losing control

[evilrobotmonkey]

last night, i sat down at a $10 min table and did bet spreads of $10 - $150. i was up 300, down 300, and even for the entire night. i got tired and should've left, but then a bad streak hit me. the count was high and i lost most of my big bets, and before i knew it i was down $700. i kept playing to "try to get even." i was tired and steaming so i couldn't even count properly. I also started increasing my bets. when the count seemed reasonably high, i'd put 300 out there. bam, lost all the big bets too. i ended up losing $1900 after a 10 hour overnight session.

well, there goes all my winnings for the week. i have learned my lesson about staying disciplined in this game. but who knows, had i not started steaming and increasing my bets, and kept a proper count and betting system, i still may have lost a lot because i was really unlucky. variance is a btch.

any one have similar experiences?

 

[moo321]

Before you ever hit the casino, decide on your betting spread. And then NEVER bet differently.

 

[evilrobotmonkey]

Before you ever hit the casino, decide on your betting spread. And then NEVER bet differently.

i'm assuming this is all for bankroll management, right? sometimes when the count gets uncommonly high, wouldn't you want to place a bigger bet out there?

 

[shadroch]

I'd be very curious which casino allowed you to spread 1-15 during a ten hour session.

 

[Kasi]

i'm assuming this is all for bankroll management, right? sometimes when the count gets uncommonly high, wouldn't you want to place a bigger bet out there?

Yes to the first.

No to the second lol.

Thank you moo - truer words were never spoken lol.

 

[evilrobotmonkey]

i can, and have, gotten away with it at many casinos. i'm making bets of 10, 15, 25, 50, and sometimes i'll do 100 on 2 hands. when i make big bets i put on an "ahh eff it" act if i had lost the hand before, or "woo play my rush!" if i'm winning . when the count tanks, and i'll go back down from $100 to $20, and be like "ok i'm gonna slow down" if i'd won the hand before or "man this isn't working out for me" if i had lost. then i'll go back to $15 or $10 the next hand. i see people who are obviously not counters spreading their bets all the time. i don't think spreading $10 to $150 is that suspicious. $10 to like $500 could be though.

 

[shadroch]

Yes,people who are not counters can get away with it,because the casino knows they are no threat.If they are allowing you to spread 1-15 on ten hour sessions,your counting may not be as strong as you think it is. According to your earlier posts,you are just starting to count. So if you have indeed gotten away with betting 1-15 spreads in many casinos,it couldn't have been when you counting,now could it? Forget what you were able to do as a BS player,card counters face a whole different scrutiny.

 

[evilrobotmonkey]

Yes,people who are not counters can get away with it,because the casino knows they are no threat.If they are allowing you to spread 1-15 on ten hour sessions,your counting may not be as strong as you think it is.

it probably isn't. i'm still new to counting and i use a simple hi/lo system and some indices. normally, i do get my counts right as i do not miss any cards. and my sessions are usually shorter when i count. however, last night, i was losing. if i was spreading 1-15 and winning it'd probably catch more attention but i wasn't, which explains why i stayed so long. not to mention that i wasn't counting properly at times because i was steaming.

just wondering, how would they "not allow" me to spread 1-15 if i were to be counting strongly one day? would i have to be winning? would someone eventually notice my patterns and ask me to leave? with the amounts i bet, i don't feel like people think i'm a real threat. on the other hand, whenever there are people betting 300+ a hand, i see them being watched like a hawk.

another reason that i get away with it may be that i'm a girl so i don't look like a counter.

 

[shadroch]

it probably isn't. i'm still new to counting and i use a simple hi/lo system and some indices. not to mention that last night, i lost control and wasn't counting properly for a while.

how would they "not allow" me to spread 1-15 if i'm counting strongly? would someone eventually notice my patterns and ask me to leave?

another thing may be that i'm a girl so i don't look like a counter.

Depends where you are playing. If you are jumping from red to black,you've already been noticed.They can tell you you can only flat bet. They can shuffle up everytime you place a big bet. They can ask you to leave. They can backroom you. Casinos have lots of options.Players have few.

 

[Kasi]

it probably isn't. .

On the other hand, maybe your counting is just fine.

Maybe you just need to learn about variance etc - like being down 5 max bets after many hours (5*150) is probably gonna happen lol lol so get used to it.

Losing another $1200 after that with a $300 max bet (4max bets) is probably gonna happen too lol.

Did you say losing $1900 just offsets the same amount you had won, more or less, for the week? Were you using the same 1-15 spread then, more or less?
Apparently no heat then lol?

No big deal lol but stuff like "i still may have lost a lot because i was really unlucky. variance is a btch." is maybe what you have to work on lol. Are you saying when you apparently won $1900 earlier in the week (if you did) that you were really lucky and that Old Lady Variance isn't such a bitch after all?

So, at this point, what is your EV more or less and how upset would you be if you lost say 20 max bets in an hour? It can, maybe likely will, happen lol.

I'm rambling lol. At least just know about what to expect from your "plain vanilla" game lol. Good luck to you.

 

[evilrobotmonkey]

yeah, i have won about 1800 this week in 30 hours of play. i was actually spreading 25-150 because the place i played at did not have $10 minimum tables. so yes, it looks like i had been pretty lucky :grin:

i realized i should be more careful about counting... i'm probably a lot more obvious than i think, alternating bets with red and green lol. it's just that i haven't gotten any heat yet. there was one dealer who kept trying to chat while i was playing, and he said "are you trying to keep track of the cards? if so i'll leave you alone."

 

[EasyRhino]

Before you ever hit the casino, decide on your betting spread. And then NEVER bet differently.

