't reach the potential of their game. Its also why some may become obsessed with luck and if there is a reasoning behind it. There is one thing you will always find and you can analyze this until your brain bleeds, those who need luck very rarely will consistently find what they're looking for. Those who use luck as a supplement will find it more than they often realize. That is not an accident, this is by design, and I believe that is as close as one will come to harnassing the value of luck.

As far as the MIT teams you are somewhat misinformed about that. The team Strategic Investments ended up losing money based on high variance strategies away from counting as well as poor quality control. The teams that were formed after, especially the one loosely based on BDTH, won alot of money and did not give it back. Their records were meticulous and they knew exactly what was expected. The bankroll at one point was as much as 1.4 million. At the time their was really no limit to what they could bet. There was no real bailout. This team ran for about 8 years until 2000 when it became hard for them to play due to casino crackdowns. The team officially split then, but some kept on playing and still play to this day with great profit. Regardless of what some may think the guys that I know from the MIT teams played this game perfectly for as long as they could at that high of a level. If more people would adopt the playing regimen such as theirs, with attention to detail and money management, there would be less failed counters out there. The problem is what works isn't exactly what everyone signed up for when they started counting. Winning millions consistently over 8 years wasn't luck, and neither would winning hundreds or thousands if people would try to stop believing its better to be lucky than good.

lucky variance, deviation.....

Hoo boy I know the difference between when you are lucky and unlucky. Play like a robot and lose your a$$ called it what you will standard deviations but you lost your money. Play like a robot and win a boodle and call it skill or positive variance. I haven't lost thousands and haven't won thousands but play just the same as I always do within the limits of my bankrolls. Sagefrog addresses the unknown thing that some call skill some call luck. Playing like you can't lose when the count dictates it accounts for the losses we encounter. I know when I'm in a bad game and will leave when it's time to. I have sat at high counts getting pummeled time and time again that's being unlucky when you are the only one getting the garbage. If you can explain getting beat time and time again when you should be winning a percentage of the hands not unlucky I'll be waiting right here for you. blackchipjim

blackchipjim said:

Hoo boy I know the difference between when you are lucky and unlucky. Play like a robot and lose your a$$ called it what you will standard deviations but you lost your money. Play like a robot and win a boodle and call it skill or positive variance. I haven't lost thousands and haven't won thousands but play just the same as I always do within the limits of my bankrolls. Sagefrog addresses the unknown thing that some call skill some call luck. Playing like you can't lose when the count dictates it accounts for the losses we encounter. I know when I'm in a bad game and will leave when it's time to. I have sat at high counts getting pummeled time and time again that's being unlucky when you are the only one getting the garbage. If you can explain getting beat time and time again when you should be winning a percentage of the hands not unlucky I'll be waiting right here for you. blackchipjim

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You lose money on some sessions even when playing perfectly........so what. Did you expect to win em all? You say it all when you say you haven't lost thousands and you haven't won thousands. Well there you go, you win some too, otherwise you would be losing a lot more money. Anything can happen on any given day, all AP's should know that. Leaving when you don't think you can catch a hand even if the count is good will kill counters. I have taken a beating all day in a casino just to have 1 or 2 good shoes pull me ahead for an overall win. You may think its unlucky to get pummeled in high counts, I think its just the adjustment needed to average out the E.V. If we always won when the count was good there would be no average expectation. The longer you play, and don't run from losses, by the way if playing with a sound money management plan losses shouldn't cripple your bankroll, the more your play will adjust to the mean. Which means you will begin to realize your E.V. I have a hard time understanding why counters get bent over losing in good counts. It happens and will happen often. But as long as you play the game right, and that includes managing your bankroll as well as card play, then the eventual outcome will be one that is positive. Believing the cards are lucky for you or against you usually leads to decisions made that may make you dependent on that luck. Playing the way you're supposed too as an AP makes luck irrelevant as it has no bearing on decisions or long term statistics. Not playing correctly will make the day to day or even session to sesssion luck seem like its all that matters in your outcome. Put it this way, I may have had what was considered a very unlucky day last month losing 200 units in one day, but my bottomline still shows a profit so is it really unlucky. My pocket says no.

