Cold Shoe

[Canceler]

A brief intermission

Last edited by Sonny : Today at ... over and over.

Thank you, Sonny, for your usual great explanations, AND your efforts to keep things civil here, both at the same time. Aren't you glad you accepted the Moderator position!! :laugh:

 

[Sonny]

Ah finally we move away from the mundane mathematical arguments and begin to tackle the real practical circumstances that an AP will actually run into in a real casino.

I’m sorry if we are boring you with our mathematical proof and relentless logic, but you’ll have to endure just a little bit more if you want to really see how much you’re hurting yourself by playing that way.

If i am given the choice between burning this so called "shoe leather" costs and burning real actual money at i will opt to incur the "shoe leather" costs 10 times out of ten.

But that “shoe leather” is also costing you money. For example, an average player can easily play 100 hands per hour. About 70 of those will be at a disadvantage and about 30 will be at an advantage. If you walk away from half of those good hands (because you lost a few of them) then you are only playing about 15 winning hands per hour. On top of that, you are walking into unknown situations more often, which puts you at a disadvantage again. You are walking away from winning hands in favor of losing hands. Suddenly you are only getting 15 winnings hands and about 85 losing ones. How can you expect this to not hurt your bankroll?

Even if you stay at the same table and simply sit out of those 15 winnings hands you are still reducing your winnings by half. That makes no sense.

While time is an important aspect of the AP, one cant fall over oneself in a bid to save as much of it so he can burn more of his BR.

But playing when you have the advantage does not burn your BR, it adds to it. Do you not understand that? When you have the advantage, you are winning EV every time you play. You may lose a few hands or go on a losing streak, but if you are betting properly then you will know what kind of streaks to expect and your bankroll will be able to sustain the bad streaks until you hit another good streak. That is just the nature of variance. You cannot escape it by running away from the table. You just have to play intelligently so that the losing streaks don’t hurt you too much.

I’m beginning to have some serious doubts about your understanding the game. You could be hurting yourself more than you think. What count system do you use? What’s your bet spread? What’s your RoR?

-Sonny-

 

[NDN21]

Quote:
Originally Posted by NDN21 View Post
In the end, it's your money, James is right on with that one. Play how you want but know that a good counter with vast blackjack experience and knowledge, wouldn't leave a positive shoe very often.


Therefore making a statement such as this...See this exactly where i lose it and begin to call a spade a spade!!!

NO ONE HERE INCLUDING ME IS ADVOCATING THAT ANY ONE LEAVE A SHOE WITH POSITIVE COUNT. YOU WONT EVEN FIND A SINGLE POST OF MINE SUGGESTING ANYTHNG ON THE SORT!!!

But from your first post

Here is my advise to you. If you get some good positive counts in about 3 or 4 shoes but the dealer still beats your brain in and is taking your money, then dood!!!!! GET UP AND LEAVE!!!!

and another post

in my response i clearly state that if you lose 3-4 shoes with positive counts you should move. But this genius decided to revise that statement into something else..

You are right I did not find one post suggesting a player leave a table with a positive count, I found TWO!! What did I win?

Now you are saying you never advocated leaving a table.

NOw dont take this as a direct attack on you. I am just using this one statement to illustrate the fact the people here calling me the voodoo king and superstitious have completely failed to understand the circumstances that have very clearly been laid out to them...

You called yourself the voodoo king on page two, not us.

Contradicting yourself many, many times in this thread.

You are costing yourself money in the long run if you leave shoes with positive counts, even if you are getting your clock cleaned.

 

[biggamejames]

This hurts you as you will spend time finding another game and playing through more marginal/negative expectation hands to find another positive count. You have to remember that when you have a 2% edge that means that you can expect to win 51 and lose 49 out of every 100 bets you place (a little oversimplified, but serves for the purpose). This doesn't depend on which table you are sitting at. This is just what the wins and losses will average out to in the long run. So if they clump together this is perfectly normal and completely unpredictiable.

Hold on one second dood!!!

If we are talking about sd or DD and you have lost several games ..(not just a few hands like some people here claim i am saying) we know for a fact that you have stacked up several losses. I am not talking about getting up in the middle of the shoe, i am talking about the end of 4th DD shoe you have just lost yet you had the positive count yet again. (some people forget that dealers do win a significant number of shoes even with a positive count. They assume that a positive count automatically equates to a win for the bettor. These same people must be baffled when they see the dealer seem to make blackjack hands when the count is ridiculously positive)

At the point your butt leaves the cushion of the seat, there only one thing that is fact ie...You have lost money at this table even when you were supposed to have the advantage. Or one can say that this dealer is on a cold streak. The streak may or may not continue with the next shoe. But the fact is for now, this particular dealer is taking more money than they are paying out. I have said before, this is a matter of fact, it happens to every dealer. If you are willing to chance it that the cold streak ends on the next shoe then you may do so. But if a player prefers not to chance that, then no one on this board has any proof, be it scientific,mathematical or otherwise that his player is making a wrong move by relocating...

The count at this point in time is exactly 0. Your odds are exactly the same at any other table that you may choose to play at in place of the table you are at at this very moment. You can choose to stay and play through another shoe, your odds are the same. You can choose to get up and find another dealer

There is absolutely nothing you lose by moving to another table, outside of the time it takes to physically transfer your body from one place to another!


Time in a casino is 100% replaceable. Money lost is not!!!

No. If they sample enough shoes they will find another positive shoe. But that takes time and as your winnings in blackjack are base on how many hands you can play with an advantage in how short a space of time, this will reduce how much you can expect to earn per hour. Even in SD/DD games, there in no way to guarentee walking straight into another +ve count. In fact as you mentioned earlier, with the no mid-shoe entry rule you are walking away from an advantageous situation to guarentee that the next hand you play will be at a disadvantage.

I have said this before and i will say this again. You are walking away at the end of several shoes where you have lost with positive counts. I did not say you are walking away in the middle of the shoe.. (thank you but please refrain from formulating arguments for me.)

You are walking away at the end of a losing shoe. NOt at the beginning not at in the middle, But at the end of the shoe when the dealer is shuffling the cards to start a new round!


Thats what i am talking about. At you yourself know that at this point in time there is really no advantage you are walking away from.

Matter of fact you are walking away from what has been a disadvantageous position historically. (as in you have lost money in successive shoes even with positive counts)



I hope that helps clarify the position i have been harping on the last few days and still people dont seem to be able to get it.

 

[biggamejames]

But from your first post




and another post



You are right I did not find one post suggesting a player leave a table with a positive count, I found TWO!! What did I win?

Now you are saying you never advocated leaving a table.



You called yourself the voodoo king on page two, not us.

Contradicting yourself many, many times in this thread.

You are costing yourself money in the long run if you leave shoes with positive counts, even if you are getting your clock cleaned.

I think i should handle you with some special kid gloves because you are definatley one poster on this forum who lacks the mental capacity to understand even the simplest of english statements.

Here is my advise to you. If you get some good positive counts in about 3 or 4 shoes but the dealer still beats your brain in and is taking your money, then dood!!!!! GET UP AND LEAVE!!!!

That statement my dear boy means that if you play 3-4 shoes....And finish out the shoes and have lost every single one of them and lost yet you had the positive count then you should leave.


That statement does not in any shape or form advocate for some one to get up and leave in the middle of a positive count!!! At the end of the 3rd or 4th shoe (whichever point you pick)
the shoe is not positive any more. The shoe has come to and end...Get that in your head boy!!!!

I dont see how you came to that conclusion from a statement that clearly specifies the parameters.

If you choose to refuse to understand an argument, even after being educated like a retarded infant. I really cant help you.


If you still dont understand that simple statement, dood!!! (i hope that word doesnt make you pass out)

Then feel free to tell yourself in your mind that its what i said. and that i am wrong then move on and go live your friggin life the way you please

 

[ScottH]

Time in a casino is 100% replaceable. Money lost is not!!!

I think that is backwords. You can always replace the money you lost, but any time lost due to switching tables and waiting for a new positive count can never be recovered.

 

[biggamejames]

I’m sorry if we are boring you with our mathematical proof and relentless logic, but you’ll have to endure just a little bit more if you want to really see how much you’re hurting yourself by playing that way.



But that “shoe leather” is also costing you money. For example, an average player can easily play 100 hands per hour. About 70 of those will be at a disadvantage and about 30 will be at an advantage. If you walk away from half of those good hands

-Sonny-

looks like the b/s train is rolling on full steam ahead.... So let me get this straight if a person walks away from a table, they are walking away only those few hands they were destined to win and not any of the hands they were destined to lose.


Thats great logic sonny...Please keep preaching on.!!!

 

[Sonny]

There is absolutely nothing you lose by moving to another table, outside of the time it takes to physically transfer your body from one place to another!

But there is absolutely nothing to be gained from it either. As we’ve been saying, it is just a waste of time. Just like avoiding tables with bad players. It doesn’t give you any advantage. It just wastes your time, which most people would consider a disadvantage.

