EasyRhino;59171 But the sim didn't account for contraints on how quickly I would ramp/drop bets said:Perhaps not.
Perhaps such things are important.
Perhaps they change that 1% advantage to half that. It's possible. What were the assumptions of the sim?
Like I said somewhere else, if what u mean by how quickly u ramp/drop bets is that you do not always bet according to count it can have a significant effect on win rate.
I mean there you are in a great DD game with a RC of +4 with a half-deck or so remaining playing heads up against the dealer and 4 tens come out. Now everything is even except you have a max bet out. Do you leave it or bet min?
As to effects of wonging and lowering bets, just how imperfect/misleading do you think the sim is?
Anyway, not that losing 25% of roll doesn't happen, but I was wondering how you view your lifetime results or even the one-month result.
Just be careful.
Or are you content to just write it off to "variance"? Sounds to me you are happy to replace half your losses from another source, win at VP, as if that's somehow relevant to how you have played blackjack with the roll you had.
It ain't my money and I still worry
Man, this "counting" stuff is hard.
- Thread starter EasyRhino
- Start date
Trever Kirk
Active Member
yeah its alot of work mentally.
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
Kasi, I appreciate your concern for my money
Based on the numbers I dug up for this thread, I'd estimate I'm giving up about .2% advantage when I'm restraining my play. I'm getting back a little bit by wonging, but it's tough to wong the more restrictive 2D games, so let's just assume the advantage I get back is immeasurably small. This ain't a great advantage, and I think it emphasizes how a slash-and-burn approach is more called for, especially when on a brief trip to a place you don't care about that much.
As for how losing 25% of BR feels?. Well, it really sucks, I think that should be obvious. Most money I've lost doing anything stupid in my life, and that includes my stock market investments 2000-2003. But proportionally, it's not unheard of. Hell, I think I lost about 30% of my BR in Reno at the beginning of the year (it was just much smaller back then). Also, I had fortunately built up a "buffer" in the bankroll where I could lose some money without triggering a manadatory bet reduction. I haven't hit that trigger yet, but I'm close.
Also, I treat the gambling bankroll as a unified one for anything I can get an advantage at. Right now that's just BJ, online, and VP (comp-counting). For instance, that bit where I got lucky and won $1000 at VP, I was only wagering with about $100 in real money, and $100 in freeplay coupons. There's no positive-payback VP around here, so coupons/cashback are the only angle I can work.
If I knew how to play poker or sports bet, I'd use the bankroll for that, too.
Based on the numbers I dug up for this thread, I'd estimate I'm giving up about .2% advantage when I'm restraining my play. I'm getting back a little bit by wonging, but it's tough to wong the more restrictive 2D games, so let's just assume the advantage I get back is immeasurably small. This ain't a great advantage, and I think it emphasizes how a slash-and-burn approach is more called for, especially when on a brief trip to a place you don't care about that much.
As for how losing 25% of BR feels?. Well, it really sucks, I think that should be obvious. Most money I've lost doing anything stupid in my life, and that includes my stock market investments 2000-2003. But proportionally, it's not unheard of. Hell, I think I lost about 30% of my BR in Reno at the beginning of the year (it was just much smaller back then). Also, I had fortunately built up a "buffer" in the bankroll where I could lose some money without triggering a manadatory bet reduction. I haven't hit that trigger yet, but I'm close.
Also, I treat the gambling bankroll as a unified one for anything I can get an advantage at. Right now that's just BJ, online, and VP (comp-counting). For instance, that bit where I got lucky and won $1000 at VP, I was only wagering with about $100 in real money, and $100 in freeplay coupons. There's no positive-payback VP around here, so coupons/cashback are the only angle I can work.
If I knew how to play poker or sports bet, I'd use the bankroll for that, too.
Automatic Monkey
Banned
Well perhaps you can enjoy my results by proxy. Last night I walked into a casino with a "Hail Mary" bankroll and walked out with a "Glory Be" one. Took them for $6K spreading green into black and it didn't even feel like it.
Your swing is totally normal. There's a reason why we need a big bankroll- you can be expected to lose lots of it at some time or another! Being an employed guy you can afford to think in terms of win rate rather than bankroll, and sometimes breaking part of your bank to pay bills or buy something that would be out of your budget without BJ can be very therapeutic- keeps it in perspective why we're chasing after this money so hard.