Bojack1 said:

You lose money on some sessions even when playing perfectly........so what. Did you expect to win em all? You say it all when you say you haven't lost thousands and you haven't won thousands. Well there you go, you win some too, otherwise you would be losing a lot more money. Anything can happen on any given day, all AP's should know that. Leaving when you don't think you can catch a hand even if the count is good will kill counters. I have taken a beating all day in a casino just to have 1 or 2 good shoes pull me ahead for an overall win. You may think its unlucky to get pummeled in high counts, I think its just the adjustment needed to average out the E.V. If we always won when the count was good there would be no average expectation. The longer you play, and don't run from losses, by the way if playing with a sound money management plan losses shouldn't cripple your bankroll, the more your play will adjust to the mean. Which means you will begin to realize your E.V. I have a hard time understanding why counters get bent over losing in good counts. It happens and will happen often. But as long as you play the game right, and that includes managing your bankroll as well as card play, then the eventual outcome will be one that is positive. Believing the cards are lucky for you or against you usually leads to decisions made that may make you dependent on that luck. Playing the way you're supposed too as an AP makes luck irrelevant as it has no bearing on decisions or long term statistics. Not playing correctly will make the day to day or even session to sesssion luck seem like its all that matters in your outcome. Put it this way, I may have had what was considered a very unlucky day last month losing 200 units in one day, but my bottomline still shows a profit so is it really unlucky. My pocket says no.

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And that is exactly what I think. But to play effectively, you must have the required bankroll that will sustain you through some pretty ugly runs of negative variance. I would wager that 9 out of ten counters are under bankrolled, and so for them, the large loss when the cards go south at max bet is unsustainable, or brings their bankroll down to a point that continued play is far too risky. And if they reduce their minimum bets they will have a long tedious time of it trying to pull themselves out the the hole they are in. Adequate funding is essential!!! Of course, as I noted before, if you have the large bankroll you need to minimize your RoR, them you might just get bored with the meager hourly return you receive compared to the money you "brung."

Quote:
Originally Posted by sagefr0g
... wait till you get as feeble as me and you'll start buying into this stuff, lmao.

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aslan said:

Well, I guess you made it all clear now in a fuzzy sort of way. lol

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long way of saying, maybe there really is more than one way to skin a cat. lmao.:cat::whip:

I have a few comments on the whole card counting thing. I am interested in how you see it, or if maybe you agree with me.

The fallacy, or maybe I should say weakness, in card counting to me is that if you have sufficient bankroll to play with a minimal RoR, then the game is just not interesting enough to hold one's interest. There seems to be a principle involved here to the gist that the more money you have the more you need to win to feel that you have done anything worth the effort. What I am saying is that if you have a $10,000 bankroll to play a $10 table with your max set at, say, $100 (assume a 6 deck game), then you will not find the $10 an hour or so that you win to be very much interesting seeing that you "brung" $10 grand. And if you are playing a $25 table with a max bet at $250, and your bankroll is $25,000, you will not be jumping up and down at the prosepct of winning $25 buck an hour or so. That $25,000 will just seem to burn a hole in ypur pocket! My conclusion is that no matter what level you play at, your will be quite bored with the average results based on the amount of bankroll you are toting. Am I all wet?

The MIT guys were making money hand over fist, but then they began that long losing streak. I am guessing that the intial big winning streak was largely luck and when it started approaching a reasonable gain considering the amount of their bankroll they got scared (not bored) and bailed out. Hod they perfectly tracked the expected win rate, I wonder if they would have stayed with it for long. It just doesn't seem like you are getting much bank for your buck. Has anyone else experienced this?

And then there is also the prospect of losing big time, while it seems the normal case of winning is a slow drawn out process. Add the two together--boring but with the prospect for losing big time--and you become disenchanted with the whole affair.

