Any advice/suggestions??

[Spinner9]

I wish I would have found this site a long time ago! Me and a good friend of mine have been playing as a team for quite some time now and I would like to tell our story and see what you guys may be able to help us with. I'll try to include everything. We are in no way high stake players but we are serious. We have a passion for the game and are just looking to enjoy and pick up a few extra dollars.
We use the standard hi/lo system. My friend has been counting for years now and rarely makes mistakes. We play double deck tables 2 hands (we both play same table) and rules are vegas strip style. Penetration is usually 70-75%. We add 1 unit per positive TC. We try to find $5 min tables but have been forced to play $10 and $15. As a general rule of thumb we sit with a bankroll of 40X min bet. I am relatively new to counting(although I understand concept quite well) so I always play behind my friend to make sure I don't make mistakes. Session time is based on the way we feel; we never set time or amount limits. We know how slight our edge is and that counting is in no way a 'get rich' opportunity for us but our swings are just demoralizing sometimes. This year we have played 27 times and our win/loss ratio is 16/11. Our wins total $1,680 and losses total $3,890 as a team.
We have always added a $5 chip (what we have considered 1 unit) for each positive TC no matter what denomination table we are at. We recently made the assumption that our 'unit' bet should equal our min bet. If we had always done this we figure our totals would be dramatically different. Are we correct in assuming this? Also, we figured out that we should sit with around a 80x min bet bankroll.
I know that 27 sessions isn't that many and you guys may need more info. Our main question is if the 'unit' bet is what caused our totals to be so lopsided. Any comments are appreciated guys! Call me a fool or whatever you please - constructive critism sparks me! Also we found a new variation here in town we aren't sure about. I am posting the rules in the variations tab

 

[Unshake]

Are you playing a 6 or 8 deck game?

If you are playing a 6 deck and playing the entire show raising your bet only $5 dollars per each true count, you could be playing with a disadvantage.

I would recommend back counting (wonging) until a TC of +1. This way you avoid all of the losses at TC<=0 . Also, it sounds like you are raising your bet too slowly at higher counts.

So your betting is?:

TC 1 = 10
TC 2 = 15
TC 3 = 20
TC 4 = 25
TC 5 = 30


You should probably bring more money than 40x your minimum bet...

 

[Spinner9]

We are playing at double deck tables. and yes thats how we have been increasing our bets.

$5 min table
TC 1 = 10
TC 2 = 15
TC 3 = 20
TC 4 = 25
TC 5 = 30

$10 min table
TC 1 = 15
TC 2 = 20
TC 3 = 25
TC 4 = 30
TC 5 = 35

$15 min table
TC 1 = 20
TC 2 = 25
TC 3 = 30
TC 4 = 35
TC 5 = 40

 

[rukus]

We are playing at double deck tables. and yes thats how we have been increasing our bets.

$5 min table
TC 1 = 10
TC 2 = 15
TC 3 = 20
TC 4 = 25
TC 5 = 30

$10 min table
TC 1 = 15
TC 2 = 20
TC 3 = 25
TC 4 = 30
TC 5 = 35

$15 min table
TC 1 = 20
TC 2 = 25
TC 3 = 30
TC 4 = 35
TC 5 = 40

your "spread" on these games is marginal at 1-3/1-4. like you alluded to in your original post you need to spread to multiples of your minimum bet, not just add $5 chips per TC. you should aim for something like 1-6x or 1-8x your minimum bet. with the spreads you quoted, you are probably playing maybe slightly above a break even game, assuming NO mistakes. if your friend is still making even a few mistakes after a few years of playing high-lo, he needs to be practicing more and you need to be as well. also, your bankroll should probably be more like 80-100x your MAX bets, not your minimum bets.

 

[Unshake]

We are playing at double deck tables.

What are the rules?

Are you using any indexes (basic strategy deviations)?

 

[Spinner9]

Dealer hits soft 17
Can double any 2 cards
Can split any 2 cards of same value
Can double after split(except aces)
Can split Aces up to 4 times (one hit per ace)
Blackjack pays 3to2
Insurance pays 2to1
Don't think I forgot anything.
As far as our basic strategy deviations......
We don't hit hard 15 or 16 if TC exceeds +3 or hit 14 if TC exceeds +5 vs any dealer upcard. We split 99 or 1010 if TC and dealer upcard allows for it. I don't know what type of situations you are asking for.... We vear off basic strategy based on the TC

 

[Unshake]

Dealer hits soft 17
Can double any 2 cards
Can split any 2 cards of same value
Can double after split(except aces)
Can split Aces up to 4 times (one hit per ace)
Blackjack pays 3to2
Insurance pays 2to1
Don't think I forgot anything.
As far as our basic strategy deviations......
We don't hit hard 15 or 16 if TC exceeds +3 or hit 14 if TC exceeds +5 vs any dealer upcard. We split 99 or 1010 if TC and dealer upcard allows for it. I don't know what type of situations you are asking for.... We vear off basic strategy based on the TC

That sounds like a pretty good game.


I would recommend using the illustrious 18 (18 different basic strategy deviations that give you most of the gain).

The problem with never hitting 15 if the TC is >=+3 is that against some dealer up cards this is the wrong play or to not hit a 14 against say an 8, the count has to be higher than +5.

 

[rukus]

I would recommend using the illustrious 18 (18 different basic strategy deviations that give you most of the gain).

i would recommend more than the Illust. 18 - in single and double deck games the count can move more rapidly/extremely in both directions and you cant really wong-in/out so you need to know the indices to play through those counts. obviously the more extreme positive indices are more important as that is when you have your real money out, but if you're really looking to hammer these games as everyone says they want to, why not put in the extra effort and learn a few more negative indices as well?

 

[blackjack avenger]

Team Bank

If it is a shared team bankroll then playing 4 hands at one table is not as good as playing 2 hands.

Spread a little more as Rukus suggested.

Get your indices down.

If it is not a shared bank then you should not be playing at the same table.

If you are at the same table and to the casino you know each other then perhaps one can keep an insurance count while the other keeps the primary count and give indice deviations in a friendly chiding way.

If you are both at the same table. I hope you are both not betting $50 at the same time! The bets should be different but sill add up to $100, $70-$30 as an example. This will raise you standard deviation but is important for camoflauge.

Overall you should be at different tables most if not all of the time. If the bankroll is shared and there is a trust issue then you should not play together.

 

[Spinner9]

Our main problem is that we have few options on places to play good games. There is only one casino in the area that offers $5 min double deck games with favorable rules and it usually only has 2-3 tables to choose from. There are a few other options for $10 min tables but if we sit with a 8k bankroll and throw out a $10 bet everyone in the pit will be watching us. Are you guys talking session bankroll or total bankroll? Honestly we would probably draw attention betting $10min and using a 1-8x spread. Especially if we start doubling A8 and splitting 10s. I don't know how long we could get away with using a spread like you guys are suggesting. I don't mind taking the chance and if thats why you guys think we are losing money then there is no point in playing otherwise. I guess you can't take your own edge away that's pointless. Can you guys give me a chart of your suggested bets in relation to your TC based on the tables we are playing at ($5 min)? There is no trust issue and we have always played two hands total and it's a team bankroll. We have always made same bets on each hand and have never thought of changing that up. That's interesting. The reason we have always played two hands is for table coverage to catch the big hands. I guess a dealer break when playing two hands is the ultimate goal. Thanks for the illustrious 18 info that is new to us. We have always just used our personal logic to play our hand according to the TC. A set system would be the smartest thing and we should have looked into that a long time ago...

 

[Sonny]

There is only one casino in the area that offers $5 min double deck games with favorable rules and it usually only has 2-3 tables to choose from.

Do they have any games other than DD? You could probably get away with bigger spreads and more aggressive play if they have several shoe games. It would also make backcounting easier.

Are you guys talking session bankroll or total bankroll?

Total bankroll. Your session bankroll will be based on how many hours you intend to play. I usually use a Trip RoR formula to determine bankroll requirements for a particular trip.

Can you guys give me a chart of your suggested bets in relation to your TC based on the tables we are playing at ($5 min)?

There is a whole chapter of charts like this in Schlesinger’s Blackjack Attack. It covers just about any game with any rules and penetration levels. I highly recommend that as a source for info on betting spreads, win rates and risk management. As a bonus, Schlesinger’s Illustrious 18 and Fab 4 indices are also in there. In the meantime, here’s a generic bet spread suggestion:

<+2 = $5
+2 = $10
+3 = $20
+4 = $30
>+4 = $40

Since you are playing multiple hands you will have to adjust those numbers for the added covariance. That is covered in Schlesinger’s book as well, but here’s a crash course:

http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?p=16488

There is also some info in the FAQ thread at the top of the page.

-Sonny-

 

[rukus]

Are you guys talking session bankroll or total bankroll?

when i said 80-100 max bets, i was talking total bankroll

I don't mind taking the chance and if thats why you guys think we are losing money then there is no point in playing otherwise. I guess you can't take your own edge away that's pointless.

Exactly - in my opinion this is the number 1 mistake a new counter makes - not spreading enough to actually gain an advantage. try spreading aggressively but only for a 30 minute session and just stay aware of the pit's response. see how that goes. if you can go longer than 30 minutes, by all means try an hour. it really depends on how the pit responds, but you wont know that till you try it

Can you guys give me a chart of your suggested bets in relation to your TC based on the tables we are playing at ($5 min)?

im going to give you my "aggressive" spreading answer in multiples of your minimum bet in case you do decide to try the 10 minimum tables. you just size your minimum bet based on what risk of ruin you are willing to accept (search the forums here for that topic if you are not familiar with it or how bet spreads/sizes affect it)

TC: Bet
<=1: 1 x minimum
2: 2x
3: 4x
4: 8x
5: 10x
6: 12x

if you want to be less aggressive maybe try (but this is my bare minimum and would push for something more aggressive):
TC: Bet
<=1: 1 x minimum
2: 2x
3: 3x
4: 4x
5: 5x
6: 6x

you can split the chips between however many hands you want (i'm ignoring the fact that splitting the bets between multiple hands would allow you to bet even more in total than you would had you only played one hand, as this is another topic well covered on elsewhere on these boards).

We have always just used our personal logic to play our hand according to the TC. A set system would be the smartest thing and we should have looked into that a long time ago...

you would be incredibly surprised how far off our logic is when it comes to determining these deviations as Unshake pointed out above and as you would see if you looked up the indices (BS deviations) for your system.

rukus

 

[Spinner9]

If you are both at the same table. I hope you are both not betting $50 at the same time! The bets should be different but sill add up to $100, $70-$30 as an example. This will raise you standard deviation but is important for camoflauge.

Can you tell me where I can find more info on this logic?

Do they have any games other than DD? You could probably get away with bigger spreads and more aggressive play if they have several shoe games. It would also make backcounting easier.

We have alot of shoe games to choose from. Mostly 8 deck. There are a few 6 deck options around. We are currently studying the wong technique.

This is what I've come up with from reading a few old posts on these msg boards. If we are playing two hands at the same table using a single bankroll we should look at the combined min bets of both hands as our initial bet. $5 min bet per hand is example I am using. So we have a $10 total initial bet. If we use the aggressive spread that rukus suggested and we are looking at a +6 TC then we should take 12x intitial bet which would be $120. We should then multiply by 150% to allow for covariance of playing 2 hands so now we are looking at $180 total bet. Divide by 2 and we should bet $90 per hand. Am i following correctly? Keep in mind I am only using this spread as an example. We have actually been using the spread that rukus suggested was a bare minimum but we haven't been accounting for the covariance. So we have indeed been underbetting? I am going to get Schlesinger’s Blackjack Attack as Sonny suggested and try to find a medium betting spread because I don't think our bankroll can withstand rukus' suggestion. Can anyone link me to a trip RoR formula?

