Hi guys,
Just dropping in for a quickie. I read some of the bad luck in Reno...I know it well. My worst losing streak was about 440 units in 100 hours.
(single deck, 1-10 spread)
What can you do?
Well, here`s something to naw on, from our good friend Clarke Cant. I found this post over at bjrnet.com, and thought it might give pause for discussion.
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touchy subject for me
Posted by Clarke Cant on 22 August 2002, at 5:52 p.m., in response to any jobs for card counters, posted by ccounter on 22 August 2002, at 4:51 p.m.
gehrig knows why and has backed out of all relations with the oposition. It has to do with the Peoquats and some of my Galbreath ancestors, and attempts to link this to a banking case involving fools who think I am obligated to bail their sorry butts out.
But more to the point, try to get hold of every coupon you can. Try to find a job that has some tip earnings and salary and take your tips and try to do a bit of Wonging, considering your tips as a very small trip bankroll too.
As to counting for a salary, a team is being set up that does exactly that and I don't recomend joining them. The reason is that even small bankrolls can grow fairly quickly. These new teams don't let you reinvest your salary too often, when you come in on salary alone. Just go over the measure known as the long run index for the game rules and conditions you are able to find. It strips away the distorting ingredients that SCORE, a similar measure of game quality and conditions, has, to focus on what is most important: how fast can I grow my bankroll/how many hands does it take to double my money using a kelly=1 betting fraction?
For all of the ups and downs that your bankroll will take, betting with kelly=1, even starting out using a trip ruin formula and just playing as long as each night's extra cash lasts, for X being how much you wish to multiply your bankroll, log (x)/log (1+(1/(long run index))) will given you how many hands it takes to multiply your bankroll, with meadian. That is usually less hands than you might think, even though it will be a very bumpy ride, because this relationship holds: for k=your kelly bettin fraction, your probability of being at Z fraction of your previous peak bankroll, is Z*k^2 . That means that being at 30% of your previous bankroll high is 30% probable, with a kelly fraction of 1.
Amazingly enough this does not improve by much by cutting your kelly fraction down. A kelly fraction of 1/2, is 4 times less likely to have you at a reciprical of your previous highest bankroll level, but interestingly, due to the effects of proportional betting, not only does it grow your bankroll 4 times slower, but the probability that your results are due to your long term edge is still the same as with betting the kelly=1 fraction. The reason is that this level also does not cut your variance to expected value ratio. Safety has its price. There is more safety in growing your bankroll longterm than there is in cutting the ratio of the ups and downs to your total bankroll.
The problem is that we tend to see fluctuations in terms of purchasing power rather than keeping score, and we don't as humans tend to think long term unless forced to by competition. And as an individual counter we don't think of there being competition. Another aspect of this can be found in the comments favoring economic liberty by Thomas Jefferson, who not only stated that competition is what drives us to think in distant long terms to gain advantage, but the inability to plan long term when currency values change is what drives us to think short term such that: the morality of a nation is determined by the stability of its currency.
We are not planning to overthrow the Federal Reserve here, but everything in blackjack requires that we respond to winnning and losing only on very long terms, even while we observe and change tactics for everything else in the imeadiate short term. Being overly focused on the immeadiate ups and downs will cause you to give-up the one advantage that blackjack has over other advantage games: the shortness of that longrun index, and the ability to parlay our gains most.
To see this, and why we don't want to focus on such safety dancing, just go over how video poker has such dramaticly higher long run indexes than blackjack. Full pay dueces wild VP has about the same advantage as a good blackjack game, but it has a standard deviation per bet (considering 5 coins as a flat bet) of about 7.83 per play, while the same for flat bet Wonging (which is about your best best starting out in shoe county) has an SD of 1.26. this makes blackjack better by (7.83/1.26)^2 for growing your bankroll.
Just be sure that you top-off somewhere and learn as much as you can about other investments when you get toward where you have plenty of blackjack bankroll, are not trying to increase your betting level any further, and can take your investing to new levels.
In short this is doable but not for everyone
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I have always enjoyed Clark`s writings.
As for why you guys are nuts ... get with the times.
Now is the Golden Age of Poker.
Best,
Syph
(Take care, probably won`t be able to respond too much, kinda busy, but all the best to everyone. Hope things are going well for you Eliot.)