PS--I believe that most people play the game with far less than the recommended bankroll, so I guess for most people the game is always highly interesting, if only for the fact that they have to be lucky NOT to go bust, or at least they have a high risk of going bust. All this is justified in their minds by the fact that they can go back to work and build a new bankroll which they call replenishment, but which I call kidding themselves. lol

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aslan, i think that's an excellent point of view sort of thing imho.
it brings to my mind something i'm sure i'm not capable of understanding or fully evaluating that has to do with Kelly betting and ROR in blackjack theory and just plain ole regular people and how they feel about thier money and stuff like that. just maybe you pegged me with your view point pretty well, lol. i mean as far as how i'm reluctant to go the 'full Monty' with card counting and all.
but anyway, yeah i dunno, some how (serendipity maybe) in the deep dark recess's of my fuzzy memory i seem to recall stumbling across a comment that was in an explaination of Kelly betting and ROR stuff that mentioned the difficulties of fitting Kelly, hence ROR to the game of blackjack. maybe some assumptions and approximations have to be made or what ever i dunno, lol. but if i'm not mistaken a financial mathematical idea of Utility Theory is i believe somehow enfolded into blackjack theory in some way. stuff like in this pdf that i sure don't understand:
http://homepage.mac.com/j.norstad/finance/util.pdf (Archive copy)
i think i remmember something regarding the use of Utility Theory culminating in the bundling of Kelly & ROR into blackjack theory. there was a post by Flash alluding to utility function and the idea of it : http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=103694&postcount=8
so maybe Flash had a small math error in there but his overall point is IMHO well taken. i mean if you look at that pdf and it's written by a guy who cites that nobel prize winner Merton's book i believe. same guy Meton, i believe who helped run a huge hedge fund into the ground LTC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGfXyVtiB1E&feature=PlayList&p=86167517E1D5D452&playnext=1&index=1, shaking up the national economy a bit i think as well, lol. makes me wonder just a bit, lol and i don't know sh!t from apple butter.
i'm digressing one hell of a lot so but let me go further. it's to me analogous to how maybe a dumb guy like me goes to some investment broker who is maybe about as dumb and the broker pulls out some fancy glossy brochure where he has you fill in the blanks to questions that supposedly relate to your tolerance for risk and your desire for gain, ect. so in my imagination, i'm guessing those sorts of brochures are maybe based on Utility theory to some degree, i guess. then i guess the idea is the brochure is a sort of a heuristic way of putting the investor in a pigeon hole. so then maybe a guy, like me and probably lots of others makes some investment based on all that, but thing is you find yourself in a pigeon hole, lol and i don't wanna be in a pigeon hole, lol, i wanna fly free like a good pigeon should, lmao.
point being, after all that ranting and rambling, i just think you have a good point with regards to the amount of dough rae me one needs to lay on the line based on all this imho way to complicated theory when compared to maybe what your normal guy stands to make in the game and the level of play the guy might be able to muster with respect to time and skill.
so call me a charlatan or way off base or what ever lmao, but i'm just gonna try and understand it all best i can in my feeble way and then use the God given street smarts i'm lucky enough to have along with it all. :cool2::whip:
no big deal, nothin life changings sort of thing, but maybe one heck of a lot of fun and who knows might get lucky every so often.
edit: <==== so maybe, a moral to the story might be for some of us (not professional ap's) would be to not take overly serious the maths & blackjack theory to the point where you invest your self so deeply, maybe in the deep end of a olympic size swimming pool for which your not quite the swimmer you need to be, lol.:fish:
edit: <<==== and maybe, lol as pointing to part of your point, consider just for example the image below. it shows a for a nice double deck game, what a guy might expect after reaching N0 where he starts with a $6,000 bankroll, 1% ror.
lol, you decide how you want to play it for that many rounds.:devil:

sagefr0g said:

