How do you beat a 6-deck game?

[Automatic Monkey]

Oh, I must have misunderstood your thinking in another thread. In that one you stated that counting errors evaluate to little more than decreased penetration. So I went with that train of thought to believe that if an error prone counter such as yourself (you have stated yourself that you have no problem with making mistakes) gets a game with 1 deck penetration, you really won't be getting the advantage of the good penetration due to the fact that counting mistakes have robbed you of it.

No, if I miss a card I'll only be getting the benefit of 1.02 decks pen instead of 1.00 deck. And I'll lie awake in bed tonight worrying about that, for sure.

Am I wrong in my thinking, or is it just a case of misinterpreted semantics on what advantage is? By the way if your mistakes don't allow you to take advantage of 1 deck penetration because you are now technically playing with worse penetration, say 1 1/4 decks, do you still have an advantage over the house at a neutral count seeing you will never play down to the 1 deck?

Yes. If there are 52 cards left in a S17, DAS shoe and there is an even distribution of cards, the player has the advantage, whether he has been counting throughout or if he just walked up to the table. That's due to the floating advantage. But if you were to grab 52 cards at random out of an 8D shoe the average advantage of those grabs will be brought back down to the advantage of an 8D game.

In the unlikely event that I were to miss 13 cards out of a shoe, I still very well may have an advantage, and it could be smaller or greater than I believe it to be (as it could in any counting game, because you don't know when the high cards are coming out, you are only assuming and hoping that enough of them will come out on the next round) but the degree to which I can predict my advantage is diluted by a quarter deck of cards that I can only assume to be random. And because those cards are random my advantage will be smaller more often than it is greater.

 

[EasyRhino]

Please gentlemen, make the semantic jabbing stop.

... I think the best penetration I've gotten from a 6D game was around 3/4 a deck cut off. then again, my deck estimation skills are notoriously bad, so I could be off.

 

[aslan]

You sure your deck estimation skills are up to snuff? The only place I've seen 2D+ cut off (6D game) in AC with any regularity is Resorts. Don't forget there are some 8D games with 1 - 1 1/2 decks cut off and they can be as good, if not better, than some of the 6D games you're seeing.

Yes. I even questioned the dealer and he replied that Borgata wants them to cut 2 decks plus a little more. Thank God they don't all follow the policy, but this past weekend they all seemed to. Maybe weekends are tougher than weekdays, I don't know.

 

[Bojack1]

No, if I miss a card I'll only be getting the benefit of 1.02 decks pen instead of 1.00 deck. And I'll lie awake in bed tonight worrying about that, for sure.




Yes. If there are 52 cards left in a S17, DAS shoe and there is an even distribution of cards, the player has the advantage, whether he has been counting throughout or if he just walked up to the table. That's due to the floating advantage. But if you were to grab 52 cards at random out of an 8D shoe the average advantage of those grabs will be brought back down to the advantage of an 8D game.

In the unlikely event that I were to miss 13 cards out of a shoe, I still very well may have an advantage, and it could be smaller or greater than I believe it to be (as it could in any counting game, because you don't know when the high cards are coming out, you are only assuming and hoping that enough of them will come out on the next round) but the degree to which I can predict my advantage is diluted by a quarter deck of cards that I can only assume to be random. And because those cards are random my advantage will be smaller more often than it is greater.

As to your first point I would be going on the premise that through burn cards and mistakes that you would be missing much more than just a card. Thats just what I have come to notice from those that aren't as diligent in not allowing counting errors.

As to the next point, I made an error in wording what was really meant to be a rhetorical question. So yes I agree with your statement about the 52 cards remaining and having an advantage or not based on what distribution they are. The problem I have is that if your making mistakes in your counting as you go through the shoe, you will not realize the advantage, or falsley believe the advantage is larger than what is true, and be betting incorrectly. At any rate as Sonny has stated if this problem is chronic, which it is in most cases of poor counting skills, you have the chance of burning up your bankroll before mistakes cancel out. My original point being it doesn't matter how good a game is, if you aren't counting correctly, based on whatever system you choose to use, you cannot identify the advantage thus your betting may actually make your game -EV, even with the best of games.

