21gunsalute said:
So how exactly does this work? Do the card gods hold quarterly meetings and say "this guy's been getting screwed for 6 months now, it's time we start steering the good cards his way"? Nope. There is a luck factor involved in every session, every shoe, every hand and every draw. It's this unknown factor that keeps the game interesting, but losing your money time and time again isn't so interesting.
there sort of is a schedule for being screwed by the cards, lmao.
thing is the schedule is in no particular order that we are ever gonna notice.
the good news is, the true count frequencies do live according to a normal distribution.
it's known by simulations of billions of rounds that the favorable true counts come to us less often than the unfavorable true counts.
some where on the order of 70% unfavorable to 30% favorable.
in a sense those favorable and unfavorable periods are ruled by how well we play basic strategy.
so you are correct that you could have just flat bet and done pretty well for a long period of time just using basic strategy. your fluctuation of your bottom line wouldn't be near as volatile.
thing is the house edge is always on the house's side and we judge the degree of the house edge against flat betting with basic strategy, so in the long run with just basic strategy your gonna lose.
the key to winning is that circa 30% favorable times for the true count.
BTW, if as you said "you lose more than you win, even in big counts" you'll never come out ahead. Losing more than you win in big counts simply makes you lose more, faster.
well jackblack said it but in case you missed it, i'll repeat it cause for me it was one of the most important lessons that i learned.
statistical data shows that you will indeed lose more hands than you win, counting or not counting, it doesn't matter.
statistical data also shows that you will win more insurance bets (at 2:1), receive more snappers (at 3:2) and have a higher percentage of successful double downs during that small fraction of time (circa 30% of the time) when the true count is favorable.
so having an optimal amount of money on the table that circa 30% of the time is where you make your money, not by winning more hands than you lose.
seems almost paradoxical, doesn't it?

:whip:
so much for the kool aid, i'd just add, that's how it is supposed to be, but there is still the fact that risk of ruin is never gonna be zero.
with that in mind, i'd say don't ever lose that skeptical attitude you have entirely, it may just be what ends up saving you, lol.