...................................edit: <==== so maybe, a moral to the story might be for some of us (not professional ap's) would be to not take overly serious the maths & blackjack theory to the point where you invest your self so deeply, maybe in the deep end of a olympic size swimming pool for which your not quite the swimmer you need to be, lol.:fish:
edit: <<==== and maybe, lol as pointing to part of your point, consider just for example the image below. it shows a for a nice double deck game, what a guy might expect after reaching N0 where he starts with a $6,000 bankroll, 1% ror.
lol, you decide how you want to play it for that many rounds.:devil:

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Edit #1: Yup.
Edit #2: I will take this opportunity to display my ignorance and akd you how you read the chart provided. Is it a record of something that happened, or is it a prediction of what might happen? The precise # of hands leads me to believe that this records your experience, But I am lost as to what was your actual result and what the other scenarios (different standard deviations) actually means. I don't have any of that spohisticated software that figures these things out, but I'm sure I can learn from them.

about the chart

aslan said:

...
Edit #2: I will take this opportunity to display my ignorance and akd you how you read the chart provided. Is it a record of something that happened, or is it a prediction of what might happen? The precise # of hands leads me to believe that this records your experience, But I am lost as to what was your actual result and what the other scenarios (different standard deviations) actually means. I don't have any of that spohisticated software that figures these things out, but I'm sure I can learn from them.

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ahh, yes very, very good question IMHO.
what this chart has to do with is the knowledge minus action sort of thing we were discussing earlier.
the chart is an image from the spread sheets which were offered for use in the weekend warrior campaigns, lol.
i'm gonna attach a copy of said spread sheet that was set up using a cvcx simulation for which KO was the counting methodology, since i know you are more conversant with KO. the spread sheet comes from Kasi. i'll just say, i understand some of it, not all yet but i'll also say that too me it's one very, very valuable little nugget of gold. lol. really.
it's a great complimentary side sort of companion for any simulation that can provide you units bet, count frequencies, standard deviations and win rates for a particular game. take those values from said simulation and plug them into the appropriate cells in the spread sheet and wholla you have instant knowledge pop forth before your very eyes relevant to what ever game you set your simulation for!
and the kicker is you can do all sorts of 'what if' exercises of imagination for said game, things like changing around your units bet, examining what to expect in terms of EV and standard deviation for numbers of hands played.
then as well there is summarized information such as N0, average bet, ROR, trip risk of ruin and goals. so then one thing you can do which is my favorite is the 'what if' exercises for goals, bet spreads and (my favorite) numbers of hands played. so, see what you get is all this knowledge of what to expect ahead of time within the limits of ev and std dev for very specific conditions (such as number of hands played). so say you go into the casino armed with this knowledge, you play some number of hands. now you have a way to compare your results, your performance against a perfect robotic card counter! maybe the implications of that aren't sinking in (lol, it's what i've been ranting on and on about), and it's part of what you posted about here:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=99031&postcount=1
so ok, maybe we were talking voodoo some in those posts, but don't run away yelling charlatan, voodoo or arrrgggh just yet lol. so but maybe you can see, you don't absolutely have to play like the perfect robot counter, just maybe if you're lucky and you know specifically what a perfect robot might achieve and you compare your results, well you just might know what to do, sort of thing. or what ever your imagination tells you to do, like maybe go ahead and play like a good little robot or maybe you made in fifteen minutes what it would take that robot six hours to make so maybe you put your loot in your pocket and go have a beer, what ever, you decide from using knowledge.
study the spread sheet, learn it's capabilities, ask questions if you don't understand. i'll try and explain and if i can't i'll bet Kasi would be able.
just fool around with this spread sheet a bit, give it time, let it sink in and your own interests and questions about your game may be answered or maybe it'll inspire new questions or ideas for which you haven't before pondered.
oh and i'd just add, look into the goal, ror and expectation calculators that QFIT has in cvcx or on his site: http://www.qfit.com/ as a further compliment to this stuff.
a lot of this stuff is written about in Schlesinger's Blackjack Attack. but the thing is this spread sheet ties a lot of the books points into one neat little package.
give it a whirl, lol. it'll grow on you.
the only thing i'd caution anyone about is when you go plugging in values for standard deviation, count frequencies, win rates, bankroll, units bet and hands played just be sure to not try and type anything into a cell that has formula's in it, lol. . the safe thing would be to save a copy of the spread sheet as down loaded so as if you do mess something up you'll have a back up to start messing with again.
try it you'll like it!
the chart image you were asking about is the part of the spread sheet near the bottom. study it over and the spread sheet and your questions above may be answered.