Your swing is totally normal. There's a reason why we need a big bankroll- you can be expected to lose lots of it at some time or another! Being an employed guy you can afford to think in terms of win rate rather than bankroll, and sometimes breaking part of your bank to pay bills or buy something that would be out of your budget without BJ can be very therapeutic- keeps it in perspective why we're chasing after this money so hard.
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
Hmmm. Nope, that didn't really make me feel any better.Automatic Monkey said:
Regarding the sanctity of the bankroll, which I don't need the BR for any purpose, I really don't want to have to replenish it from my day job. The swings from gambling absolutely dwarf my paycheck. I think this means that, assuming I revert to a winning trend, that I'll need to build up an even bigger buffer before I allow myself to use the BR to "pay myself" at any significant level.But your post does remind me that it's annoying to categorize my play by chip color, if the min bet is in the $25-$50 range, and the max bet is in the $250-$350 range... "green chip" only described min bets, and "black chip" only describes max bets.
But sometimes I do find it useful to bet a black chip as soon as I sit down, it gets any "black action" calls by the dealer out of the way. One time I asked a dealer to cry "wolf!" when I sat down, but she said no.
Hey I have no idea really - I just was surprised how much of a difference betting in a "normal" way can effect your overall advantage.EasyRhino said:
Like if "normal" is never decreasing bet after a win, never increase after a loss, never change bet after a push, never more than parlay a win, never decrease bet by more than 50% after a loss then all of that can be very costly. Like maybe reducing win rate by up to 42% in a 75% play-all DD game.
Of course there's lots of stuff in between that extreme and always betting in conformity with your mathematical advantage that can recover a portion of that.
I gather most sims always assume you make every bet like your supposed to no matter how much you "bet-jump" around.
Just one more thing to think about and part of why this game ain't easy.
Easy, You may have put it in one of your informative post but I did not see it.
When you are wonging in to a positive count, are you using the running count or true count? If RC, are you doing tc conversions then placing your bets or are you basing your bets off of the running count?
When you are wonging in to a positive count, are you using the running count or true count? If RC, are you doing tc conversions then placing your bets or are you basing your bets off of the running count?
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
Quick update on my last two sessions.
Last weekend, had very little time to spend playing. Got in two sessions, one a big loser (-$3k), the other a decent winner (+$2k). The net was a another loss, but it was nice to have at leat one winning session in there, just to prove that it can be done.
Today, I just got back from a family day trip to two of the casinos in Lake Charles, LA. Never been there before, checked out L'auberge du Lac and the Isle of Capri. Good rules available (2D and 6D, S17 DAS), but generally poor penetration (50-60% on the DD games). But the big problem was that it was a saturday on a holiday weekend, and it was just totally packed everywhere. Difficult to find even an open spot at most tables, let alone a table that was sparsely populated enough to make it worthwhile to sit down. I think I got in a total of about 30 minutes of play, and maybe another 30 minutes of "productive" backcounting. And I still managed to lose over $1100 when two high counts didn't work out well.
That's about all I have to report. Business is going to keep me away from playing for the next couple-few weeks.
Last weekend, had very little time to spend playing. Got in two sessions, one a big loser (-$3k), the other a decent winner (+$2k). The net was a another loss, but it was nice to have at leat one winning session in there, just to prove that it can be done.
Today, I just got back from a family day trip to two of the casinos in Lake Charles, LA. Never been there before, checked out L'auberge du Lac and the Isle of Capri. Good rules available (2D and 6D, S17 DAS), but generally poor penetration (50-60% on the DD games). But the big problem was that it was a saturday on a holiday weekend, and it was just totally packed everywhere. Difficult to find even an open spot at most tables, let alone a table that was sparsely populated enough to make it worthwhile to sit down. I think I got in a total of about 30 minutes of play, and maybe another 30 minutes of "productive" backcounting. And I still managed to lose over $1100 when two high counts didn't work out well.
That's about all I have to report. Business is going to keep me away from playing for the next couple-few weeks.
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
*sigh*
Alright, let's get this update over with:
I got my latest backoff. That makes three so far for the career. But unlike the other backoffs, this was from a local place with a good game, so the loss kind of hurts. Even now, I can be doing something totally unrelated, and then it strikes me: "Oh God I'm an idiot!" and then I want to go kick a puppy or something.
