Advice please - is counting worth it?

[Sucker]

Is Ken spamming his OWN site???

 

[paddywhack]

Is Ken spamming his OWN site???

Wondered that too :laugh::laugh:

 

[sagefr0g]

tc frequencies

below are some tc frequencies that came from Wong's Professional Blackjack:
errhhh, i believe the zero tc's are neg zero, zero & plus zero, sorta thing.

 

[UK-21]

I had a feeling there'd be some disagreement over the distribution figures I gave. As has been stated, whether the TC is arrived at by rounding or truncating will impact on the shape of the curve and whether it's perfectly symmetrical or not. I've never given it any thought.

Let's substitute Wong's distribution figures then and use those? I'm sure there are similar ones in Snyder's BBiBJ, where the dynamics of the game are discussed, and if my memory serves me right I think he made a reference to only playing with an advantage 20%ish of the time. From the distirbution I have put up (which came from the now defunct bjinfo.com website) TC+2+ counts tally to 14.32%, Wong's to 16.21% . . . you get the picture . . . .

What falls out of the bottom isn't going to be hugely different? On the margins, it may make the difference between a ruleset being +EV and -EV longer term.

 

[sagefr0g]

I had a feeling there'd be some disagreement over the distribution figures I gave. As has been stated, whether the TC is arrived at by rounding or truncating will impact on the shape of the curve and whether it's perfectly symmetrical or not. I've never given it any thought.

Let's substitute Wong's distribution figures then and use those?.......

the chart i posted for tc freq's from Wong's book contains truncated tc's .
also i fudged the zero tc's a bit, as Wong's chart contained -0, 0, +0 tc frequency values. i just added those freq values together and put them under tc = 0 in my chart.
example where i have f% = 44.12 at tc = 0 for the 62 card pen, well in Wong's chart the values are as below:
tc= -0 freq% = 17.60
tc = 0 freq% = 9.35
tc = +0 freq% = 17.15

whatever UK, your spread sheet coffee idea is interesting.

 

[UK-21]

Did you spot the deliberate mistake in my "how to do it" posting?

As bets in positive counts will be for more than one unit, the total bet will not come back to £500.00 as stated (sure I missed out the "more than" beforehand), and the average bet will be greater than a fiver. Very surprised that I haven't been pulled up on that one.

I've done the exercise myself, and the figure that fell out of the bottom of the table I produced was +£4.39 per hundred hands. Nothing to write home about. A 1-8 spread breaks even.

When I have done the exercise in the past I used the TC frequency distribution from Mr Snyder's BBiBJ, which shows a greater %age of +TC hands, and with the -TC count distribution being very different - the results were better with +£12.04 per per hundred hands (c 2.5 units). I'll dig out my copy of Prof BJ and try it with Mr Wongs.

 

[Solo player]

You can double split ace with the newest update.

This was a mistake on my part. The split aces is in CVBJ 5.5 not CVdata. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[paddywhack]

This was a mistake on my part. The split aces is in CVCX 5.5 not CVdata. Sorry for the confusion.

I still don't see on Norm's website where CVCX is V5.5, only CVBJ is 5.5 from what I can tell.

 

[junior_counter]

Ed Thorp devoted much of his time for developing the original counting
system and putting it into practice while doing his job as a university professor.
What you are planning to do is easier by far. So why not.

Well said. The forefathers of counting took the time and risk to do what no one else has proven at that time. We have it easy following their footsteps with their documented success and guidance.

 

[assume_R]

This was a mistake on my part. The split aces is in CVBJ 5.5 not CVdata. Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks for clarifying, solo, but I'm still a bit confused. Does the latest cvdata allow double after splitting aces? I see no option for that, only "multiple draws after ace split" and I wonder if that includes doubling down by default?

 

[paddywhack]

Thanks for clarifying, solo, but I'm still a bit confused. Does the latest cvdata allow double after splitting aces? I see no option for that, only "multiple draws after ace split" and I wonder if that includes doubling down by default?

Neither CVCX nor CVData allows for doubling on split aces. Norm said he'd consider it on the next update but I don't know when that'll be.

 

[assume_R]

Neither CVCX nor CVData allows for doubling on split aces. Norm said he'd consider it on the next update but I don't know when that'll be.

Ah! So what you're saying is that my sims have been underestimating my actual EV!? Well that is just great news . I wonder by how much...

 

[WannabeCounter]

1. Here is a (rounded and simplifed) list of distribution of true counts for a six deck game that I pulled off of the web somewhere - it's based on a several million hand sample. It's simplified in that I've taken all of the counts above +6 and below -6 and addeded them into the +6/-6 totals. All of the frequencies add up to 100%.

TC Frequency

-6 . . . 1.73%
-5 . . . 2.04%
-4 . . . 3.69%
-3 . . . 6.61%
-2 . . . 12.19%
-1 . . . 18.17%
0 . . . . 29.43%
1 . . . . 11.82%
2 . . . . 6.43%
3 . . . . 3.55%
4 . . . . 2.03%
5 . . . . 1.09%
6 . . . . 1.22%

2. Here's a betting ramp to use:

All hands with a count at +1 or lower bet 1 unit.
At +2 bet 4 units.
At +3 bet 8 units.
At +4 and higher bet 16 units.

