Inside the mind of a bj pro

[FLASH1296]

Perfect Risk-Averse play on your part.

I use Hi-Opt II in DD games and ZEN in shoe games.

I use a wide array of indices, and believe that we all should, inspite of popular opinion to the contrary.

 

[jack.jackson]

Perfect Risk-Averse play on your part.

I use Hi-Opt II in DD games and ZEN in shoe games.

I use a wide array of indices, and believe that we all should, inspite of popular opinion to the contrary.

I love Ho2, with its high PE and IC, "in addition" to risk averse indices, will substansially lower your RoR.

 

[gibsonlp33stl]

Any good references for learning the hi-opt II count? I'm on Hi-Lo right now, but I'd love to add a challenge of learning that if I could see some benefit.

 

[bjcount]

Perfect Risk-Averse play on your part.

Thanks for the positive vote!

So after reading the replies I went to the hand probability chart (unfortunately did not include splits). I looked at all possible compositions of 12's which gave us a range of 60.1-60.3% to lose

6,6 vs 2 60.2% to lose

Now looking at splitting 6's I used all compositions of #,6 vs 2:

A,6 v 2 46% (to lose)
2,6 v 2 51.80
3,6 v 2 44.70
4,6 v 2 36.80
5,6 v 2 34.00
6,7 v 2 63.10
6,8 v 2 65.60
6,9 v 2 68.50
6,T v 2 71.00

I had 5 chances to improve my original hand by splitting and 5 chances to make it worse, but on the 5 that improve my hand, only 4 chances were to win at 55% or better.

By pulling the third six to make 18, it gave me a 79.7% of losing v 2.

Heat or no heat, in regards to a RA play, there was a much greater chance of losing so perhaps hitting was the correct play.

BJC

 

[FLASH1296]

Did you do a weighted average with quadruple weight for 6,T ?

 

[bjcount]

Did you do a weighted average with quadruple weight for 6,T ?

I just took a simple approach using Ken's hand probability chart for 6d, and the percentages are per single hand. If I understand you correctly your saying that if I had to split to 4 hands of 16 v 2...... oh that's too much for words itself... I feel I made the correct decision.

BJC

 

[FLASH1296]

There are four different cards that have a value of TEN (10) so it occurs at a quadruple rate.

 

[bjcount]

There are four different cards that have a value of TEN (10) so it occurs at a quadruple rate.

Your correct.. I missed that all together in my post. So I had 9 possible losing hands vs 5 possible winning hands and the same 4 hands with a better then 50% chance of winning.

BJC

 

[EasyRhino]

While I agree that risk aversion was probably the cause of the play, I don't know if the play was really a smart "risk averse departure", reducing ROR. Mainly beucase I have no idea how to compute RA indices.

I don't think that the play would have any impact on heat. 66 v 2 is a pretty obscure play, that no one would really know what the hell to think of one way or another.

(If you want heat, just the other day I had the chance to double A,8 v 6 for the first time in forever, and drew a deuce, of all things).

 

[White Guy]

I never got why that is not a BS play but 9v3-6 it is... A,8 I double at +1 v 6.. The variation I use is 2 for 5 and 5 for 4 but if I have a small bet out I will double v 5 at any positive count usually and never got a duece though..

 

[FLASH1296]

A-8 is stronger than hard 9

A-8 is stronger than hard 9

Soft 19 stays the same or improves with 6 cards.

Hard 9 has only 5 cards to do the same.

Also Soft 19 can catch 2 other cards, a 9 or an 8, and still win sometimes.

 

[bjcount]

Playing all in 6d I use a 1-12 spread. Recently after playing for a 6 hour run in which the counts barely reached a TC+3 for just a few of the shoes, I ran into a vein of gold. The shoe started off at the top with a +RC and not a single hand played did the RC ever drop below the previous hands count. I won nearly every hand as the rest of the table looked on in disbelief. By the end of the third deck we had a RC of 56 which gave us an incredible TC+9 (lvl2 1/2ctd). I had my max bet out starting at TC+5, 12u, and continued to win many of the hands. So I thought to myself, "PUT THE MONEY OUT!" Contiplating the thought of blowing the dicipline I have worked so hard to maintain, in a split second I said to myself, well it's just like bumping up my spread to 1-20. Raising my RoR, but let's run with the shoe I'm not giving up a 4% advantage without a fight!
So I bumped up my bet to 20u. Needless to say I continued to win right to the end of the shoe. Overall I lost 4 or 5 hands- one max bet loss was because the numb nuts next to me decided it was great play to DD 7 vs 4 just to watch the dealer pull 20.