Anyway, here are the two mistakes I know I made.
1) I played too long in the session. Instead of an hour or less, I was past the two hour mark. I mean... that's like a Noob 101 mistake, and it's the one I want to kick myself over.
2) I had very little cover in my play. I was cheating with the spread to the point where it was no longer "polite", and I was hewing pretty close to the index plays, making hardly any cover plays.
Now, sure, I had reasons why I did both of those things. The "camping out" was partly because I wanted to strain the system, like a small child, and see what I could get away with (I learned: not very much). And I was spreading more and playing more by-the-book because, well, I've been losing enough lately without playing with any cover, I figured I could use the extra fraction of a percent of advantage.
However, In hindsight, mistake #1 was obviously retarded, while #2 is more debatable.
I can assuage my stupidity somewhat by rationalizing that my time was limited at this particular joint. Here are a few things that indicated that the party was nearing the end:
a) My action was pretty high for the place. Not table max or anything, but a substantial portion of it. Often the biggest player in the house.
b) The pit recognizes me on sight, and by name.
c) General reaction to my play over more recent sessions was not overtly sweaty, but instead... cool. Which might actually be worse than sweaty.
d) At a different casino, I bumped into a lady who recognized me from the store in question. While chatting, she mentioned "And the dealers over there always say 'He's so lucky!'" I thought it was funny, and incredibly ironical that that was the day of my backoff. Also, I suspect part of the reason that someone can "seem lucky" is if they don't complain as much about their losses as a typical gambler.
... It feels different getting backed off from a local place that you actually like. It's almost like breaking up with a girlfriend. A girlfried that you treat bad, and cheat on, but one that you still want to keep around in case no cuter girls will return your calls.
In other news:
Still lost for the weekend. About $500. Chump change. At least the losses are getting smaller. Too bad I can't reliably draw a trend from that.
For those keeping score at home, the current bankroll (not counting a couple grand tied up online) is approx $32k.
I made a mistake with the chips during a high count and made a bet of $400-$450, which is bigger than my desired max bet. And it ended up being a 9v2 index play doubledown. I'm happy to report that I won the hand (and then reduced my bet to a more sane level).
Bumped into a dealer who almost definitely could count cards. She was rattling off all kinds of statistics, like "18.3 is the average winning hand", knew that doubling A,7v2 was a basic strategy play, and even mentioned that some other play was only good "when there were a lot of little cards left in the deck". I just kept asking the dealer questions, but didn't change tables, and still kept playing my game.
A couple months ago, I had a really big loss at a Harrah's property. This month they started mailing me bounceback coupons for $150 per week. Previous month, they were sending me coupons for $5 per week. I might have broken their player rating system.
Either that, or I'm King of the Losers. All hail the king.
Alright, let's get this update over with:
I got my latest backoff. That makes three so far for the career. But unlike the other backoffs, this was from a local place with a good game, so the loss kind of hurts. Even now, I can be doing something totally unrelated, and then it strikes me: "Oh God I'm an idiot!" and then I want to go kick a puppy or something.
Anyway, here are the two mistakes I know I made.
1) I played too long in the session. Instead of an hour or less, I was past the two hour mark. I mean... that's like a Noob 101 mistake, and it's the one I want to kick myself over.
2) I had very little cover in my play. I was cheating with the spread to the point where it was no longer "polite", and I was hewing pretty close to the index plays, making hardly any cover plays.
Now, sure, I had reasons why I did both of those things. The "camping out" was partly because I wanted to strain the system, like a small child, and see what I could get away with (I learned: not very much). And I was spreading more and playing more by-the-book because, well, I've been losing enough lately without playing with any cover, I figured I could use the extra fraction of a percent of advantage.
However, In hindsight, mistake #1 was obviously retarded, while #2 is more debatable.
I can assuage my stupidity somewhat by rationalizing that my time was limited at this particular joint. Here are a few things that indicated that the party was nearing the end:
a) My action was pretty high for the place. Not table max or anything, but a substantial portion of it. Often the biggest player in the house.
b) The pit recognizes me on sight, and by name.
c) General reaction to my play over more recent sessions was not overtly sweaty, but instead... cool. Which might actually be worse than sweaty.
d) At a different casino, I bumped into a lady who recognized me from the store in question. While chatting, she mentioned "And the dealers over there always say 'He's so lucky!'" I thought it was funny, and incredibly ironical that that was the day of my backoff. Also, I suspect part of the reason that someone can "seem lucky" is if they don't complain as much about their losses as a typical gambler.