 

[blackjack avenger]

Its About the Camoflauge

Can you tell me where I can find more info on this logic?




We have alot of shoe games to choose from. Mostly 8 deck. There are a few 6 deck options around. We are currently studying the wong technique.

This is what I've come up with from reading a few old posts on these msg boards. If we are playing two hands at the same table using a single bankroll we should look at the combined min bets of both hands as our initial bet. $5 min bet per hand is example I am using. So we have a $10 total initial bet. If we use the aggressive spread that rukus suggested and we are looking at a +6 TC then we should take 12x intitial bet which would be $120. We should then multiply by 150% to allow for covariance of playing 2 hands so now we are looking at $180 total bet. Divide by 2 and we should bet $90 per hand. Am i following correctly? Keep in mind I am only using this spread as an example. We have actually been using the spread that rukus suggested was a bare minimum but we haven't been accounting for the covariance. So we have indeed been underbetting? I am going to get Schlesinger’s Blackjack Attack as Sonny suggested and try to find a medium betting spread because I don't think our bankroll can withstand rukus' suggestion. Can anyone link me to a trip RoR formula?

If 2 players are at the same table and you both move your bets up and down at the same time it looks a little obvious. So you move your bets in an uneven fashion. Instead of both of you betting $50 you use an uneven spread over two hands of 60-40 or 70-30 as an example. It does not look as obvious. However, it is more risky because you can lose your bigger bet. So you have to adjust your betting ramp. A conservative approach as an example would be to bet 70-30 when you should bet 2 hands of 70.

I would still suggest that in most circumstances you would be better off at 2 tables.

 

[rukus]

This is what I've come up with from reading a few old posts on these msg boards. If we are playing two hands at the same table using a single bankroll we should look at the combined min bets of both hands as our initial bet. $5 min bet per hand is example I am using. So we have a $10 total initial bet. If we use the aggressive spread that rukus suggested and we are looking at a +6 TC then we should take 12x intitial bet which would be $120. We should then multiply by 150% to allow for covariance of playing 2 hands so now we are looking at $180 total bet. Divide by 2 and we should bet $90 per hand. Am i following correctly?

yup, you got it.

I am going to get Schlesinger’s Blackjack Attack as Sonny suggested and try to find a medium betting spread because I don't think our bankroll can withstand rukus' suggestion. Can anyone link me to a trip RoR formula?

Blackjack Attack has trip RoR formulas as well. one important thing to note - i gave the betting ramps in units, so if you dont think your bankroll can handle the "aggressive" ramp, you can still use by just scaling down your "unit" to a lower number (if it is not already at a low table minimum).

if you bear with me though i can try and explain the fundamentals of sizing a trip bankroll. what i'm about to suggest basically comes from that book (i'll point out what) as well as common statistics. basically what you are trying to do is estimate how far down you could potentially be withing the # hours that you plan to play. to do this you need two things: your estimate win in units per hand and your variance or standard deviation per hand (let's ignore playing multiple hands per table here but it is not hard to extend the concept).

once you have those, it's just a really simple sort of calculation. say your expected win per hand was 0.02 units and your variance per hand was something like 4 units (this will make my math easier) and you plan to play for 5 hours. assuming you want to minimize your risk of tapping out during a session down to something like approximately a 2.5% chance, you would need to figure out what # of units lost correspond to a 2 standard deviation shift to the left of your total expected win.

so.... if you plan to play for 5 hours at say, 100 hands/hour, you plan to play 500 hands. thus your expected win is 500* 0.02 = 10 units. now you need to figure out your TOTAL standard deviation. standard dev/hand = sqrt(variance/hand) = sqrt(4) = 2. total standard deviation for 5 hours of play (or 500 hands more precisely) = 2*sqrt(500) ~ 45 units.

