some (but not all) answers...
what counting system would you recommend using with shuffle tracking?
>would halves be too difficult to use?
>is there another system out there that isn't too difficult
>that ranks up there with halves .99% BE
Hi-Lo is .98 BC, which is not much worse than .99
>what is the best book out there for shuffle tracking?
>How much impact does high PE systems like APC, Hi-opt II,and AOII
>have on multiple deck games. I hear that only BE is important for
>multiple deck games, but what kind of edge do you get from these
>powerful systems?
The PE issue is less important. In a 6d game, with a TC of +2, where are the extra 10's or Aces? Coming soon or dozens of hands later? Best way to answer this and all other such questions is to visit
www.qfit.com, and buy CVCX or CVdata and run the sims for a particular 6d game using different counting strategies, and see how it modifies the EV or units won per hour... That way you can twiddle with all sorts of options and get an _accurate_ answer you can trust.
I've learned more using CVCX for 6 months than I learned in my first 3.5 years of counting. I can now discover the _exact_ betting ramp I should use, the exact true count to increase my bets on (not always +2) etc...
>Do these systems get such high PE because of all the indices?
That is what PE is. It is a measure of how well the system produces BS departures to improve results. No departures at all would be a PE of .0,
getting every possible departure imaginable would be a PE of 1.0. But doing that is impossible since counting tells us the make-up of the remaining cards, but not the order they will come out... After a lenghthy discussion with Don S. on rge21, here's a brief analysis...
approximately 80% of your hands will be played according to pure BS anyway. For the remaining 20%, the PE of your counting system will come into play. So even with no PE at all, you will get 80% of your plays correct. Hi-Lo has a PE of about .5, which means that using Hi-Lo with indices, you will play correctly in about 90% of all hands (80% BS + another 10% due to Hi-Lo getting 50% of that last 20% correct). The best PE systems will raise that 50% to 67% roughly. IE rather than 80% for BS, or 90% for Hi-Lo + indices, a really strong count will get 93% correct (80% BS + 67% of that last 20%). 3% for a lot of extra work needs a lot of thought, compared to Hi-Lo which is quite easy to use (IMHO anyway).
Hope that helps. Took Don a while to clear up the terminology for me, relaying it is the least I can do...
>If you take all the systems and use only the Illustrious 18 and
>Fab 4 will they all have close to thhe same PE?
Not necessarily. Hi-Lo for example is "ace-reckoned" which means aces are counted with big cards. Good for betting correlation. Bad for playing efficiency as that TC of +4 that says double a 11 vs an Ace up for the dealer could give you a 10, or an A, since they are counted the same. You get better PE with systems that count aces as a small card. But you get better betting correlation with systems that count aces big. Or you can do both with an ace-neutral count and an ace side-count to improve betting correlation. But with the side count, you get more mental sweat...
You have to decide whether the gain in PE is worth the mental effort. I can personally play BJ for 8 hours straight without even a hint of a headache or getting too tired to keep the count correct. I have no idea whether I could do that with something like Hi-OptII. For the small gain it provides, I don't intend to find out. Note that to get the big PE, you are going to have to use more than just I18 indices. Even full hi-lo has a sack full of them, more than I have tried to learn. I use the I18, plus a few more that make some sense. IE if you do 16 vs 10 (I18) I would learn 16 vs 9 which also happens enough (at least to me).
>Sorry for all the question.
>I have all these question pop in my head at once and I don't want
>to forget to ask them.
>I do want to say that this is an awesome site.
>there are a lot of talented blackjack players, but yet don't act
>arrogant towards beginners.
>I appreciate it!
>Thanks