... It feels different getting backed off from a local place that you actually like. It's almost like breaking up with a girlfriend. A girlfried that you treat bad, and cheat on, but one that you still want to keep around in case no cuter girls will return your calls.
In other news:
Still lost for the weekend. About $500. Chump change. At least the losses are getting smaller. Too bad I can't reliably draw a trend from that.
For those keeping score at home, the current bankroll (not counting a couple grand tied up online) is approx $32k.
I made a mistake with the chips during a high count and made a bet of $400-$450, which is bigger than my desired max bet. And it ended up being a 9v2 index play doubledown. I'm happy to report that I won the hand (and then reduced my bet to a more sane level).
Bumped into a dealer who almost definitely could count cards. She was rattling off all kinds of statistics, like "18.3 is the average winning hand", knew that doubling A,7v2 was a basic strategy play, and even mentioned that some other play was only good "when there were a lot of little cards left in the deck". I just kept asking the dealer questions, but didn't change tables, and still kept playing my game.
A couple months ago, I had a really big loss at a Harrah's property. This month they started mailing me bounceback coupons for $150 per week. Previous month, they were sending me coupons for $5 per week. I might have broken their player rating system.
Either that, or I'm King of the Losers. All hail the king.
jack.jackson
Well-Known Member
Sounds like you made the mistake of returning to early. Perhaps if you would waited a few more months or played on a different shift, would/could of made a difference.
PS They were already suspicious!
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
Got in three more sessions over the weekend:
The good news: I wasn't backed-off anywhere. And two of the sessions were significant winners.
The bad news: The other session was one hell of a loser, so I still lost about $1500 for the weekend. BR is just barely above $30k.
Also, while I'm a bit paranoid whenever I see a pit critter talking on the phone, but it's really tough to get any idea of what they're talking about. However, while looking for another table I think I saw a PC talking on the phone, looking dead at me, and I think I saw a mouthing of the words "and now he's betting black chips"... and this was about 5 minutes after I sat down. Fun stuff.
Oh, and to add a little bit to the irony... you know that casino that just recently backed me off? Well, I also received a really nice comp offer from them in the mail, which was worth a couple hundred bucks. Go figure.
The good news: I wasn't backed-off anywhere. And two of the sessions were significant winners.
The bad news: The other session was one hell of a loser, so I still lost about $1500 for the weekend. BR is just barely above $30k.
Also, while I'm a bit paranoid whenever I see a pit critter talking on the phone, but it's really tough to get any idea of what they're talking about. However, while looking for another table I think I saw a PC talking on the phone, looking dead at me, and I think I saw a mouthing of the words "and now he's betting black chips"... and this was about 5 minutes after I sat down. Fun stuff.
Oh, and to add a little bit to the irony... you know that casino that just recently backed me off? Well, I also received a really nice comp offer from them in the mail, which was worth a couple hundred bucks. Go figure.
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
Harrah's New Orleans is a strange, strange place. (I am just finishing a short family vacation in NO, and we happened to be staying close to the casino.) To civilians, the casino is big and nice and fairly snazzy. The hotel looks nice (and they can comp you at adjacent hotels too). It's also in a good touristy location.
All the games outside of high roller are 8D shoes, but at least there's no CSMs. The lowest min tables are $15 ($500 max), those are S17 games. The auxiliary pits generally have $20 mins, those are H17 games. Then the $25 and up tables are S17 again ($2500 max). Any table with a $25 min will get a "no mid shoe entry" slapped on it, and yet, this appears to be only sometimes enforced. Also, you can spread to two hands without betting any more than the table minimum, but there's only five (five!) playing spots on each table.
On the upside, if you're there on a weekend, they have tables open in a bar with go-go dancers accompanied by blasting hip-hop music. If you can count in that environment, you can count anywhere.
The combination of the dreaded 8D shoes (usually 2D cutoff), crowds, NME, and limited spots, meant that White Rabbit became the tactic of choice. Start a shoe, and bail if the count is negative after 3-4 decks. Depending on crowds, I got in only 0-2 shoes of play per session. I backcounted a couple of tables, but I wasn't able to wong in to a single shoe. (I only noticed late about the sporadic enforcement of NME, so maybe I could have gotten away with it). White rabbiting 8D shoe games was definitely not my idea of a good time, but it seemed better than play all.
But you know what was most appealing about the play there? No player's card, no ID, no name, total anonymity. (I didn't think comp-counting would be feasible with the table hopping). It was very liberating to the play without a shred of cover. I'd jump the bet to whatever I wanted, decrease it to whatever I wanted (even after big wins... which was great), play the indexes I knew (I think I only took insurance twice, and won it once). No ratholing, either. The only thing I did was tip the dealers and cocktail waitresses (just my usual restrained amount).
Anyway, as for the play, I ended up with a few aborted shoes, two neutral or barely-positive ones, and two hot ones. The second one was especially ridiculous, as the count got positive early, but then began rubberbanding between positive and neutral. Being able to drop my bets was really handy when the count snapped back to zero. You know what else I learned? If you're playing heads-up, an 8D shoe lasts forever.
The results: Between those two shoes, I won approx. $3700. It was ridiculous. I was winning a good share of hands that should have been losers, and most splits and doubled worked out well (no truly gargantuan hands developed). Also, the trajectory of money was upward from the beginning, I barely had to dip into my wallet once I sat down at the table.
Highlight of the trip: I'm in the go-go pit, trying to decide if the closest dancer looks like Hot Britney or Scary Britney, and a well-dressed youngish guy sits down at the table. At first I thought maybe he was gay, but then I began to think that maybe it was the combo of his southern accent and him being super-polite. Anyway, he buys in for a few hundred and is playing greens, maybe $100 per hand. He loses that, and then he buys in for more, and after the buyin, he starts varying his bets wildly, from $100 to $500 (nearly $1k on a couple hands). For a sec I thought it was up to something AP, but he's got no correlation to the count, and he starts making some really bad plays. He also was a total George; he tipped $25 or $100 for the dealer on quite a few hands (In hindisght, I probably didn't need to tip $5 on a hand when he's tipping $100... what's the point really?). When the pit returned his player's card to him, it wasn't a surprise to see that he was a Harrah's Sevens Seas person. He probably got an awesome Christmas card from HET this year. It was internally hilarious for me to jump a bet from $25 to $100, while this guy just jumped $100 to $700 on the previous hand. Best. Distraction. Ever. And he really was a nice guy, I was glad he walked away a winner (I think).
Anyway, back to me, I'm glad the this bankroll fluctuation was positive (to around $34k total), because I was really scraping against the threshold to where I'd have to reduce my max bet. And I don't want to do that, as it might price a couple good games into unaffordability.
Second highlight of the trip: My stepdad (the slot player) was there too, and I always seem to do well while he's doing poorly, which really just rubs it in his face. Would it be voodoo if I thought of him as my good luck charm?
All the games outside of high roller are 8D shoes, but at least there's no CSMs. The lowest min tables are $15 ($500 max), those are S17 games. The auxiliary pits generally have $20 mins, those are H17 games. Then the $25 and up tables are S17 again ($2500 max). Any table with a $25 min will get a "no mid shoe entry" slapped on it, and yet, this appears to be only sometimes enforced. Also, you can spread to two hands without betting any more than the table minimum, but there's only five (five!) playing spots on each table.
On the upside, if you're there on a weekend, they have tables open in a bar with go-go dancers accompanied by blasting hip-hop music. If you can count in that environment, you can count anywhere.
The combination of the dreaded 8D shoes (usually 2D cutoff), crowds, NME, and limited spots, meant that White Rabbit became the tactic of choice. Start a shoe, and bail if the count is negative after 3-4 decks. Depending on crowds, I got in only 0-2 shoes of play per session. I backcounted a couple of tables, but I wasn't able to wong in to a single shoe. (I only noticed late about the sporadic enforcement of NME, so maybe I could have gotten away with it). White rabbiting 8D shoe games was definitely not my idea of a good time, but it seemed better than play all.