thus, two standard deviations below your expected win is 10-2*45 = -80. meaning you might expect to end 5 hours of play down 80 units or more about 2.5% of the time. now here is where blackjack attack comes in - i wont attempt to do a better job trying to explain the "premature hitting of the barrier" syndrome, but what it basically says is though the analysis above shows you might END 5 hours of play down 80 units, in actuality you might go down about 2 times as much as that DURING those 5 hours before bouncing back to "just" an 80 unit loss. so you would want to size your 5 hour session bankroll at 80*2, or 160 units. that is the basics of sizing a session bankroll.

if you go through all the math, you might see why I (and i assume others on the boards here) usually expect to take a little under half of our total bankrolls for a weekend of serious play (maybe 25 hours or so) in order to prevent tapping out over such a long "session"/weekend.

EDIT: woops, i feel stupid. i went through all of the above thinking you wanted to know how to size a trip bankroll, not just know how to calculate a trip RoR. i'll leave it up though for anyone else who might want to understand how sizing trip bankrolls works. i guess i learned my lesson to always read questions properly before jumping in with an answer.... as for the exact trip RoR formula, you can find it in blackjack attack; im not sure about the copyright stuff of reproducing it here so i wont post it here... you should own the book anyway, it is invaluable.

Additional EDIT: please read my post below clarifying exactly what gets doubled when really assessing the risk of tapping out DURING a session/trip. the above analysis is still valid once you determine the proper standard deviation multiple.

 

[Kasi]

woops, i feel stupid...

Don't know why - something they/anyone should think about for sure. I thought it was great anyway.

Maybe it will inspire them to figure out their SD and EV per hand/hour whatever so they can apply the formula/method you suggest. That's the hard part after all and basically why a serious player should likely invest in a sim. Ideally before they wonder why they lost alot of money.

The only thing that struck me is I sort of thought when you said " in actuality you might go down about 2 times as much as that DURING those 5 hours before bouncing back to "just" an 80 unit loss. so you would want to size your 5 hour session bankroll at 80*2, or 160 units. "

that basically it was more like one would go below that 80 units say half the time but not be able to recover like you would half the time if you had more roll. In other words basically your 2.5% risk is about double or around 5% with the same 80 units.

So maybe not so much that you need double the 80 units to 160 to cover that extra risk to actually get it back down to 2.5%. Like in your example 12-15 extra units would probably get it back down.

But, like you say, it's not like you can take too much of total bankroll on a trip lol. When in doubt take more lol.

Heck, even consider session bankrolls of a defined length for each member of the team. But that comes after trip rolls which come after total roll so, if I were they, I'd work on that question first.

 

[rukus]

i apologize, i actually misspoke last night when i was writing at 1am. what IS doubled when considering the barrier problem is the probability of ending at that 2 standard deviation point, NOT the number of units you might expect to lose before bouncing back. so if you might expect to end at a 2 std dev loss with probability of 2.5%, you should expect to hit that barrier during some point in your play 5% of the time, ie you expect to tapout 5% of the time, not 2.5%.

to bring your overall realistic risk of tapping out to 2.5%, you need to leave room for doubling whatever your endpoint probability is to get to 2.5%. thus you want your endpoint probability to be 1.25% so that when it is doubled, your tapout risk is 2.5%. i hope that is clear.

you would need to re-run my analysis using the standard deviation multiple corresponding to having 1.25% probability (read AREA under the probability curve) to the left of that standard deviation, or about 2.25 standard deviations.

i can elaborate further if need be, i know im not the clearest writer.

 

[Kasi]

.... i know im not the clearest writer.

Me either but what you said is exactly what I was trying to say lol.

Very clear, if you ask me.

Kind of like porn, I can't write it but I know it when I read it lol.

 

[rukus]

Me either but what you said is exactly what I was trying to say lol.

Very clear, if you ask me.

Kind of like porn, I can't write it but I know it when I read it lol.

if only porn was as fun as blackjack :joker:

 

[Sonny]

if only porn was as fun as blackjack :joker:

Once you do either of them for long enough they will become very boring and a bit painful. :sad:

-Sonny-