The bottomline is this, and it goes along the lines of what you already stated, there will be advantages whether you are counting or not. What seperates an AP from a ploppy is being able to have an idea when there may be an advantage, and how to correlate your bet with it. What ever system you use for finding the advantage, if not used properly will either be weakened, or nullified. So if you choose not to strive for playing your system to its highest potential, why bother playing one at all?

 

[AnIrishmannot2brite]

Yes. I even questioned the dealer and he replied that Borgata wants them to cut 2 decks plus a little more. Thank God they don't all follow the policy, but this past weekend they all seemed to. Maybe weekends are tougher than weekdays, I don't know.

I've noticed this at a place out near here. Not one of my favorites. During weekdays they cut around 65% to 75%. On weekends they hit closer to 50% on six deck shoes. Despite that I once made a decent score in a 50% penetration deck simply because the T/C went very high anyway. Plus they raise the min bet on weekends.

 

[ihate17]

Casino management, not too bright!

I've noticed this at a place out near here. Not one of my favorites. During weekdays they cut around 65% to 75%. On weekends they hit closer to 50% on six deck shoes. Despite that I once made a decent score in a 50% penetration deck simply because the T/C went very high anyway. Plus they raise the min bet on weekends.

During the weekdays, when they are slow, they deal a better game. During the weekdays, when they are slow is when most advantage players would show up.

During the weekends when they are busy, they deal a poor game to poor weekend players. Mostly they just shuffle and shuffle.
They should provide good pen on weekends so the poor weekend players will be betting instead of watching the dealer shuffle. The cardcounters are not there, avoiding the full tables.

They only have it all backwards

ihate17

 

[rogue1]

Memorize the 3 most important things:

#1. Penetration
#2. Penetration
#3. Penetration

 

[Automatic Monkey]

As to your first point I would be going on the premise that through burn cards and mistakes that you would be missing much more than just a card. Thats just what I have come to notice from those that aren't as diligent in not allowing counting errors.

As to the next point, I made an error in wording what was really meant to be a rhetorical question. So yes I agree with your statement about the 52 cards remaining and having an advantage or not based on what distribution they are. The problem I have is that if your making mistakes in your counting as you go through the shoe, you will not realize the advantage, or falsley believe the advantage is larger than what is true, and be betting incorrectly. At any rate as Sonny has stated if this problem is chronic, which it is in most cases of poor counting skills, you have the chance of burning up your bankroll before mistakes cancel out. My original point being it doesn't matter how good a game is, if you aren't counting correctly, based on whatever system you choose to use, you cannot identify the advantage thus your betting may actually make your game -EV, even with the best of games.

Actually, no, it's virtually impossible to make the kind of BJ game we would normally think of as +EV, into -EV, with counting errors. You can miss entire rounds of cards, you can reverse the count multiple times, and you are still making money. The mathematics of blackjack proves this. This is not to say that I recommend making errors, just that until you are able to run a combinatorial analysis on all remaining cards for every play and bet while you are at the table (Hey, does BJI offer a seminar on how to do this???:laugh: ) everything you do is an approximation, and thus an error.

The bottomline is this, and it goes along the lines of what you already stated, there will be advantages whether you are counting or not. What seperates an AP from a ploppy is being able to have an idea when there may be an advantage, and how to correlate your bet with it. What ever system you use for finding the advantage, if not used properly will either be weakened, or nullified. So if you choose not to strive for playing your system to its highest potential, why bother playing one at all?

Blackjack problems are quantitative, and the language you are using is qualitative. If someone tells me "A system not used properly will be weakened," my first reaction is to ask "By how much?" Not estimating decks to a single card weakens your system. Not using over 100 playing indices weakens your system. Not sidecounting aces, 8's, 7's, 3's etc. weakens your system. "How much?" is the critical question, and failing to ask this question can lead to superstitious thinking.

Most AP's agree that extreme numbers of indices, sidecounts, high-level counts and the like are for most situations a waste of time. They are cool but they don't get the money any more effectively than the more manageable systems, and being a level 5 system does not get the money significantly more effectively than a level 1 or 2 system where, comparatively speaking, every card counted introduces an error, how then can eliminating random counting errors from your level 1 or 2 system get the money?