From a 8u buy in I cashed out 120u in one shoe... I was shocked!

So my question is, were my thoughts correct in bumping up my spread in this particular situation accepting the fact that my RoR was increased substantially at a time when my advantage was at an extreme level.

BJC

 

[kewljason]

,
So my question is, were my thoughts correct in bumping up my spread in this particular situation accepting the fact that my RoR was increased substantially at a time when my advantage was at an extreme level.

BJC

It's pretty difficult to say you were wrong with results like that, :laugh: so I will just say if you are willing to accept the substantially increased RoR, go for it, otherwise you are overbetting. Gambling if you will. Depends on one's tolerance for RoR and ability to replenish bankroll. Personally I have a non-replenishable BR, so I set my RoR and max bet prior to playing and never deviate from it. I am forced to be disciplined and perhaps miss out on such opportunities.

 

[EasyRhino]

A bet almost twice as big at TC +9 compared to TC +5 wouldn't be terrible, unless that money became a very large fraction of your bankroll (and that would mean you're probably in trouble already).

However, you would also need to size down rigorously as the count dropped, and since TC +9 is so rare anyway, you're not missing out on much by using your traditional "max bet" at those counts.

 

[moo321]

Playing all in 6d I use a 1-12 spread. Recently after playing for a 6 hour run in which the counts barely reached a TC+3 for just a few of the shoes, I ran into a vein of gold. The shoe started off at the top with a +RC and not a single hand played did the RC ever drop below the previous hands count. I won nearly every hand as the rest of the table looked on in disbelief. By the end of the third deck we had a RC of 56 which gave us an incredible TC+9 (lvl2 1/2ctd). I had my max bet out starting at TC+5, 12u, and continued to win many of the hands. So I thought to myself, "PUT THE MONEY OUT!" Contiplating the thought of blowing the dicipline I have worked so hard to maintain, in a split second I said to myself, well it's just like bumping up my spread to 1-20. Raising my RoR, but let's run with the shoe I'm not giving up a 4% advantage without a fight!
So I bumped up my bet to 20u. Needless to say I continued to win right to the end of the shoe. Overall I lost 4 or 5 hands- one max bet loss was because the numb nuts next to me decided it was great play to DD 7 vs 4 just to watch the dealer pull 20.

From a 8u buy in I cashed out 120u in one shoe... I was shocked!

So my question is, were my thoughts correct in bumping up my spread in this particular situation accepting the fact that my RoR was increased substantially at a time when my advantage was at an extreme level.

BJC

20 might be a little high, but I can't imagine it's terrible considering you were prepared for a 1-12 spread.

 

[sagefr0g]

Bong

Playing all in 6d I use a 1-12 spread. Recently after playing for a 6 hour run in which the counts barely reached a TC+3 for just a few of the shoes, I ran into a vein of gold. The shoe started off at the top with a +RC and not a single hand played did the RC ever drop below the previous hands count. I won nearly every hand as the rest of the table looked on in disbelief. By the end of the third deck we had a RC of 56 which gave us an incredible TC+9 (lvl2 1/2ctd). I had my max bet out starting at TC+5, 12u, and continued to win many of the hands. So I thought to myself, "PUT THE MONEY OUT!" Contiplating the thought of blowing the dicipline I have worked so hard to maintain, in a split second I said to myself, well it's just like bumping up my spread to 1-20. Raising my RoR, but let's run with the shoe I'm not giving up a 4% advantage without a fight!
So I bumped up my bet to 20u. Needless to say I continued to win right to the end of the shoe. Overall I lost 4 or 5 hands- one max bet loss was because the numb nuts next to me decided it was great play to DD 7 vs 4 just to watch the dealer pull 20.

From a 8u buy in I cashed out 120u in one shoe... I was shocked!

So my question is, were my thoughts correct in bumping up my spread in this particular situation accepting the fact that my RoR was increased substantially at a time when my advantage was at an extreme level.