For the sake of the calculations, let's assume a betting unit is £5, and use 100 hands to simplify the sums - so over 100 hands, when the true count was zero, you'd bet £5 x 100 hands x 29.43% (= £147.15). If you apply this to all of the true count distribution, the total of all of the bets should come back to £500.

3. If you refer to the basic strategy engine on this site, and tap in the correct parameters, you should get that ENHC rules with a six deck shoe has an off the top house edge of 0.55%. For the sake of simplifying this exercise we'll assume that the OTT HE is -0.50%.

4. Assume that each increase/decrease in the true count represents a 0.5% movement, so at true count +1, the HE would be zero (OTT at -0.5 plus +0.5), at TC+2 it will be +0.5% (OTT at -0.5 plus 2 x +0.5) etc etc. So at each TC you can estimate the disadvantage/advantage you're playing at.

5. So, knowing the true count distribution, the number of hands, the amount bet and advantage and disadvantage at each count, you can calculate the expected win/loss at each count level - negative expectation counts (zero and below) should show a loss, positive ones (TC+2 and above) a profit, and of course TC+1 which has a neutral/zero expectation should be just that and return zero as a win/loss.

So you have everything here to calculate the net win/loss for 100 hands when applying the betting ramp and £5 a unit. See how you get on. It's really a cup of coffee job when building a spreadsheet. The figures that fall out aren't going to be accurate to the nth decimal place, but there'll be good enough as a fair indication of the longer term EV for applying a particular betting ramp to a particular ruleset. It does assume, of course, playing perfect basic strategy, perfect counting, perfect application of indices and no deviations for cover - errors in any of these will affect the result.

Let us know how you get on.

Thanks for looking into this UK.

I'm using KO, an unbalanced system in which you bet according to the running count.
I've just had a quick scan through the book (I read it carefully about a year ago) and according to that; my EV for the game I'm playing is 0.63%. This can drop to 0.44% if the penetration is only 65%, which is the case in my local sometimes.
Good news is that there is another casino opening near me soon (I think it's a Grosvenor). Hopefully they won't use CSMs like the one a little further down the road.
There's 4 deck games about in the UK, but in my local casino this game had a higher table minimum. I'm guessing it's the same everywhere.

I may have to buy a book about the theory of Blackjack and one that explains the maths a little more. I'm not sure how TC values equate to IRC values.
I also don't know what "truncating" menas, lol.

 

[assume_R]

Neither CVCX nor CVData allows for doubling on split aces. Norm said he'd consider it on the next update but I don't know when that'll be.

Look at the attached result for the "Debug" mode on cvdata. I played 2 hands, the first had 2 Aces and the second I had 2 sixes, versus a dealer upcard of 6. When I split my Aces, I lost $30 per hand, while when I split 6's I lost $15 per hand, both on a wager of $15. This implies that the Aces were indeed doubled after being split.

 

[paddywhack]

Look at the attached result for the "Debug" mode on cvdata. I played 2 hands, the first had 2 Aces and the second I had 2 sixes, versus a dealer upcard of 6. When I split my Aces, I lost $30 per hand, while when I split 6's I lost $15 per hand, both on a wager of $15. This implies that the Aces were indeed doubled after being split.

Don't know what to say. There's no place to check that option and I asked Norm about it before.

 

[tthree]

Only if you round when you do your true count calculation. If you truncate, then everything from +1 to +2 will truncate to +1, while everything from -1 to -2 will truncate to -2. You see that the frequencies listed for +1 and -2 are similar. Likewise for +2 and -3, etc. The minor differences are going to be partly due to sample size. There may be some other minor effects at play causing a tendency towards a negative count due to a big card being more likely to end the hand vs. a small card being more likely to result in another draw, but I don't know much about that side of it. The truncation explains almost all of why the distribution falls the way it does.

You mean floor not truncate. Truncate is eliminating everything after the decimal point.

 

[UK-21]

I've just had a quick scan through the book (I read it carefully about a year ago) and according to that; my EV for the game I'm playing is 0.63%. This can drop to 0.44% if the penetration is only 65%, which is the case in my local sometimes.

Don't really understand this. Is this the average advantage you are playing with using, for example, a 1-16 spread?

 

[WannabeCounter]

Don't really understand this. Is this the average advantage you are playing with using, for example, a 1-16 spread?

Yeah the KO book recommends a 1-16 spread for a 6 deck game.
Ideally I'd like to spread to 1-20.

Also, I'm not sure no insurance effects the EV. My local casino offers "even money" on a Blackjack vs a Dealers Ace, but no insurance bet.

 

[tthree]

Yeah the KO book recommends a 1-16 spread for a 6 deck game.
Ideally I'd like to spread to 1-20.

Also, I'm not sure no insurance effects the EV. My local casino offers "even money" on a Blackjack vs a Dealers Ace, but no insurance bet.

That only changes it if you wanted to insure for less.

 

[Nynefingers]

You mean floor not truncate. Truncate is eliminating everything after the decimal point.

Dammit, you are correct. Thanks for catching my error.