The answer is: it can't, and it doesn't sit well with me to advise rookies to waste a lot of time trying to ensure their counting is error-free when that time could be spent earning money and gaining experience at the table, nor to pay exorbitant amounts (or really, any amount) of precious bankroll to someone you meet on the internet for lessons in doing same.

 

[Bojack1]

Actually, no, it's virtually impossible to make the kind of BJ game we would normally think of as +EV, into -EV, with counting errors. You can miss entire rounds of cards, you can reverse the count multiple times, and you are still making money. The mathematics of blackjack proves this. This is not to say that I recommend making errors, just that until you are able to run a combinatorial analysis on all remaining cards for every play and bet while you are at the table (Hey, does BJI offer a seminar on how to do this???:laugh: ) everything you do is an approximation, and thus an error.



Blackjack problems are quantitative, and the language you are using is qualitative. If someone tells me "A system not used properly will be weakened," my first reaction is to ask "By how much?" Not estimating decks to a single card weakens your system. Not using over 100 playing indices weakens your system. Not sidecounting aces, 8's, 7's, 3's etc. weakens your system. "How much?" is the critical question, and failing to ask this question can lead to superstitious thinking.

Most AP's agree that extreme numbers of indices, sidecounts, high-level counts and the like are for most situations a waste of time. They are cool but they don't get the money any more effectively than the more manageable systems, and being a level 5 system does not get the money significantly more effectively than a level 1 or 2 system where, comparatively speaking, every card counted introduces an error, how then can eliminating random counting errors from your level 1 or 2 system get the money?

The answer is: it can't, and it doesn't sit well with me to advise rookies to waste a lot of time trying to ensure their counting is error-free when that time could be spent earning money and gaining experience at the table, nor to pay exorbitant amounts (or really, any amount) of precious bankroll to someone you meet on the internet for lessons in doing same.

So I guess with your line of thinking any ploppy will have a +EV game if he sits at a 6 deck shoe game that has 1 deck penetration with good rules. If not having an accurate count won't effect your EV due the fact counting is already just an approximation, thus really full of errors already, why bother to count at all. I mean if the system already has errors why not just pile a bunch more on top of it, because as you put it its really impossible to change a good game into a bad one. I'm sure there are many non counters that are happy to here this. Don't let your secret out though, the casinos might change the game on you.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

So I guess with your line of thinking any ploppy will have a +EV game if he sits at a 6 deck shoe game that has 1 deck penetration with good rules. If not having an accurate count won't effect your EV due the fact counting is already just an approximation, thus really full of errors already, why bother to count at all. I mean if the system already has errors why not just pile a bunch more on top of it, because as you put it its really impossible to change a good game into a bad one. I'm sure there are many non counters that are happy to here this. Don't let your secret out though, the casinos might change the game on you.

That's not what I said. You can change a good game into a less good one by not using an apt strategy, but you can't change +EV into -EV that way. Renzey proved with the Front Count that once you get to a positive count, you can sit down and stop counting and you are still playing a +EV game. There's Ace-Five, there's OPP, which aren't systems I would want to use but they are still +EV. Your assertion is that a poor counter can change +EV into -EV with mere counting errors that he might not even notice, and mine is that there is no way that can be, given all the other short-cuts you can take and still be playing +EV.

 

[RJT]

You know i've stayed out of this one which is usual for me, but i would like to make one observation - and this is from personal experience, so take what you will from it.
I know a few teams and many AP's - or at least players who call themselves AP. This is just talking about the ones that i have more communication with than just internet message boards.
I know all the maths behind this and i know how little an error cost you when run through a simulator. I've also been witness to how many mistakes the average player makes and it's more than they every think it is. Funny how everyone - including myself - always thinks they are better than they are.
Thing is, the people i know who are making money - and i mean good money - are all perfectionists. They don't accept errors, and will ensure that they make as few of them as they possibly can by obscene amount of practice.
I know countless players who talk a good game and who know the theory, but seem to have at best mediocre results year after year. I've advised a couple of teams who've had standards that were considerably lower than mine and watched them quite literally piss money away, the most sever of which lost over $100k in a year.
Maybe i can't prove anything mathematically on this one, and hey this is a message board so i am pretty much whoever i want to be and no-one here other than the few who have spoken to me will ever know anything about me other than what i choose to tell them, so i could be full of $hit, but i do find it strange that the successful players i know all play their systems as close to perfectly as possible, and the players who are happy to make the mistakes or too lazy to put the practice in consistently seem to have mediocre results. It also strikes me as strange that the same players i know that have middling results are usually the ones who'll tell me that a mistake doesn't count for much.
I got an email a few years back with the subject 'you are wrong because' and i always think of a couple of examples from it when i hear these arguments -