sagefr0g said:

ahh, yes very, very good question IMHO.
what this chart has to do with is the knowledge minus action sort of thing we were discussing earlier.
the chart is an image from the spread sheets which were offered for use in the weekend warrior campaigns, lol.
i'm gonna attach a copy of said spread sheet that was set up using a cvcx simulation for which KO was the counting methodology, since i know you are more conversant with KO. the spread sheet comes from Kasi. i'll just say, i understand some of it, not all yet but i'll also say that too me it's one very, very valuable little nugget of gold. lol. really.
it's a great complimentary side sort of companion for any simulation that can provide you units bet, count frequencies, standard deviations and win rates for a particular game. take those values from said simulation and plug them into the appropriate cells in the spread sheet and wholla you have instant knowledge pop forth before your very eyes relevant to what ever game you set your simulation for!
and the kicker is you can do all sorts of 'what if' exercises of imagination for said game, things like changing around your units bet, examining what to expect in terms of EV and standard deviation for numbers of hands played.
then as well there is summarized information such as N0, average bet, ROR, trip risk of ruin and goals. so then one thing you can do which is my favorite is the 'what if' exercises for goals, bet spreads and (my favorite) numbers of hands played. so, see what you get is all this knowledge of what to expect ahead of time within the limits of ev and std dev for very specific conditions (such as number of hands played). so say you go into the casino armed with this knowledge, you play some number of hands. now you have a way to compare your results, your performance against a perfect robotic card counter! maybe the implications of that aren't sinking in (lol, it's what i've been ranting on and on about), and it's part of what you posted about here:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=99031&postcount=1
so ok, maybe we were talking voodoo some in those posts, but don't run away yelling charlatan, voodoo or arrrgggh just yet lol. so but maybe you can see, you don't absolutely have to play like the perfect robot counter, just maybe if you're lucky and you know specifically what a perfect robot might achieve and you compare your results, well you just might know what to do, sort of thing. or what ever your imagination tells you to do, like maybe go ahead and play like a good little robot or maybe you made in fifteen minutes what it would take that robot six hours to make so maybe you put your loot in your pocket and go have a beer, what ever, you decide from using knowledge.
study the spread sheet, learn it's capabilities, ask questions if you don't understand. i'll try and explain and if i can't i'll bet Kasi would be able.
just fool around with this spread sheet a bit, give it time, let it sink in and your own interests and questions about your game may be answered or maybe it'll inspire new questions or ideas for which you haven't before pondered.
oh and i'd just add, look into the goal, ror and expectation calculators that QFIT has in cvcx or on his site: http://www.qfit.com/ as a further compliment to this stuff.
a lot of this stuff is written about in Schlesinger's Blackjack Attack. but the thing is this spread sheet ties a lot of the books points into one neat little package.
give it a whirl, lol. it'll grow on you.
the only thing i'd caution anyone about is when you go plugging in values for standard deviation, count frequencies, win rates, bankroll, units bet and hands played just be sure to not try and type anything into a cell that has formula's in it, lol. . the safe thing would be to save a copy of the spread sheet as down loaded so as if you do mess something up you'll have a back up to start messing with again.
try it you'll like it!
the chart image you were asking about is the part of the spread sheet near the bottom. study it over and the spread sheet and your questions above may be answered.

Click to expand...

Now that was perfectly clear. WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! SMH???
As if I wasn't confused before!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, all I am asking is what do the figures mean? First, the EV at top--is that what you might expect to earn at the given number of hands? What do the three levels of standard deviation mean? You can't have all three can you? Does it mean that this is the best and the worst that you can do? Something like that? Why isn't there a level four and five and six? Is it because three is unlikely and four is definitely nothing to worry about? How often do you find yourself at level three? Am I even saying it right? Is the usual case level one? Please keep it in plain English. Please. lol SYMM

Guide to acronyms:
SMF Scratching my head
SYMM Sometimes you mystify me
GMAB Give me a break!!!
LOL Lack of lugubriousness
JS Just kidding

aslan said:

Now that was perfectly clear. WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!! SMH???
As if I wasn't confused before!!!!!!!!!!!!

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lol, sorry aslan.

No, all I am asking is what do the figures mean? First, the EV at top--is that what you might expect to earn at the given number of hands?

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yes sort of, here is how i look at it, that's your expected value for the given number of hands. a perfect card counter might expect to make EV in the long run. the spread sheet breaks it (EV) down by number of hands played to where essentially that value would be the norm for that number of hands played that one could expect if a whole bunch of robots played that number of hands with the same strategy at the same time and then you figured the average result. in reality as you well know this varies wildly for one guy playing in the short term.
Expectation: The theoretical outcome per wager and a measure of how much the player (or casino) can expect to lose (or win) in a particular game based on the handle. This measure (generally expressed in dollars or percent) is based on the player's statistical advantage or disadvantage. An example of expectation for a fixed game such as American roulette would be -5.26% for a 1-unit wager on black or red. (from online encyclopedia of 21)

What do the three levels of standard deviation mean? You can't have all three can you? Does it mean that this is the best and the worst that you can do? Something like that?

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Standard deviation. (SD). Also called fluctuation or luck. This statistical index is often used in technical blackjack texts as a measure of how much individual wins and losses can differ from the average.(from online encyclopedia of 21)
ok, i can never remmember, but i think it's like your gonna be within one standard deviation 68% of the time, within two standard deviations 95% of the time and within three standard deviations 99% of the time. something like that, like for one standard deviation you might be either above or below your expected value by within some certain amount for some number of hands. but as far as what you could have, well that's just gonna be what it is, as in what you see is what you get sorta of thing, it is what it is. but as far as best or worse well we can be the judge of that, no?
there's a image below of the good ole bell curve and how standard deviations map out on it.

Why isn't there a level four and five and six? Is it because three is unlikely and four is definitely nothing to worry about?

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actually there is a level four in the spread sheet, and there could be further on up as well. i just didn't show the level 4 in the image. it can go up infinite levels, lol. remmember when i hit four standard deviations in the weekend warrior game?

How often do you find yourself at level three?

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circa 99% of the time within it. maybe 0.5% at the high plus your ev or low minus your ev a dollar amount at one extreme or the other.

Am I even saying it right?

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i think so.:grin: but your questions are certainly making me to strain and see if i can, lmao.

Is the usual case level one?

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about circa 68% of the time you'd expect to find your earnings or loss's within one standard deviation. so on the 'good' side of expectation only about 34% of the time for one standard deviation.

wheeww GMAB, lmao.

aslan said:

But to play effectively, you must have the required bankroll that will sustain you through some pretty ugly runs of negative variance. ...Adequate funding is essential!!! Of course, as I noted before, if you have the large bankroll you need to minimize your RoR, them you might just get bored with the meager hourly return you receive compared to the money you "brung."

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I guess I agree with you in that, once one understands what to expect over how long with so much, one may very well choose counting is not for them.

I chose that along time ago since maybe I get to AC 3-6 days a year, maybe a week in Vegas too. I know what can happen 16 hours or 25 hours and really don't want to wait a year to play the next 16 hours lol.

Like before you were saying maybe making $10/hr with $10K sort of sucked. Maybe it does. On the other hand in 100 hours you have made 10% ROI which may not be the worst use of $10K lol at whatever risk that was. You'd still have an EV of $10/hr with $5K or $1000K with the same dollar spread, just different risk.

What are "ugly runs of negative variance"? Your results will fall into a range with predictable frequency. If your roll can't cover a 1 SD, then you have a higher chance of going bust because your results could be 1 SD pretty often.
By definition, 1 SD means whatever your results are, they will fall within that range 68.3% of the time, 2 SD 95.5% of the time, 3 SD 99.7% of the time. So, it's not that often, your luck exceeds 3 SD's. If it does, I guess I'd call that getting into the "ugly" range too lol. Basically one just decides how much of this range one wants to cover.

But if 1 SD for one hour of play is $500 and you finish 1 SD down, you are just as unlucky whether your roll is $10K or $100K.

The hard part is all this assumes same game same spread every time etc.
If anything changes, then of course that makes it a different game.

That's why, if one is serious, I just don't see how one can do it without a sim lol. Then you tell it to use indexes or not. how you calc a TC if you do, whether you back-count or not. Maybe then one is better prepared and at least has a much clearer idea of what to do, how to bet your roll, when pen goes from 52 cards or 62 cards or 70 cards to keep your risk the same.
And, even better, then you come back an hour later after playing the same way for an hour what you did and it tells you how "lucky" you were.

The game is played one round at a time - you can know where you stand, just about anything you want to know, anytime you want. Lady Luck, being the fairest of all, discriminating against noone based on race, religion, sexual orientation, rich, poor, stupid or smart, you can't ask for a more impartial judge.

I guess, on the internet, where no skill was involved, I just wanted to know if I was losing my ass just what the chances of that happening were. So I'd know if I was being cheated in a crooked game. At one joint, I was down 3.7 SD's after about 8000 hands. So, I took some solace in that I was that lucky 1 in 10,000 guy to experience 8000 hands that were that bad. Believe me, it sure seemed they were cheating. Bad luck can happen. You take your chances. But 32000 hands later I'm only down 138 flat units and slightly above EV lol.

If you don't want to lose a large portion of your roll as often, have a larger roll and then you don't have to sweat it as much. That's why full-Kelly is insane (to me anyway lol). 13.5% doesn't maybe sound that bad but I don't want a 50% chance of losing half my roll or a 30% chance of losing 70% of it.

And even though, one may be betting to a certain roll, it's rare one actually brings it all with them. The rest of the time maybe it's in a money market or something lol.

Easy for me to say lmao.

sagefr0g said:

study the spread sheet, learn it's capabilities, ask questions if you don't understand. i'll try and explain and if i can't i'll bet Kasi would be able.

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Or, even better, just get the sim and forget the sheet lol.

The sheet is only designed for play-all games. AFTER you run a sim. But if you have the sim, you won't need the sheet lol.

It's just a template showing that all things flow from the sim results becasue now you know how often a TC will occur and the advantage associated with that count.

aslan said:

No, all I am asking is what do the figures mean? First, the EV at top--is that what you might expect to earn at the given number of hands? What do the three levels of standard deviation mean? You can't have all three can you? Does it mean that this is the best and the worst that you can do? Something like that? Why isn't there a level four and five and six? Is it because three is unlikely and four is definitely nothing to worry about? How often do you find yourself at level three? Am I even saying it right? Is the usual case level one? Please keep it in plain English. Please. lol SYMM

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Lol.
In the picture, yes his EV is $2612 or whatever it was after the 29,000 hands.

It also happens that 1 SD is also $2612 after the 29000 hands. So that's the famous N0 point where one's EV = 1 SD. If one actually was ahead by $2612 after that many hands, one could assume it was likely skill that got you there rather than "luck".

If 1 SD is $2612, 2 would be twice that, etc. So, since you know your EV, where you are supposed to be, you'd take your actual results and see how far away they were.

So if you actually were dead-even after 29000 hands, your results would be at the low point of 1 SD from expected.

Kasi said:

Or, even better, just get the sim and forget the sheet lol.

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well, it's hard to argue with you, lol, it's your sheet. i think i'll just say again i think it compliments a sim very well. put's a lot of Schlesinger'ish info all in one neat little package. then it has the 'what if' sort of capability afforded by it's being in the form of a spread sheet with the formula's and all. that's pretty darn neat, me thinks.

The sheet is only designed for play-all games. AFTER you run a sim. But if you have the sim, you won't need the sheet lol.

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ok, your scaring me, lmao. so yeah you need to run a sim to set up the sheet sort of thing, i follow that.
so but i'm not understanding the implication of where you say the sheet is only designed for play all games. what i mean is say the sheet is set up for a six deck play all game for which a full blown sim was run, and say ok i just want to know the ev and standard deviation figures for say 8 hands played. so just what i'm asking wouldn't the results for ev and std dev be valid even though probably a full shoe hadn't been played in just 8 hands?

It's just a template showing that all things flow from the sim results becasue now you know how often a TC will occur and the advantage associated with that count.

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TC's, advantage and those weird std dev's associated with the tc's right?

Kasi said:

Lol.
In the picture, yes his EV is $2612 or whatever it was after the 29,000 hands.

It also happens that 1 SD is also $2612 after the 29000 hands. So that's the famous N0 point where one's EV = 1 SD. If one actually was ahead by $2612 after that many hands, one could assume it was likely skill that got you there rather than "luck".

If 1 SD is $2612, 2 would be twice that, etc. So, since you know your EV, where you are supposed to be, you'd take your actual results and see how far away they were.

So if you actually were dead-even after 29000 hands, your results would be at the low point of 1 SD from expected.

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Does it also mean that you will win $11.13 per hand on average? That seems awfully high.

aslan said:

Does it also mean that you will win $11.13 per hand on average? That seems awfully high.

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more like about $0.09 per round, i think.

sagefr0g said:

well, it's hard to argue with you, lol, it's your sheet. i think i'll just say again i think it compliments a sim very well. put's a lot of Schlesinger'ish info all in one neat little package. then it has the 'what if' sort of capability afforded by it's being in the form of a spread sheet with the formula's and all. that's pretty darn neat, me thinks.

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Well, thanks lol. It would save you from running more sims for the same game since you could plug in any unit spread, change $unit size and change $roll.
The achieving goal with no time limit and trip calculators maybe also make it so you wouldn't have to maybe run another sim. It's OK for a simless guy like me lol.

Also hourly stuff assumes 100/hds/hr. Sometimes CVCX might assume a different number depending on number of players which could make hourly stuff differ from his sim.

sagefr0g said:

ok, your scaring me, lmao. so yeah you need to run a sim to set up the sheet sort of thing, i follow that.
so but i'm not understanding the implication of where you say the sheet is only designed for play all games. what i mean is say the sheet is set up for a six deck play all game for which a full blown sim was run, and say ok i just want to know the ev and standard deviation figures for say 8 hands played. so just what i'm asking wouldn't the results for ev and std dev be valid even though probably a full shoe hadn't been played in just 8 hands?

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Yes it would lol.

But, if back-counting, and never playing a hand under +2, then the hourly stuff will be off since you'd only be playing say 28/hds of every 100 seen.
You'd have to tweak a few things lol. Plug in a BJAIII back-count spread and you'll see what I mean. The per round stuff, avg bet, ROR, win rate % I think, should still be OK. I think lol.

sagefr0g said:

more like about $0.09 per round, i think.

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Not that it matters much, but I thought I downloaded the sheet you attached but I get slightly different results than you are getting?

You change the unit spread maybe from the one in the sheet? lol.

aslan said:

Does it also mean that you will win $11.13 per hand on average? That seems awfully high.

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No it means that you make $2612/29090 hands or $0.08979 per round.

Multiply that by 100/hds/hr and you have the $8.90/hr in The Wise One's latest pic lol.

Not sure where you got $11.13 from lol.

Just thought I'd add it also means that from The Wise One's latest pic, if your SD is $15.30/round, then sqrt of 29090*$15.30 also equals the $2612.