Just dropping in for a quickie. I read some of the bad luck in Reno...I know it well. My worst losing streak was about 440 units in 100 hours.
(single deck, 1-10 spread)
What can you do?
Well, here`s something to naw on, from our good friend Clarke Cant. I found this post over at bjrnet.com, and thought it might give pause for discussion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
touchy subject for me
Posted by Clarke Cant on 22 August 2002, at 5:52 p.m., in response to any jobs for card counters, posted by ccounter on 22 August 2002, at 4:51 p.m.
gehrig knows why and has backed out of all relations with the oposition. It has to do with the Peoquats and some of my Galbreath ancestors, and attempts to link this to a banking case involving fools who think I am obligated to bail their sorry butts out.
But more to the point, try to get hold of every coupon you can. Try to find a job that has some tip earnings and salary and take your tips and try to do a bit of Wonging, considering your tips as a very small trip bankroll too.
As to counting for a salary, a team is being set up that does exactly that and I don't recomend joining them. The reason is that even small bankrolls can grow fairly quickly. These new teams don't let you reinvest your salary too often, when you come in on salary alone. Just go over the measure known as the long run index for the game rules and conditions you are able to find. It strips away the distorting ingredients that SCORE, a similar measure of game quality and conditions, has, to focus on what is most important: how fast can I grow my bankroll/how many hands does it take to double my money using a kelly=1 betting fraction?
For all of the ups and downs that your bankroll will take, betting with kelly=1, even starting out using a trip ruin formula and just playing as long as each night's extra cash lasts, for X being how much you wish to multiply your bankroll, log (x)/log (1+(1/(long run index))) will given you how many hands it takes to multiply your bankroll, with meadian. That is usually less hands than you might think, even though it will be a very bumpy ride, because this relationship holds: for k=your kelly bettin fraction, your probability of being at Z fraction of your previous peak bankroll, is Z*k^2 . That means that being at 30% of your previous bankroll high is 30% probable, with a kelly fraction of 1.
Amazingly enough this does not improve by much by cutting your kelly fraction down. A kelly fraction of 1/2, is 4 times less likely to have you at a reciprical of your previous highest bankroll level, but interestingly, due to the effects of proportional betting, not only does it grow your bankroll 4 times slower, but the probability that your results are due to your long term edge is still the same as with betting the kelly=1 fraction. The reason is that this level also does not cut your variance to expected value ratio. Safety has its price. There is more safety in growing your bankroll longterm than there is in cutting the ratio of the ups and downs to your total bankroll.
The problem is that we tend to see fluctuations in terms of purchasing power rather than keeping score, and we don't as humans tend to think long term unless forced to by competition. And as an individual counter we don't think of there being competition. Another aspect of this can be found in the comments favoring economic liberty by Thomas Jefferson, who not only stated that competition is what drives us to think in distant long terms to gain advantage, but the inability to plan long term when currency values change is what drives us to think short term such that: the morality of a nation is determined by the stability of its currency.
We are not planning to overthrow the Federal Reserve here, but everything in blackjack requires that we respond to winnning and losing only on very long terms, even while we observe and change tactics for everything else in the imeadiate short term. Being overly focused on the immeadiate ups and downs will cause you to give-up the one advantage that blackjack has over other advantage games: the shortness of that longrun index, and the ability to parlay our gains most.
To see this, and why we don't want to focus on such safety dancing, just go over how video poker has such dramaticly higher long run indexes than blackjack. Full pay dueces wild VP has about the same advantage as a good blackjack game, but it has a standard deviation per bet (considering 5 coins as a flat bet) of about 7.83 per play, while the same for flat bet Wonging (which is about your best best starting out in shoe county) has an SD of 1.26. this makes blackjack better by (7.83/1.26)^2 for growing your bankroll.
Just be sure that you top-off somewhere and learn as much as you can about other investments when you get toward where you have plenty of blackjack bankroll, are not trying to increase your betting level any further, and can take your investing to new levels.
In short this is doable but not for everyone
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have always enjoyed Clark`s writings.
As for why you guys are nuts ... get with the times.
Now is the Golden Age of Poker.
Best,
Syph
(Take care, probably won`t be able to respond too much, kinda busy, but all the best to everyone. Hope things are going well for you Eliot.)