Incredibly important point, moo.

i'm assuming this is all for bankroll management, right? sometimes when the count gets uncommonly high, wouldn't you want to place a bigger bet out there?

It's always about bankroll management. Remember, even if the true count goes to something CRAZY, like +8, then the advantage is only 1-1.5% higher than +5, where you might have your max bet out already. So... it's no big deal really.

I have "cheated" on a bet or two in an uncommonly high count. If the max bet I'd been operating with was, say $300, I might slide $350 out there if the count goes into unknown "there be dragons here" positive territory. Generally if I have little risk of losing my session bankroll, and I'm not getting sweated. After-the-fact simulation confirmed that this bet was not unreasonable (but much higher would have been).

So, you're working with either a 6x or 15x spread. What kind of game are you playing against? If it's 8D, that may not even be a big enough spread to get a reasonable advantage.

 

[ihate17]

Good advice here for a common problem with new counters

You are new to counting and perhaps have not experienced all the highs and lows of extreme variance. The count is high, you have lost several big bets in a row and the count is still in your favor. The devil inside your brain tells you that the odds favor you and how many in a row can one lose anyway, so put it all out there and make up those loses in just one hand.
Guess what? You lose again and you are now a kind of progression player and everything you worked under a control spread to make in the past hours or days is gone.
To answer your question, yes there are other people on this board who did the same as you in the past. Those who have become successful at this game have the patience to not overbet in negative variance situations but the guts to still bet the proper amount for the count and not run off. Those who do not have this ability have left us or are just losing cardcounters.

If the count calls for a bet of $100, that should be your bet and not $700. Do not play the mental suicide game if you win that hand saying you should have bet the larger amount.

ihate17

 

[evilrobotmonkey]

So, you're working with either a 6x or 15x spread. What kind of game are you playing against? If it's 8D, that may not even be a big enough spread to get a reasonable advantage.

the game i'm playing is supposed to be a really good double deck game. i believe all the rules are in my favor except for H17 and no surrender.

If the count calls for a bet of $100, that should be your bet and not $700. Do not play the mental suicide game if you win that hand saying you should have bet the larger amount.

once again, i'm guessing i am to do this for bankroll management reasons. what if i had the bankroll to afford larger spreads when the count is really high and and i am able to deal with the variance (and not to mention get away with it in terms of cover)? when it's really high, i know i have a 5% edge or so to win that hand. this is just a hypothetical question; i've decided that if i'm going to continue counting i am going to take moo's advice: Before you ever hit the casino, decide on your betting spread. And then NEVER bet differently.

To answer your question, yes there are other people on this board who did the same as you in the past. Those who have become successful at this game have the patience to not overbet in negative variance situations but the guts to still bet the proper amount for the count and not run off. Those who do not have this ability have left us or are just losing cardcounters.

what do you mean by negative variance situation?

thanks for all the responses.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Always good to see another monkey around here!

This is all great advice you're getting; consider the information from this site to be more valuable than any book you can ever buy.

Some things need to be seen rather than heard, so keep on playing, get your spread down, make your money, and remember your good times because the bad can be worse than anything you can imagine.

Also you might not want to burn out this game. Are you playing in the northern US?

 

[evilrobotmonkey]

Always good to see another monkey around here!

This is all great advice you're getting; consider the information from this site to be more valuable than any book you can ever buy.

Some things need to be seen rather than heard, so keep on playing, get your spread down, make your money, and remember your good times because the bad can be worse than anything you can imagine.

Also you might not want to burn out this game. Are you playing in the northern US?

yup, i'm the n00b monkey and i'm playing in vegas.

 

[Doofus]

You are new to counting and perhaps have not experienced all the highs and lows of extreme variance. The count is high, you have lost several big bets in a row and the count is still in your favor. The devil inside your brain tells you that the odds favor you and how many in a row can one lose anyway, so put it all out there and make up those loses in just one hand.
Guess what? You lose again and you are now a kind of progression player and everything you worked under a control spread to make in the past hours or days is gone.
To answer your question, yes there are other people on this board who did the same as you in the past. Those who have become successful at this game have the patience to not overbet in negative variance situations but the guts to still bet the proper amount for the count and not run off. Those who do not have this ability have left us or are just losing cardcounters.

If the count calls for a bet of $100, that should be your bet and not $700. Do not play the mental suicide game if you win that hand saying you should have bet the larger amount.

ihate17

Very good advice. I would add that one has to play with sufficient bankroll so that you continue to slide out big bets if the count stays positive but you somehow keep losing. Truth be told, the proportion of winning bets to losing bets is only marginally better in high counts than in low counts. What you're doing is playing for the natural and adding to bets when the odds are (ever so slightly) in your favor.

If you cannot stomach losing 8 of 10 big bets in a row, and then continue to shove out those big bets on the 11th through 20th hands (assuming the count justifies it), then counting is not for you.

Losing in negative and neutral counts hardly elicits a response from me. Losing in high counts really, really, really hurts. But it is an inevitable part of counting.

 

[Canceler]

...and remember your good times because the bad can be worse than anything you can imagine.

...to the point where it's just effing ridiculous. Luckily, this chart does not represent actual casino play. It does represent almost 22,000 hands played against software.

 

[moo321]

Yikes.

 

[sagefr0g]

...to the point where it's just effing ridiculous. Luckily, this chart does not represent actual casino play. It does represent almost 22,000 hands played against software.

and represents about one low standard deviation. almost right on target lol.

then you got something as goofy as where i was up 70 grand at one point.
tipping the four high standard deviation scales lol.
go figure. :cat: