Afraid to play Blackjack any longer

[sagefr0g]

In general a good card counter expects to win about 1.5 minimum bets per hour. A $10-$60 spread would earn about $15/hr and a $25-$150 spread would average around $37/hr. With that kind of advantage you could raise your bets to around $300-$400 based on your large bankroll and still have a negligible chance of ever going broke.

another question regarding this statement. and i'm pretty sure it's just a technicality but here goes...
where you say "a good card counter expects to win about 1.5 minimum bets per hour." it makes me wonder about what i percieve as an edge with regard to playing tables with the lowest minimum bet possible and hopefully one that has a liberal table max. an unfortunately unrealistic example (for sake of argument) would be you have two tables. table 1 min $1 max $500 and table 2 min $5 max $500 . i would think table 1 would be the best table to play since you could get away with risking less on your waiting bets and yet still have as large a max bet potential as table 2. but the rule of thumb you stated would have the table 1 player making $1.50/hr and table 2 player making $7.50/hr . but actually if the table 1 player ramped his bets correctly by matching the table 2 player's advantage bets he should be able to outperform the table 2 player shouldn't he? like i say i think this is just a technicallity to the rule of thumb you enumerated.

best regards,
mr fr0g

 

[Cass]

another question regarding this statement. and i'm pretty sure it's just a technicality but here goes...
where you say "a good card counter expects to win about 1.5 minimum bets per hour." it makes me wonder about what i percieve as an edge with regard to playing tables with the lowest minimum bet possible and hopefully one that has a liberal table max. an unfortunately unrealistic example (for sake of argument) would be you have two tables. table 1 min $1 max $500 and table 2 min $5 max $500 . i would think table 1 would be the best table to play since you could get away with risking less on your waiting bets and yet still have as large a max bet potential as table 2. but the rule of thumb you stated would have the table 1 player making $1.50/hr and table 2 player making $7.50/hr . but actually if the table 1 player ramped his bets correctly by matching the table 2 player's advantage bets he should be able to outperform the table 2 player shouldn't he? like i say i think this is just a technicallity to the rule of thumb you enumerated.

best regards,
mr fr0g

When he says 1.5 units per hour that is just a very general statement. Obviously if you were spreading 1-500 you would make much more than 1.5 units per hour. To figure out hourly EV Just multiply your AVG. bet by your advantage. Example: Im playing a good double deck game: Bet spread 100-800. Avg bet ~250. Player advantage is 2% and im playing 100 hands a hour. $25,000 wager per hour x 2%= $500/hr EV.

 

[sagefr0g]

When he says 1.5 units per hour that is just a very general statement. Obviously if you were spreading 1-500 you would make much more than 1.5 units per hour. To figure out hourly EV Just multiply your AVG. bet by your advantage. Example: Im playing a good double deck game: Bet spread 100-800. Avg bet ~250. Player advantage is 2% and im playing 100 hands a hour. $25,000 wager per hour x 2%= $500/hr EV.

is there a way of estimating your average bet for a given bet ramp and given game with out running a simulation?

best regards,
mr fr0g

 

[Sonny]

When he says 1.5 units per hour that is just a very general statement.

Right. In fact, my statement was a bit vague now that I look at it. I should have said "1.5 units" instead of “1.5 minimum bets.” After all, someone who is backcounting will have a minimum bet of $0! Similarly, someone using $25 units may occasionally drop down to $10 bets if they can get away with it.

-Sonny-

 

[Buzzer]

Weighted Average Bet

is there a way of estimating your average bet for a given bet ramp and given game with out running a simulation?

best regards,
mr fr0g

The most accurate method I know of would be to take the weighted average of your bets based on the frequency with which they occur.


The following is a table I copied from a single deck game:

Hi-LO ADVANTAGE Frequency

-5 -2.60% 0.065
-4 -2.10% 0.03
-3 -1.60% 0.055
-2 -1.10% 0.07
-1 -0.60% 0.1
0 -0.10% 0.2
1 0.40% 0.095
2 0.90% 0.075
3 1.40% 0.05
4 1.90% 0.045
5 2.40% 0.04
6 2.90% 0.035
7 3.40% 0.03
8 3.90% 0.03
>=+9 4.40% 0.08

Based on the fact that they house advantage at zero count is .20 I would adjust all your percentages to the game you play. I play a game with a .33 house advantage so I would 13 basis points for any return type of calculation, though it makes no difference for the weighted average bet calculation.

For percentage of time spent at any count in a multi-deck game the percentages are different but close enough for estimation purposes.

To determine your weighted average bet I would multiply the frequently times your bet at each of the level aboves, then use the total as your weighted average bet.

Example:

Assuming your base bet was at $5.00 for all neutral to negative bets, and you added $5.00 when the count went to 1, then added another $10.00 each additional increase in the count.

Hi-LO Frequency Bet Frequency Times Bet
<=-5 0.065 $5.00 $0.33
-4 0.03 $5.00 $0.15
-3 0.055 $5.00 $0.28
-2 0.07 $5.00 $0.35
-1 0.1 $5.00 $0.50
0 0.2 $5.00 $1.00
1 0.095 $10.00 $0.95
2 0.075 $20.00 $1.50
3 0.05 $30.00 $1.50
4 0.045 $40.00 $1.80
5 0.04 $50.00 $2.00
6 0.035 $60.00 $2.10
7 0.03 $70.00 $2.10
8 0.03 $80.00 $2.40
>=+9 0.08 $90.00 $7.20
======
Weighted AVG: $24.15


This would give you a fairly accurate picture of your average bet.

Hope this is helpful.

-Buzzer

 

[Buzzer]

Table Fomat Off

Sorry for the bad formatting in the table. The spacing got screwed up when I submitted it.

-Buzzer

 

[Sonny]

is there a way of estimating your average bet for a given bet ramp and given game with out running a simulation?

As Buzzer showed, the most accurate way is to use a frequency distribution to get your results. Unfortunately, that involves running a sim or getting Snyder’s “Beat the X-Deck” books (which are essentially histograms of game simulations). Here’s an article about using them to find EV and SD (it is similar to how I made the spreadsheet I uploaded):

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/6DeckText.htm

-Sonny-