BJC

voodoo, not in your game plan, not well thought out ahead, then it seems unprofessional.
if you'd of lost those hands the answer would have been more apparent.
glad you won the loot.:3rd:

 

[EasyRhino]

Good point from mr frog.

Betting 20 units in a ridiculous count may not be a big deal (depending on unit size).

But deviating from game plan can be serious.

 

[sagefr0g]

the differance a pro & rec can make

Good point from.

Betting 20 units in a ridiculous count may not be a big deal (depending on unit size).

But deviating from game plan can be serious.

doing that sort of thing on rare occasions (and such counts are rare enough) as a recreational player could be the stuff of dreams or nightmares.

but i wonder if a pro could specialize in such stuff?

 

[bjcount]

Good point from mr frog.

Betting 20 units in a ridiculous count may not be a big deal (depending on unit size).

But deviating from game plan can be serious.

This weekends play was really hurt by that one spectacular shoe from the post above. It blew my discipline out of the water. I started to push my bets above the 1-12 spread I usually use and do well at as a DISIPLINED green chipper. After some massive blows early in my session I had to go to very chunky red breaking down my TC's into 1/2 counts and using some opposition betting so my bet was always moving around.
It was tough going in green this trip, never getting any stacks of black. For some dumb reason when I was at chunky red I was able to build multiple stacks of green quickly.
Overall this weekend's lack of disipline really hurt my play. Back to my studies I go...:whip:

Time to take a break in the action and recoup...

Just a word of wisdom to those who think you should look at a chip as a piece of clay.
So your stacking up those red and wish they were black. You say to yourself, if I can do it in red, why shouldn't I go to black?
Really think about it. You buy in for $200 thats 40 red chips. Your stack goes up and down maybe down to 5 chips and then back up to 80 chips, well that all sounds great, but that was only $200 to start with.
So you think you can do it in black? Well that same buy in of 40 black chips is $4,000. Will you have the nerve to put out a 1-12 spread when the times right? Do you have the bankroll in your pocket to play the hand correctly at a 10 unit bet? Will you have the nerve to put up $1000 (TC+4) then pull a pair of 9's v 6 and split them which means you have to put up another $1000. Then you pull a 2 on the 9 which means you have to DD for another $1000. Then the second 9 pulls another 9. So you have $3000 on the line with a decent hand. Are you going to wimp out and not split the last 9's? Or maybe you don't have the bankroll. If you can't play it right, don't attempt to play above the limits of your bankroll.

I saw this happen yesterday to a guy with a $1500 bet. (6d) He was split 3 times with 9's vs dealers 6. The first hand was 19, the second hand was a DD 20, and on the third hand he stood with a pair of 9's because he was to frightened to split again. So with $6000 out on the table he watched the dealer flip over his cards.....
6+3 (hole card) +2 + King for a 4 card 21.

If he split that last pair of 9's he would of had another DD hand with 21... the next cards that came out were a 10 which would have given him a 19 on the last hand. Dealer pulled a ten for 19 so instead of losing $6000, he would have won $6000 with two pushed hands of $1500 ( push1500+3000+3000 push1500).

Now if you play in red at the same 15u, you would have had $450 on the table (75+150+150+75). So do you still think you have the nerve and bankroll to play black? If you do, go to the HL rooms and watch how many players flat bet black. Not too many go home winners. Don't let this be you. Better to kick butt with red chips, then to learn from your mistakes in black.

Just some more thoughts for others to ponder upon.

BJC

 

[EasyRhino]

After some massive blows early in my session I had to go to very chunky red breaking down my TC's into 1/2 counts and using some opposition betting so my bet was always moving around.

Losing money doesn't necessitate opposition betting. Heat necessitates the cover. If you were saying that you were decreasing your min bet after the loss, and wanted to to opposition betting to mask the increase in your spread... well maybe. But taking "cover" betting too far could lead to a serious degradation in your game. Betting like a robot is always a perfectly valid option.

Interesting about the high roller guy. I don't see many people betting that much at my slum level green tables, and when they are, they're usually TITANICALLY overbetting, and so wuss out on splits and doubles bigtime.

But bear in mind that if you're betting $1500 a hand, your bankroll would probably be $200k or more. You could find $1500 in your sofa cushions.