starting a team

okay guys, its finally happening! i've got together a bunch of friends to start a team.
say we have 4 ppl who can do hi/low perfectly, including ill 18.
15k roll

i'm thinking we'll have to do a big player strategy, with a max bet of $400. i think the ror is about 2 or 3% with that size of bet, and, if so, that is acceptable. we'd have the spotters min betting ($5-$25, and the bp plays TC=2, $100, 3=200, 4=300, 5=>400, also we can go to two hands at any point if available). also a question, say we have 4 spotters and 1 GBP, at what TC shld we call in the GBP? say now we have 3 spotters and 1 BP, what count do we call in the BP?

proposed payment plan for ppl:
70% to investors
30% to players

investors divide the profits by percent of investment into the roll
players divide the profit by percent of total amount of hours that they played.

every so often (1 month or something) we make the payouts.

theres 5 ppl in all, one is just an investor, 2 investors are counters, and there are two counters who are not investing.


a side question, obviously the BP will be getting a lot of stuff comped... would it be really bad if the spotters stayed in the same room as the BP? do we all have to live in seperate rooms at the casino? the plan right now is to just do day trips and never speak to each other in the casino.

bluewhale said:

i'm thinking we'll have to do a big player strategy, with a max bet of $400.

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Why is that? It seems like having 5 people all spreading $25-$400 would make more than 1 player spreading $100-$400. A big problem with the BP strategy is that only one person is actually earning money and he has to split it with the rest of the team. Having everyone play separately will get you much more action per hour and much more profit. Plus, having only one BP will probably bring him lots of heat as opposed to 5 guys always pulling the pit bosses in different directions.

bluewhale said:

say we have 4 spotters and 1 GBP, at what TC shld we call in the GBP? say now we have 3 spotters and 1 BP, what count do we call in the BP?

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You should work out what TC to enter the shoe first, then figure out the BP:Spotter ratio. If your BP is coming in at +3 then you will need to have more spotters in order to keep him busy since the frequency of +3 TCs is smaller than +2s. If you use +2 then you might get away with fewer spotters and upgrade one of them to a BP, which will make more money.

bluewhale said:

every so often (1 month or something) we make the payouts.

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I think that’s waaaaay too soon to distribute winnings. You will have problems because the fluctuations over one month can still be wild. There will be many times when the team loses money and only the investors have to absorb the loss. Meanwhile the players are getting paid every time you win and not suffering at all when you lose. Essentially they are getting a “free roll” at the investor’s expense.

Instead you should set a time limit that will give the team a reasonable chance to overcome the variance before making the payouts. Maybe use a quarterly system. Or maybe something like “After 200 hours of play we break the bank.” Find a time limit that, under your playing conditions, will give you a comfortable chance of realizing a profit.

bluewhale said:

a side question, obviously the BP will be getting a lot of stuff comped... would it be really bad if the spotters stayed in the same room as the BP? do we all have to live in seperate rooms at the casino? the plan right now is to just do day trips and never speak to each other in the casino.

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I would avoid it whenever possible. The casinos have plenty of cameras in the hallways, restaurants and parking garages. If you are playing for decent stakes then you don’t want them putting you guys together as a team.

-Sonny-

I just ran a sim and your team will be in tough with only 15k. With a $400 max bet your ror will be very high plus on top of that you will have four spotters playing and also adding to your risk. If the spotters are playing at $25 min tables you won't be in business very long. Plus your hourly win rate won't be high enough for 5 people to be worth your time. It will be lower than minimum wage.

Use back-counting spotters as much as possible. It's your call on the room situation; you'll save money, but you could get made as a team.

Sonny said:

Why is that? It seems like having 5 people all spreading $25-$400 would make more than 1 player spreading $100-$400. A big problem with the BP strategy is that only one person is actually earning money and he has to split it with the rest of the team. Having everyone play separately will get you much more action per hour and much more profit. Plus, having only one BP will probably bring him lots of heat as opposed to 5 guys always pulling the pit bosses in different directions.

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okay you lost me here, i was under the impression that the BP strategy was used to AVOID HEAT. you're saying that it gets even more heat???? i guess you're going to argue that its only beneficial when ppl are putting up really big bets, several thousand $. So if ppl are in agreement that the 4 of us will get less heat counting and spreading individually, then i'll do that, but i just don't see how that can be the case.

another question, how do 4 ppl spreading 25-400 make more than with a BP? isn't it the same thing? i mean the only difference is that instead of them making the big bet on a high count, the BP does it. i understand that there will be some loss due to overlapping highcounts (ie if two tables go hot, the BP can only be at one of them). so yeah, 4 ppl spreading individually will make slightly more, but not a great deal more i don't think.

btw, thanks for the other info, it confirmed a lot of what i had in the back of my head. i think we'll distribute the money after 200 hrs of collective time, i.e. after the addition of all our hours is 200.


@systemstrader
the risk i got was about 5%? am i way off here?
the spotters will be playing loser than 25, probably 10-15 mainly, but 25 min occasionally. like moo suggested, the backcounting spotter would be ideal, but i just don't know how long you can do that.
finally, how the hell do you figure less than min wage??? say one person spreading 25-400 shld be making about 55/hr, so in our case shldn't we each be making that? so the team would make 220/hr no? what hourly wage do you get and how did you come up with it?


i tried to use this to get my hourly wage, someone said the password was '100' sometime ago, but it doesn't work anymore, http://www.card-counting.com/cvcxonlineviewer.htm

The "100" promotional password expired at the end of '06.

$400 max bet seems like an overbet to me. Looks like double-Kelly or more, unless team dynamics change it radically.

I am very ignorant on team play, but it seems that the only reason you'd want to use BP strategy is if a $200-$400 attracts prohibitive heat in the venue which you're playing. However, if it's a joint that doesn't sweat the action, then having multiple counters working more traditionally (play-all or solo wonging), might be more effective. It would also allow players to play in shifts.

Also, doing $25 to $400 is only a 16x spread. There are solo players that do that as a matter of course (easiest with red chips, but that's not the point). The advantage of BP play would see to be to get REALLY large effective spreads?

bluewhale said:

okay you lost me here, i was under the impression that the BP strategy was used to AVOID HEAT. you're saying that it gets even more heat???? i guess you're going to argue that its only beneficial when ppl are putting up really big bets, several thousand $. So if ppl are in agreement that the 4 of us will get less heat counting and spreading individually, then i'll do that, but i just don't see how that can be the case.

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Under certain circumstances the BP ruse will get less heat, but its really for much bigger bets than a 15k BR. AND if all 4 teammates are proficient counters, the hourly EV of for counters is MUCH HIGHER if they each play seperately - the BR will double much faster. zg

Ps, and the max-max-bet would not exceed 2hands of 100, to start.

Everyone else seems to think solo counters is better, but I'm not sure. If you have several players spreading their bets, your risk is going to be bigger. If you have several players all back-counting, your risk is better, but if you're all playing at the same place, people are going to get paranoid. And if you play at different places, you're not getting to share gas costs and comps.

Depending on where you go, Friday and Saturday nights are often good for a back-counting approach. You could probably play as a team for an hour or so using only back counters without anyone noticing. Maybe try back-counting for 45 minutes, then jump into a table on a good count and stay for an hour or so.

moo321 said:

If you have several players spreading their bets, your risk is going to be bigger.

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Why do you say that? zg


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I guess I should be more specific. I meant that several players using the "headstone" technique will have higher variance than a back-counting approach with a big player, because the headstone technique simply has higher variance.

bluewhale said:

@systemstrader
the risk i got was about 5%? am i way off here?
the spotters will be playing loser than 25, probably 10-15 mainly, but 25 min occasionally. like moo suggested, the backcounting spotter would be ideal, but i just don't know how long you can do that.
finally, how the hell do you figure less than min wage??? say one person spreading 25-400 shld be making about 55/hr, so in our case shldn't we each be making that? so the team would make 220/hr no? what hourly wage do you get and how did you come up with it?

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I did the sim from the info in your post. One problem with sims is that so many factors can change the outcomes, I used average conditions ( I will PM you for more info). Using your numbers of TC=2 $100, TC=3 $200, TC=4 $300, TC=5 $400 the big player will make about $45/hr with a ror of around 19%. Add in four spotters flat betting the min with the spotters at the $10 min table losing about $2.50/hr. Divide that up by the 5 players and your team is better off taking a shift at McDonalds. I'm not trying to discourage you I'm just trying to be realistic.

moo321 said:

I guess I should be more specific. I meant that several players using the "headstone" technique will have higher variance than a back-counting approach with a big player, because the headstone technique simply has higher variance.

