Close to breaking my bank roll...

[Tom007]

Worst streak ever. In the last 6 sessions totaling 10 hours I have lost 309 units I am sure it is due to getting real bad cards. I was playing with a spread of 1-10 prior to the losing streak, then ramped it up to 1-16. On high counts I was playing 2 hands of 12 instead of 1 hand of 16 and almost always lost on both. I am quite sure I am not making mistakes but starting to wonder if I am doing something wrong. 10 hours ago I had 429 units, now I have 133 units left. At one point around 50 hours of play ago I had a high of 486 units. Does this sound like normal variation? The game I play is 6 deck no surrender no hole card, dh17
das, double on any 2 cards, split 4 times, pen 75-85% with no heat. I use Hi/Lo
with I 18 some of the I 18 plays if I can't calculate the tc quick enough I just use bs but am getting better all the time. As I mentioned I don't think I'm making errors. Although I am by no means an expert, I have been playing for about 2 years and read Play bj like a pro, worlds greatest bj book, professional bj, black belt in bj, and this forum for about 1 year. Any comments would be much appreciated.

regards
Tom

Oh, I should mention that my br is a combined br by that I mean that I combine my land based br with my online bonus hunting br this allows me to leverage my online cash at the tables to get more on the table. My max bet is 1% of my total br. I keep track of my units separately so the whole top portion of this message is land based only. so 133 units left for land based and 1700 online.

 

[Tom007]

Ok, after reading this post I think I figured it out. By keeping track of the 2 br's separately and leveraging the online $ is causing the confusion. I'm only looking at my land bsed spread sheet and see that I have lost 55% of my br in 10 hours of play but when I take the total br its only 7% and thats what I'm basing my max bet on the total.

Any comments would still be appreciated.

 

[NDN21]

Close to

You said you had a 1-10 bet spread before the losing but went up to 1-16 then the losing started.

Overbetting?

I have read somewhere on a forum that with bj online a player must use the bonuses properly to come out ahead.

I avoid bj online.

 

[zengrifter]

I was playing with a spread of 1-10 prior to the losing streak, then ramped it up to 1-16.

Question - did you increase your spread by raising your max bet or by lowering your min bet? zg

 

[ScottH]

You said you had a 1-10 bet spread before the losing but went up to 1-16 then the losing started.

Overbetting?

I have read somewhere on a forum that with bj online a player must use the bonuses properly to come out ahead.

I avoid bj online.

If he correctly increased his spread from 1-10 to 1-16 he shouldnt be overbetting. No matter if his spread is 1-10 or 1-16 the max bet should be the same. So to correctly switch from a 1-10 spread to a 1-16 spread he would have to lower his minimum bet instead of increasing his max bet. If he increased his max bet without increasing his bankroll, then he would be overbetting.

 

[Tom007]

Question - did you increase your spread by raising your max bet or by lowering your min bet? zg

I raised my max bet because my br grew quite a bit last month mostly from online bonus hunting, so I raised my max bet from 1-10 to 1-16. I know it seems like a big jump but I was under betting a bit at 1-10.

 

[zengrifter]

I raised my max bet because my br grew quite a bit last month mostly from online bonus hunting, so I raised my max bet from 1-10 to 1-16. I know it seems like a big jump but I was under betting a bit at 1-10.

Unless your BR was 1000u when you started you were NOT UNDERBETTING at 1-10. You appear to have been over-betting all along, because you didn't know how to properly size your bets. zg

 

[Sonny]

You appear to have been over-betting all along, because you didn't know how to properly size your bets. zg

I think he may be betting properly and just suffering some big variance. In his original post he says "My max bet is 1% of my total br" so he’s probably not overbetting. The game he is playing is fairly tough but the pen is decent and he can play without any camo. I’m sure his SD is pretty steep, but 309 units in 10 hours is very extreme for a solo player. It seems like there is something more to this story.

-Sonny-

 

[Tom007]

Ok guys, Heres how it went down I played 6 sessions between jan3 and Feb 23
1st session 1.5 hr -46u. 2nd session 1 hr +12u. 3rd 2 hr -48u. 4th 1 hr -53u 5th 1.5 hr -64u. and the 5th session I thought maybe I'm not playing long enough each session to give myself a chance to make a comeback so I played for 3 hours had to quit cause I lost everything in my pocket 98u. As I mentioned before, I think I lost almost every max bet even when changing to 2 spots instead of 1 I lost on both. I ramp my bets using half Kelly and pushing out max at +5. I don't completley understand standard deviations so could someone please tell me how far out there this run of bad luck was in english.

Thanks a lot for all your help

Tom

 

[Sonny]

I don't completley understand standard deviations so could someone please tell me how far out there this run of bad luck was in english.

Most players should expect to win/lose within 55 units per hour. All of your results are within that range but it looks like you had them all happen in a row. That’s pretty bad news, but it sometimes happens. :sad:

This might be a good time to take a short break so that you can replenish your BR a bit and get some practice. Keep working on those TC conversion until you are up to casino speed. You seem to understand betting techniques so the next step is to look into variance and ROR. Use this break to sharpen you skills and build your knowledge. Once your bankroll has been rebuilt you will feel much more confident about taking another shot at the casinos.

-Sonny-