-Sonny-

 

[RJT]

That's a bit better.
Scott is right on this, moving to a new table is just time wasted and the more hands per hour that you see the greater your profit, but at least we're not talking about walking away from +ve counts due to superstition.
Actually, the computer sims can make an accurate comparision to real life in this situation as you can program the sim to walk after 3 or 4 losing rounds. This won't change anything of course and you really can't do this, as the dealer's always the same, but it does highlight the point nicely that it doesn't matter who's putting the cards on the table, you'll win the same amount in the long run - that be you're EV as long as you're playing your system accurately.

RJT.

 

[shadroch]

Anyone that is surprised by a dealer getting BJs when the count is high is just not aware of what they are doing.And I've yet to find a serious player anywhere who expects to automatically win when the count is high.If that was the case,they'd simply do an all in as soon as the count got high.
What,in your terms,is the difference between "hands" and "games"

You have it backwards. Money lost in a casino is easily replaced. Time isn't.
You can replace the $15,000 you've lost the last few months,but you'll never get that time you wasted back. Will you?

 

[Sonny]

So let me get this straight if a person walks away from a table, they are walking away only those few hands they were destined to win and not any of the hands they were destined to lose.

I made that comment back when we were discussing leaving during positive counts. Apparently you're going in a different direction now. I'll try to keep up.

-Sonny-

 

[RJT]

looks like the b/s train is rolling on full steam ahead.... So let me get this straight if a person walks away from a table, they are walking away only those few hands they were destined to win and not any of the hands they were destined to lose.

No, but you walk away from opportunity and reduces the number of hands you see. That means that you'll win less in the same time.

RJT.

 

[biggamejames]

But playing when you have the advantage does not burn your BR, it adds to it. Do you not understand that? When you have the advantage, you are winning EV every time you play. You may lose a few hands or go on a losing streak, but if you are betting properly then you will know what kind of streaks to expect and your bankroll will be able to sustain the bad streaks until you hit another good streak. That is just the nature of variance. You cannot escape it by running away from the table. You just have to play intelligently so that the losing streaks don’t hurt you too much.

I’m beginning to have some serious doubts about your understanding the game. You could be hurting yourself more than you think. What count system do you use? What’s your bet spread? What’s your RoR?

-Sonny-

Man...you have the gall to rant and rave about my understanding of the game yet it is you rambling on like a mad man about having the advantage?

You think you have some mythical advantage over any other player playing the same game at another table?

Or are you the last man on this board right now who is still harping about a situation involving one shoe?

Do i need to start another thread to explain to you the circumstances being argued here..

Because your arguments are on an issue that is really not being debated here.


Do yourself a favor take time out to read and understand what is being debated here. Dont go out and pull arguments out of your backside and pretend that your artificial arguments are being discussed.

THEY SIMPLY ARE NOT!!!!!

AND GET THIS IN YOUR HEAD. AT THE BEGINNING THE SHOE YOU HAVE ZERO ADVANTAGE... YOU HAVE NO CLUE ABOUT THE OUT COME SO STOP MAKING BOGUS ARGUMENTS FOCUSSING ON A POSITIVE OUTCOME AND FORGETTING THE FACT THAT THE COIN HAS TWO SIDES!!!

IF I GET UP AND LEAVE YOU TO PLAY AT ANOTHER TABLE YOU HAVE ZERO ADVANTAGE OVER ME..NONE WHATSOEVER!!!

 

[biggamejames]

I made that comment back when we were discussing leaving during positive counts. Apparently you're going in a different direction now. I'll try to keep up.

-Sonny-

YOU AND WHO? ME? BECAUSE i have not advocated for leaving during positive counts. I have advocated leaving a table after 3-4 for shoes where you lost even though you had positive counts during those shoes.

I did not say get up and leave if you have a positive count now did i?

Truth be told you made up your own argument and run with it. You even ignored the 3 other people i have explained this to and decided you are special and get to have your turn....

 

[biggamejames]

No, but you walk away from opportunity and reduces the number of hands you see. That means that you'll win less in the same time.

RJT.

You are making the mistake of assuming that because you reduce your playing time by losing 3-5 minutes changing seats that you will only missout out on hands that wont have a negative impact on your bankroll.

If you sit at the same table and continue to see positive counts that turn out disastrously for you, or you see negative/neutral hands that end up yet again burning your BR, you are in no better position than the guy who never suffered through those hands because he spent that time perusing the casino for another table.


When you make an argument please be cognizant of the other side of the coin.

Yes you see fewer hands (less by 3-5 minutes or so) has both negative and positive aspects to the scenario and not only negative.


And much like you guys want me to dismiss the ploppy who has both negative and positive effects on a game, i can rightly dismiss that loss of time because it may have both positive and negative effects...


Ps...In another thread totally unrelated to this one, i posted about how i have realized the same average profits having cut down my playing time from 8-10 hours of play in a single day to about 5 hours. By simply counting cards and playing at tables where i think i have the best advantage. Ironically i do state in those posts that i was playing on weekdays or early mornings when crowds are sparse... The best time to go table hopping and choosing only those tables that i feel comfortable at.

Seems odd that i am witnessing profits coming much quicker table hopping and avoiding ploppies or calling it quits early.

 

[Sonny]

YOU AND WHO? ME? BECAUSE i have not advocated for leaving during positive counts...I did not say get up and leave if you have a positive count now did i?

Yes you did:

And in your great wisdom if i get up and leave after losing about two of these hands i am going to suffer from greatly because i skipped out on the last two hands...So my Br is going to be greatly hurt because i missed out on two final hands left in the meagre SD or DD?"

You specifically talked about walking away from hands in the middle of the game. You'll have to excuse me if I can't keep up with your changing arguments.

-Sonny-

 

[Sonny]

You think you have some mythical advantage over any other player playing the same game at another table?

That depends. When the other player is looking for “hot streaks”, dealers on a “paying streak”, using stop-loss limits, trying to predict a “vicious losing streak” and not betting properly then yes, I have a considerable advantage over that player and anyone else who plays like him.

-Sonny-

 

[biggamejames]

Yes you did:



You specifically talked about walking away from hands in the middle of the game. You'll have to excuse me if I can't keep up with your changing arguments.

-Sonny-

Actually that argument was specifically tailored for the person i directed it to.

And if you spent all that time arguing that one or two hands (about 40 secs worth of time) are going to have some disastrous, end of the world calamitous, results that will leave me shirtless and broke then you my friend are wasting your time.

the guy who started this thread was not talking about missing out on two measley hands at the end of the shoe. Dont latch onto one small argument made to make a specific, point, and try to run with it assuming that you are imparting some previously uknown rare information.


What you further forget is that if you lose 2 out of say 3 or 4 hands in what was a previously positive count deck the count inevitably takes a hit like wise.

So your chances of actually winning the final two hands are not that much better. (See if you are going to inject yourself in the argument you might as well assume all the possible scenarios instead of just those few which appeal to your side of the debate.

Pretty much most of your posts tend to make rather shallow arguments that glaring omit the other side of the coin. I dont know if you think i am dumb enough to buy most of the arguments you make where you conveniently assume the out comes you argue for will always only come out in your favor!

 

[NDN21]

I seen this train wreck today and I.............

Well I think everyone except BGJ knows how that ended up.

Changing arguements again in mid-thread, eh James?

Just don't lose your train of thought in mid-sentence this time, ok?

If every table has the same advantage or disadvantage (none) when the shoe is over, then why leave the your original table? Explain that one, Master Yoda.

 

[Bojack1]

YOU AND WHO? ME? BECAUSE i have not advocated for leaving during positive counts. I have advocated leaving a table after 3-4 for shoes where you lost even though you had positive counts during those shoes.

I did not say get up and leave if you have a positive count now did i?

Truth be told you made up your own argument and run with it. You even ignored the 3 other people i have explained this to and decided you are special and get to have your turn....

Alright I'll bite. I understand you are NOT leaving the shoe when the count is positive, only when a succession of positive shoes have beat you, and when you have completed play through them, then you leave. Well that leads me to some questions. Now mind you this is only pertaining to shoe games of more than 2 decks. Where are you finding games where shoe after shoe goes positive to the point of larger betting? I find it a bit strange how shoes will be positive on such a regular basis. Are you playing through shoe after shoe playing through large negative counts waiting for positive counts? Its been my experience, not a fact, but my experience, even with multiple people counting shoes at one time like with team play, that you won't find 3 to 4 shoes in a row with multi unit betting opportunities. With that in mind most APs' that I know will rarely sit through 3 to 4 shoes at one table because its almost inevitable that it will become too disadvantageous at some point during such a prolonged time without some sort of advanced technique. Hell even spotters who never raise their bets will move to play fresh tables if the count is not at least close to positive, and usually that is well before 3 or 4 shoes. So basically I'm questioning if your whole argument is based on any real world merit. And if you believe it does, than as asked of you before, what type of counting system do you use. Because I'm wondering how you can be able to find more positve shoes to count than the average counter. Or are you maybe betting when you think you have the advantage but truly do not? Not an accusation just a question.