Flawed logic?

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Cyrano

Well-Known Member
What Steve said in the previous thread reminded me of something I've read earlier and I wanted to ask you all what you think. A few days ago, I was reading about a strategy Uston employed (http://www.gamblingtimes.com/school_articles/blackjack_8.html) where when the count goes negative, he would bet 2-3 hands of say $100, and when the count was significantly high, he would only bet one hand of $1000. The logic follows that if he bets more hands at the negative, then he's eating up all the negative cards and when he bets only 1 hand at the positive count, then he's saving more hands at positive. Has anybody else heard of this?

That makes sense, no? Not to me... Here's why: at the negative hands, he's playing THREE hands of negatives to ONE hand of the dealer. Instead, if he plays only 1 hand for 2 rounds, then he would have played TWO hands at negative and the dealer would have played TWO hands also, netting 1 negative hand you don't need to play.

I can't figure out why Uston would do such a thing since it goes against such a basic concept that I'm sure he knows inside and out. He's not the only one. I've seen a couple counter's "gambits" also follow this rule. Can someone tell me if I'm wrong on this?
 
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Abraham de Moivre

Well-Known Member
You are counting the wrong thing. You are looking at number of negative hands played, instead of looking at number of negative $$$ played.

In the Uston example, he is betting $300 (3 X 100) in negative counts, and betting $1000 (1 x 1000) in positive counts. And the Pit gets thrown off, because it is not a 'spread' in the traditional counter sense. It looks like some kind of voodoo number of hands "card flow" nonsense.

Look at it this way. Say in a negative count the edge goes to -2% from it normal -1/2%. That 3 hand by $100 move costs $18.

Now if you were able to pay a dealer $18 for him to throw a bunch of little cards out of the deck and allow you to start playing for $1000 a hand against the remaining cards, would you do it?

Or would you insist on only paying him $6 to throw a smaller amount of cards away several times?
 
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Cyrano

Well-Known Member
GZ, any reason why you start with 3h's of 1u instead of 2h's of 1 u for negative counts? I mean, at neg. count, you're playing at a disadvantage. Why would you want to throw out more money for less hands? I understand you need to try to keep SOME cover, hence 2h's instead of one. If you only play 2 h's, then the dealer will waste more of the small cards for you. Heck, assuming you're standard unit is $25, you can play 2h's of 1.25 u (1 green on top of 1 red to look like you have 2 green's--$60 total) and that would still be cheaper than 3h's of $25.
 
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Cyrano

Well-Known Member
--It would be cheaper for Uston if he bet 2x150 because for every 6 hands he plays, the dealer must play 3 (spend more cards). If he plays 3x100, then for every 6 hands Uston plays, the dealer only plays 2 hands (spends LESS cards). I don't think he needed to worry about the Pit, since all of this was staged and televised. Heck, he should have just played 1x300, because for every 6 hands he plays, the dealer would have to play 6 hands also (maximizing the number of cards used at negative counts/cost).

In the Uston example, he is betting $300 (3 X 100) in negative counts, and betting $1000 (1 x 1000) in positive counts. And the Pit gets thrown off, because it is not a 'spread' in the traditional counter sense. It looks like some kind of voodoo number of hands "card flow" nonsense
 
zengrifter

zengrifter

Banned
That betting method is an esoteric tech with fundamental soundness on several levels - card-eating is time-eating in -Ev territory - in a good 1D game a spread of 3x1u to 1x5u can have a higher Ev than a traditional 1-4u (per 100 rounds) - there are a number of creative applications here, albeit with higher variance. zg
 
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Cyrano

Well-Known Member
Re: Flawed logic? PS

Perhaps you're right. Do you happen to know what offsets the higher negative EV (by playing more hands at negative counts)? Your bet spread is still the same, 1-5, but you're playing more hands at negative counts (3 hands of 1u). Intuitively, it would seem that your disadvantage has just increased substantially.
 
zengrifter

zengrifter

Banned
Re: Flawed logic? PS

Your bet spread is still the same, 1-5, but you're playing more hands at negative counts (3 hands of 1u). Intuitively, it would seem that your disadvantage has just increased substantially.
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You are confusing #hands with #rounds, I think.

Example - roundONE: -Ev 3x1u (3u), then roundsTWO-THREE-FOUR: +Ev 1x5u + 1x5u + 1x5u = 15u (ie 3u-15u spread). Time is money and in the instant example we accelerated our way thru the -Ev TIME (yet to the conventional counter we appear to be spreading only 3u-5u or virtually no spread ay all). Note, 'Consolidation' betting is an advanced concept that carries a higher risk/variance - not suggested for novices. zg
 
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