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What is 'headstone' techninique? zg

Playing all counts, as opposed to backcounting.

zengrifter said:

What is 'headstone' techninique? zg

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From Snyder’s site:

“Headstone: A player that has not left his seat for almost the entire surveillance shift and is passed on to the next shift, as in, ‘You’ve got a headstone on table 13.’”

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/Casino Surveillance Glossary.htm

-Sonny-

$45 an hour for a big player team spreading $100-400 doesn't sound right at all. That's 1/2 a unit. According to blackjack attack a single player back-counting can win about 1.75 units per hour spreading 1-8 in a shoe game. I'm guessing you guys should be able to win at least 2 units an hour.

moo321 said:

Playing all counts, as opposed to backcounting.

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Oh, thats not 'headstone', thats 'play-all'. zg

bluewhale said:

how do 4 ppl spreading 25-400 make more than with a BP?..i understand that there will be some loss due to overlapping highcounts (ie if two tables go hot, the BP can only be at one of them). so yeah, 4 ppl spreading individually will make slightly more, but not a great deal more i don't think.

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That’s exactly the problem: Hands per hour. Any time two (or more) of the spotters are experiencing a hot shoe at the same time will mean missed opportunities. That can add up pretty fast, especially as the number of spotters gets large.

Let’s look at an example. We’ll assume 100 hands seen per hour with 25 of those being positive hands which the GBZP will play. We’ll further assume an average bet of $200.

With 4 spotters and 1 Gorilla BP you will get about 1-(0.75^4)=68 hands per hour. There will also be times when the GBP can’t get to the table in time so he will probably miss a few of those hands, bringing the total down to around 65 hands per hour. If the GBP plays with an average 2% advantage and the spotters don't play at all (only watching and signaling) then the team will earn:

65*$200*0.02 = $260

That’s about $260/5=$52 per person per hour. But with all 4 members playing separately (we’ll assume that the non-counting GBP doesn’t exist since he can’t be a part of this play) then they will each see 100 hands per hour for a total of 400 hands. Even if they only have a tiny 0.5% advantage (which is a serious underestimate of a 1:16 spread):

400*$200*0.005 = $400

That’s $100 per person per hour. Even if they have to include the GBP in the split (maybe he’s an investor) then it still comes out to $80 per person per hour. Also, they’ll burn through the variance much quicker and be able to split the profits sooner (since you’re breaking the bank only after a certain number of hands have been played).

Obviously there are other things to consider here, like different variance, RoR and unit sizes, but this example shows the power of using what Snyder calls an EMFH team (Every Man For Himself).

-Sonny-

Here's a compromise plan that will probably be a good way to start off your team career. Being you have 4 players, go to the casino in two groups of two and backcount. Backcounting is easier in pairs for most people, you will always have an opportunity to play two hands if there are two open spots on the table (you need adjoining spots for one person to play two hands) and you will have the benefit of two separate entities doing their own thing.

You will have an additional benefit of trust because no one was ever playing alone, so there will less question about accounting. This will work best if everyone takes turns being each other's table partner.

This system will not be quite as profitable as all 4 players playing alone to a common bankroll, but in practice it won't be all that far off (especially in a small casino where there is unlikely to be 4 tables with good counts at one time) and a good way to work out the bugs of team play before you expand on what you are doing.

okay, i'm sold to the idea of EMFH. we'll be doing heavy backcounting and wonging and going in grps of however many are free at the time (min of 2).

heres my ramp (a shout out to systemstrader for making it for me):

1 hand
2- $50
3- $100
5- $150
6- $250
ROR is 2.9% and you can make $14.29/hr each.

2 hands
2- 2x$50
4- 2x$100
5- 2x$125
6- 2x$150
ROR is 3.0% and you can make $20.73/hr each.

i was under the impression that a TC of 4 was usually where you can put out your max bet. because with the 8D/75% pen game, i raaaarely see a true above 5. so this ramp seemed a little conservative to me. also i reeeaaalllly thought that a $300 max bet will would have a higher hourly wage than 20/hr. i was thinking more in the range of 40/hr. i'm probably wrong, i'm just looking for sonny and the gang to confirm that.

15k: Max bet of 125 (or 2x80) goes out at +4,
should equal closer to $40/hr per man. zg


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