But you know what was most appealing about the play there? No player's card, no ID, no name, total anonymity. (I didn't think comp-counting would be feasible with the table hopping). It was very liberating to the play without a shred of cover. I'd jump the bet to whatever I wanted, decrease it to whatever I wanted (even after big wins... which was great), play the indexes I knew (I think I only took insurance twice, and won it once). No ratholing, either. The only thing I did was tip the dealers and cocktail waitresses (just my usual restrained amount).
Anyway, as for the play, I ended up with a few aborted shoes, two neutral or barely-positive ones, and two hot ones. The second one was especially ridiculous, as the count got positive early, but then began rubberbanding between positive and neutral. Being able to drop my bets was really handy when the count snapped back to zero. You know what else I learned? If you're playing heads-up, an 8D shoe lasts forever.
The results: Between those two shoes, I won approx. $3700. It was ridiculous. I was winning a good share of hands that should have been losers, and most splits and doubled worked out well (no truly gargantuan hands developed). Also, the trajectory of money was upward from the beginning, I barely had to dip into my wallet once I sat down at the table.
Highlight of the trip: I'm in the go-go pit, trying to decide if the closest dancer looks like Hot Britney or Scary Britney, and a well-dressed youngish guy sits down at the table. At first I thought maybe he was gay, but then I began to think that maybe it was the combo of his southern accent and him being super-polite. Anyway, he buys in for a few hundred and is playing greens, maybe $100 per hand. He loses that, and then he buys in for more, and after the buyin, he starts varying his bets wildly, from $100 to $500 (nearly $1k on a couple hands). For a sec I thought it was up to something AP, but he's got no correlation to the count, and he starts making some really bad plays. He also was a total George; he tipped $25 or $100 for the dealer on quite a few hands (In hindisght, I probably didn't need to tip $5 on a hand when he's tipping $100... what's the point really?). When the pit returned his player's card to him, it wasn't a surprise to see that he was a Harrah's Sevens Seas person. He probably got an awesome Christmas card from HET this year. It was internally hilarious for me to jump a bet from $25 to $100, while this guy just jumped $100 to $700 on the previous hand. Best. Distraction. Ever. And he really was a nice guy, I was glad he walked away a winner (I think).
Anyway, back to me, I'm glad the this bankroll fluctuation was positive (to around $34k total), because I was really scraping against the threshold to where I'd have to reduce my max bet. And I don't want to do that, as it might price a couple good games into unaffordability.
Second highlight of the trip: My stepdad (the slot player) was there too, and I always seem to do well while he's doing poorly, which really just rubs it in his face. Would it be voodoo if I thought of him as my good luck charm?
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
One note from the New Orleans win, in the interest of full disclosure. While I knew it was going to be tougher to win money white-rabbiting the 8D shoes, I didn't know how much tougher it would be. Did some sim-piddling, and it seems that expected win rate on such games would be about one-third to one-half as much as on a good doubledeck game. And when I compared the expected win rate to the rate at which I tip... most of the EV got wiped out by tips. My net win rate after tipping would be $5 or $10 (generously) per hour.
In other words, I wasn't gambling with much of an advantage at all in New Orleans, and my win was due solely to blind damn luck. It was immensely frustrating to come to this realization. Throwing around a bunch of money in a 0% game of chance is not my idea of a good time.
The solution, of course, is to tip less. Especially when playing more marginal games. And I"m working on ways to do that.
Also, the tremendous volatility in recent results has now covinced me that blackjack is, at its core, a silly silly game.
In other words, I wasn't gambling with much of an advantage at all in New Orleans, and my win was due solely to blind damn luck. It was immensely frustrating to come to this realization. Throwing around a bunch of money in a 0% game of chance is not my idea of a good time.
The solution, of course, is to tip less. Especially when playing more marginal games. And I"m working on ways to do that.
Also, the tremendous volatility in recent results has now covinced me that blackjack is, at its core, a silly silly game.
What? No?mdlbj said:
Automatic Monkey
Banned
Frustrating, isn't it?EasyRhino said:
I had a similar experience in New Orleans. Got absolutely hammered on a trip to Biloxi/Gulfport, and being I was staying in that same area you describe (probably at the same hotel) I made a few visits to Harrah's and got most of it back- aggressive spread and good variance.
That game is quite a weak one, but unfortunately there just aren't that many good DD games around anymore. Most are 2 decks 1.0 pen and that's no better than a bad shoe. At least no matter how bad a shoe is, you can always backcount it and hit it hard.