"Ignoring All Anecdotal Evidence:
Example: I always get hives after eating strawberries.
But without a scientifically controlled experiment,
it's not reliable data. So I continue to eat
strawberries everyday, since I can't tell that they
cause hives. "

"Faulty Pattern Recognition:
Example: His last six wives were murdered
mysteriously. I hope to be wife number seven. "

RJT.

 

[JoeV]

You know i've stayed out of this one which is usual for me, but i would like to make one observation - and this is from personal experience, so take what you will from it.
I know a few teams and many AP's - or at least players who call themselves AP. This is just talking about the ones that i have more communication with than just internet message boards.
I know all the maths behind this and i know how little an error cost you when run through a simulator. I've also been witness to how many mistakes the average player makes and it's more than they every think it is. Funny how everyone - including myself - always thinks they are better than they are.
Thing is, the people i know who are making money - and i mean good money - are all perfectionists. They don't accept errors, and will ensure that they make as few of them as they possibly can by obscene amount of practice.
I know countless players who talk a good game and who know the theory, but seem to have at best mediocre results year after year. I've advised a couple of teams who've had standards that were considerably lower than mine and watched them quite literally piss money away, the most sever of which lost over $100k in a year.
Maybe i can't prove anything mathematically on this one, and hey this is a message board so i am pretty much whoever i want to be and no-one here other than the few who have spoken to me will ever know anything about me other than what i choose to tell them, so i could be full of $hit, but i do find it strange that the successful players i know all play their systems as close to perfectly as possible, and the players who are happy to make the mistakes or too lazy to put the practice in consistently seem to have mediocre results. It also strikes me as strange that the same players i know that have middling results are usually the ones who'll tell me that a mistake doesn't count for much.
I got an email a few years back with the subject 'you are wrong because' and i always think of a couple of examples from it when i hear these arguments -

"Ignoring All Anecdotal Evidence:
Example: I always get hives after eating strawberries.
But without a scientifically controlled experiment,
it's not reliable data. So I continue to eat
strawberries everyday, since I can't tell that they
cause hives. "

"Faulty Pattern Recognition:
Example: His last six wives were murdered
mysteriously. I hope to be wife number seven. "

RJT.

No disrespect to you Mr.Monkey but this is more of how I want to play the game. I'm sure you are an excellent player and I do enjoy reading your posts, but I need to be the kind of person who does the best I can at everything I try to do. It doesn't mean I have to be the best because I very rarely am, but I have to try to get the most out of what I do. And one thing I learned recently was that blackjack can wreak havoc on your mind and your emotions when things are supposed to be good but instead go bad. Having great confidence in what I'm doing at such times eases if not eliminates the horrible feelings that come with bad variance. I know for sure its not my fault and it gets rid of foolish thoughts like steaming or throwing away my game plan. That is worth it to me to try to be perfect.

 

[bluewhale]

That's not what I said. You can change a good game into a less good one by not using an apt strategy, but you can't change +EV into -EV that way. Renzey proved with the Front Count that once you get to a positive count, you can sit down and stop counting and you are still playing a +EV game. There's Ace-Five, there's OPP, which aren't systems I would want to use but they are still +EV. Your assertion is that a poor counter can change +EV into -EV with mere counting errors that he might not even notice, and mine is that there is no way that can be, given all the other short-cuts you can take and still be playing +EV.

I have been watching you and Bojack1 and RJT (not sure what his screen name is but i'm sure you know who i'm talking about) been going back and forth on this issue for a long time now. I have been on the fence here, as i respect all of your opinions very much. However with this final discussion, i have finally decided.

I think that AM is assuming that players who practice a little bit will be able to make relatively few mistakes and be playing with enough of an advantage. You're making one HUGE mistake. You assume ppl have common sense. A friend of mine who started counting a year ago, read a little bit online, practiced a bit, and headed out w/ me to the casino. We had both practiced enough to be off the RC by no more than 3 (8D game). However we start putting out the bets, and on many occasions I notice that he is betting something like 2 or 3 higher TC than me. for this to be true, we'd have to be off the RC by something like 10 or more. So obv. i'm freaking out at the table (my buddy being probably a slightly better counter at the time). Later that day i find out the problem: he had read online info about 6 deck shoes... he noticed the cut out 2 decks... he assumed he shld just forget about the 2 cut decks... so when 5 decks were dealt, he was dividing by 1, while i was dividing by 3. obv. this HIGHLY overestimates the TC. this coupled with him spreading $5-$15, top bet reached at a tc of 8, playing all, no indicies, and being off the RC by 3 on avg., makes him, overall, a terrible player. now throw in that his bankroll was $300 and you realize that even IF (and thats a huge IF), hes playing a positive game, his ROR is going to be through the roof pretty much guaranteeing failure.

By advocating what you do, you only give the bad players a chance to justify their life losses. You might also think that the mistakes my buddy make are extremely stupid and nobody else would make them, i would disagree here also. I think anyone who does a half-hearted job at learning how to count and is consistently off, can easily make any or all of those mistakes. My point being that although it seems like a mediocre counter's time would be better spent practicing and earning money at the tables, this is generally not the case. Sure it will work in specific examples, and I actually do support AM in those cases... but those kind of people who only lack the actual practice but posses all the knowledge about the game will realize that they can beat the game, even with their imperfect skills, on their own and don't need anyone to tell them this.

 

[sagefr0g]

Jacobson on mistakes......

from The Blackjack Zone by Eliot Jacobson page 146

"Mistakes are costly no doubt. But the fear of them is over-emphasized to the beginner, and that fear persists with the professionals. We do not need to play perfectly to be winners. We can be downright lousy players and still beat the game."

 

[RJT]

from The Blackjack Zone by Eliot Jacobson page 146

"Mistakes are costly no doubt. But the fear of them is over-emphasized to the beginner, and that fear persists with the professionals. We do not need to play perfectly to be winners. We can be downright lousy players and still beat the game."

I feel you've kind of missed my point Sage, but again this is going to be anacdotal so perhaps that sort of evidence isn't enough to justify any argument here, espcially if you're not the the one who knows the people involved.
I find the above quote fairly ammusing but before i start i would like to emphasize that i do not know Eliot Jackobson, nor do i knowingly know anyone who knows or plays with him, so this is not specifically in referrence to him.
I know several different people who have played with many of the diffent prolific authors and authorities on the scene and honestly you'd be surprised who isn't all that good and i don't mean just that they are making mistakes, i mean that they are not winning! There are a number that don't actually make a living out of play as they are just not good enough. They don't win in the long run.
There are several other authors that use the reputation that their books have earned them to get investors to back them, teams they train or indeed get them on to other pre-existing teams - at that point they have a no lose situation. If they or the team wins - they win. If they or the team loses - the investor loses and they'll tell the investor they had bad variance. If they lose whilst playing on someone elses team, they'll still recieve a payday and it'll take that long to find out statistically that they are not winning that they potentially stand to make a lot of money anyway.
I'm not naming names because that's not my place and despite this, i do repect some of these people on other levels. Whilst i don't always agree with this sort of behaviour - in fact i have several problems with it - i feel that in some of the cases it's not done out of badness but out an over-estimation of the person's own skill. Several of the people i am discussing would actually surprise you, i know they did me.
I suppose the point is that just because someone's written a book on the subject that's mathematically correct, it really doesn't mean that they know how to play. As much as i don't like Stalker and cohort, sometimes where they are critisizing certain members of the community it's not just out of badness or an enjoyment of stiring trouble. Sometimes these people don't meet their lofy standards in either their skill at the game or their success at getting the money. I'm not saying that every critisisim they make is genuine, that's for everyone here to find out by themselves, but sometimes you have to read between the lines even when you don't like many to the things the person talking has said and done.
At this point i do feel that this dicussion will go further in any informative sense and would ask Sonny when he gets the chance to close the thread. I think it's plain enough for everyone to see as this has been discussed several times that you have 2 very partisan groups who's conversation is going round in circles. I doubt that the people involved will ever actually reconsile their views, so perhaps it's best to leave this conversation here.

