Advanced Wongery

[Automatic Monkey]

I'd like to start a long-term thread on the finer points of Wonging shoes.

The graph below described a Wong-in-Wong-out game with a $10 betting unit and a moderate spread. The win rate is in dollars per hundred hands. The win rate assumes a neutral count, at various numbers of decks left, and for different penetrations.

The purpose of this study isn't game selection, but identifying how much value a shoe has to you while it is being dealt out and you are waiting for a good count. It had been mentioned in another thread that an author recommends a backcounting player leaving the shoe after a couple of decks if a good count has not been reached. According to this graph, unless the penetration is very poor, it doesn't make sense to do this, as the value of the remaining hands usually continues to increase. For example, in the case of 1.25 decks pen, it isn't until the shoe has been dealt down to 2 decks that it's value per hand is less than that of a new 6D shoe and equal to that of a new 8D shoe. But in the case of an abysmal 2.5 decks penetration the value of the shoe begins decreasing rapidly when as much as 5 decks are remaining.

All this tells me is- don't play bad pen! But in the case of the desirable pen of 1.5 decks or greater that we seek out on 6D or 8D games, it appears that it is desirable to watch a neutral count all the way down to 2.5 decks or so, where we can expect only a few hands remaining to be dealt.

 

[zengrifter]

Do you typically play 1 or 2 hands? zg

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Do you typically play 1 or 2 hands? zg

2, if there are 2 spots available and at least one other hand in the game. These sims were done with 1 hand, shouldn't make much of a difference.

 

[jack.jackson]

Missed opportunitys!

Since most of your advantage comes towards the end of the shoe. Wonging out to early will miss a lot of valuable opportunitys. The key is to only wong if your certain theres no chance of the shoe turning positive. A couple big bets should more than compensate for some of your neutral count loses.

Of course everybody has thier own method to thier madness. I personally only wong out if two or more decks have been played. TC of -6(L2) and im playing heads up. The more players at the table the less likely i am to wong out.
My reason for this is partially due to the fact of how aggressive im betting. A high pe. and knowing all my negative indices.

If im looking at that chart right. The 8d game has the biggest effect.

 

[21forme]

Take a look at BJA 3rd ed. It's been a while since I read it, but IIRC, Schlesinger factored in a number of other factors in his sim (shuffle time, time to find new table, etc.)

 

[Automatic Monkey]

If im looking at that chart right. The 8d game has the biggest effect.

It's actually the 4D game. In a 4D game with pen down to 1.25 decks, you'd want to start looking for a new table after only 1.5 decks have been dealt out. In an 8D game you'd have to see 5.5 decks to get to the same point.

 

[sagefr0g]

i'm lost already..... the chart is for neutral counts, right?
what about when the true goes negative?

 

[halcyon1234]

Let's see if I understand what's going on:

I'm sitting at a table. Let's say it's an 8D table, because either I'm a glutton for punishment, or from Ontario. The dealer cuts out 1.5 decks. The count is 0.

At that very moment, if I'm betting $10/hand, I can expect $20/hour from that shoe. Looking ahead, I can see that my purple-star line goes UP, meaning that things can only get better.

Now play goes on. The dealer has gone through 5 decks, meaning that there are 3 decks left, 1.5 of which are behind the cut card. At that moment, I'm getting just over $30/hour from that shoe. The count is still neutral. Looking ahead, the purple-star line drastically drops after this point.

Therefore, it is no longer wise of me to play through this shoe hoping for a positive count. I should stand up and go somewhere else, and not even bother looking at the last 1.5 decks until the cut card.

In other words, IF the count stays neutral and you are flat betting, it is okay to keep playing UNTIL the point at which the line drops, because at that point you're more likely to get a bad shoe than a good shoe?

 

[Automatic Monkey]

...
In other words, IF the count stays neutral and you are flat betting, it is okay to keep playing UNTIL the point at which the line drops, because at that point you're more likely to get a bad shoe than a good shoe?

Right- more precisely, you'd keep on watching a neutral count until the line drops lower than the value for a new shoe with the appropriate number of decks. A 3/1.5 shoe is better than a 8/1.5 one, but 2/1.5 is much worse. (This is disregarding shuffle time- assume autoshufflers or a large number of tables where there is always a new shoe beginning.) You can see how this effect gets stronger and stronger as pen gets worse.