RJT.

 

[MAZ]

Not a bad post RJT, although a little long. But its right on in the assessment of those doling out advice are not in tune with whats up. A lot of popular authors and even pros are not in touch with the real game the average person plays. They don't make their money at the game the way all you here are trying to make it. Just keep that in mind.

As for making mistakes, please wake up people. If you sit down in front of your computer and hammer out a sim figuring in mistakes, yeah you might be surprised how you still make money. Now if you figure in all the mistakes a lazy ass counter really makes, its still on the + side but look at ROR and times the bankroll tapped out getting to the end result. This is where you need to get the f**k up from behind your computer and start playing the game the right friggin way. Most of you that play, if you blew through your bankroll a few times would either give up or proclaim that counting doesn't work, this is a fact. So yeah, run your sims to prove a lazy incompetent counter can win, and watch how it doesn't matter one bit because they never make it that far.

 

[sagefr0g]

lol, yes Sonny lock this thread. go ahead certain people have made their point so why let anyone else put their two cents worth in. after all this thread is only about how to beat the six deck game. not of much value to any one, lol... ignore the fact that all parties have valid points and lets move on to the same old re-hash of the things that everyone already knows or should know. the point made about the ace/ten count and the fact that one can suspend counting in a six deck game and still maintain an advantage should be of no interest to the pragmitists on board the forum. here is another idea we can just gloss over that being Schlesingers ideas about wong out points ie. that there is some point where it just isn't worth while to continue counting down a pack relatively speaking. shudder to think there might be a reason for that. but what ever we do let's not even consider allowing this thread to stray into the taboo subject of gambling, lol . we might end up stirring up a controversy in the blackjack community the likes of which were known when classic art was confronted by impressionism, classic music met rock n roll or heaven forbid jazz.
not trying to say i know anything here, lol just find the subject fascinating.

 

[sagefr0g]

.........As for making mistakes, please wake up people. If you sit down in front of your computer and hammer out a sim figuring in mistakes, yeah you might be surprised how you still make money. Now if you figure in all the mistakes a lazy ass counter really makes, its still on the + side but look at ROR and times the bankroll tapped out getting to the end result. This is where you need to get the f**k up from behind your computer and start playing the game the right friggin way. Most of you that play, if you blew through your bankroll a few times would either give up or proclaim that counting doesn't work, this is a fact. So yeah, run your sims to prove a lazy incompetent counter can win, and watch how it doesn't matter one bit because they never make it that far.

agreed, let's just not forget the same scenerio holds true for the diligent competent counter as well.

 

[sagefr0g]

I feel you've kind of missed my point Sage, but again this is going to be anacdotal so perhaps that sort of evidence isn't enough to justify any argument here, espcially if you're not the the one who knows the people involved.
I find the above quote fairly ammusing but before i start i would like to emphasize that i do not know Eliot Jackobson
.......

lol, no RJT i didn't miss your point, or at least i don't think i did. i wasn't responding to your point with the quote per se.
IMHO the book The Blackjack Zone from where the quote came is a good one. you may want to take a look at it.
anecdotal or not it's not hard to imagine that counters make a lot of mistakes that they are not aware of. what is it they say, "practice makes perfect" and all that. can't argue with those points.

 

[RJT]

agreed, let's just not forget the same scenerio holds true for the diligent competent counter as well.

Hey Sage, if you want to get a bee up your a$$ about this, far be it from me to pull it out for you. Feel free to rant and rave and get as sarcastic as you like, just as long as you keep ignoring the point. Plenty of room for the discussion of all the points you've made, but frankly how many threads have we seen go down this path before? How many of them end up getting burried under so much argument that everyone baring the people involved have stopped reading? At some point it's time to call time out on it and this thread was rapidly heading down those very lines.
As to the quote above, sorry but that's not the case. It'll take far longer to overcome SD when you have a lower advantage. That simple.
I'll get round to reading The Blackjack Zone at some point or another, but i can't say i'm in any rush. You can find it as hard to imagine as you like, but i've watched people getting checked out and have trained a few myself and most people make far more mistakes than they think they're making.

RJT.