new poster

[gorilla player]

Hello guys, I've just found this forum, found bj21 a couple of weeks back, etc. I'm a relatively new counter, doing this for about 4 years now, using traditional hi-lo. Been doing well, no intentions of becoming a pro as I have a full-time university job, so y playing is limited to maybe once per month sometimes more, with a couple of trips to Vegas a year as well.

The counting part of this is pretty trivial to deal with IMHO, it is much more interesting to deal with all the other issues. Avoiding getting kicked out. Finding the best games (ie most SD I find is 6:5 and I won't play it), and of course, money management.

I have a good feel for the math (I am a Ph.D. in computer science) but I'm sure I have a long "education process" to go through.

I started playing BJ about 10 years ago, and learned to play BS perfectly. And armed with that, I've won some and lost some, about as expected. My wife got interested in casino play a few years back, as she had visited the MS casinos when they first opened, and went maybe once a year until she got me interested. I had known that BJ was beatable, but never considered it until we made 3-4 trips to the coast in a 2 month period, plus a couple of trips to Vegas to see a concert (she is a BeeGee fan, as well as Celine fane, so I decided I'd see how hard this could be. My math skills and program debugging skills make it easy to maintain things like a card count, even an ace side count although I don't use it at present, etc. So, in short, I'm having fun, drilling myself all the time, and serving as a very slow drain on Casino funds.

Looking forward to learning more here. I had heard many mentions of Eliot over the past couple of years. I'm now beginning to get an idea of why that is.

 

[phantom007]

Welcome GP!!...

You and AM should get along just fine. Certainly this is an excellent site, and the price "just can't be beat"!

Sounds (actually reads) like you are from the South. I hit Tunica monthly, and LV 1-2x/yr. Have never hit the "Coast", but it is on my "too-do" list.

As regarding statements in your post above, I suggest to disagree with 2 issues:

#1---"Getting kicked-out" is a major concern, but for ME at least, a secondary issue. My biggest enemy is "ME"....playing 36 hours straight, drinking too much, overbetting B/R, underbetting during down-cycles, etc., etc., are all enemies that "while better", I have not yet conqured. If you have overcome these, I salute you!

#2---6:5 BJ should not totally be disparaged! Easily beatable with 8:1 spread at 60% pen., using a Multi-level Ct., with at least 2 side-cts., one of which must be Ace's. No Problem!

Otherwise, again, Welcome to CC.com. Looking forward to your posts.

phantom007.

 

[gorilla player]

thanks... and...

Yes I am from the South. Birmingham Alabama in fact. I'm not that secretive about who I am, I try to be careful enough with the internet harvesters that try to soak up everything, but I'm hardly paranoid.

I look forward to chatting with Eliot at some point. He and I have a common interest both in blackjack and in chess (I'm a chess player as well, and have written a well-known freely-available computer chess program "crafty").

My abilities can be summed up pretty easily in card counting. The counting itself is pretty "second-nature". But yes, it is easy to get lazy or tired or whatever (I do absolutely avoid chip-remover when playing) and make betting mistakes, I'm not even sure I do this right in the best of times.

I dislike 6:5. Yes, I suppose you can beat it. I've even played around with Hi-Lo with an Ace side count as that is one problem with its playing efficiency, treating an A as a 10. Good for betting. Not so good for playing. But, given the choice, I'd rather play SD 3:2 and have a significant advantage. On bj21.com bigplayer (who seems to play _everywhere_) gave me a list of 3:2 offerings in the SE. I've not been to Tunica. And he even found some 3:2 SD on the MS coast in a few out-of-the-way places.

I've been sticking with 2D/6D for the last year or so, which is available pretty much everywhere. I _really_ like SD head-to-head, of course. But I have not really studied the issue of beating 6:5 as it made me throw up the first time I ran across this "single-deck is back" with the 6:5 stuff in the ultra-fine print. I played this game in Vegas, not noticing the tiny sign, and the first natural produced a bit of "discussion" between me and the dealer and then me and the pit. I moved on.

I suppose the main point for me is that this is fun. Which bodes poorly for the casinos. I've been working on a computer chess program since 1968, longer than any other chess programmer in history by a large amount. What I enjoy I tend to keep doing. And since it makes money as well, it can't be bad. I won't be worrying about "N0" or long term. Of course, I am 56 years old, so long-term isn't _that_ long term for me...

 

[The Mayor]

Greetings (and then some!)

Hi! Welcome to this site. I was taken away by the election so I have been neglecting my duties to this site the last few days.

Yes, we already know each other, although you may not recall why. I'll get to it later.

>Yes I am from the South. Birmingham Alabama in fact. I'm not that secretive about who I am, I try to be careful enough with the internet harvesters that try to soak up everything, but I'm hardly paranoid.

That is very refreshing. Many top players I know are not too paranoid. Out every day, they know what they can and can't do, and if something bad happens, there are plenty more places to play.

>I look forward to chatting with Eliot at some point. He and I have a common interest both in blackjack and in chess (I'm a chess player as well, and have written a well-known freely-available computer chess program "crafty").

Now, this is amazing. I used to run your program online from my SPARC station when I lived in Ohio on FICS (or was it the old ICC before it was a pay site?). In fact, I ran the original login name "crafty" with your permission, as you debugged some of the early versions. Later, I crafted an online personality using the Zippy interface, named "meru" (named after my dog) that had about 250 different things it did. I still play almost daily on FICS against your versions of your program (but not under the name "mayor" any more, though my login still exists.

>I suppose the main point for me is that this is fun. Which bodes poorly for the casinos. I've been working on a computer chess program since 1968, longer than any other chess programmer in history by a large amount.

And what you DIDN'T say is that you WON the world computer championship with one of your early programs!!! Fine work. Top notch. Then didn't Hans Berliner win it shortly after that? I do forget my early chess computer history, but I recall Berliner's program in the mid 80's playing at a tournament in Ohio I was at.

>What I enjoy I tend to keep doing. And since it makes money as well, it can't be bad. I won't be worrying about "N0" or long term. Of course, I am 56 years old, so long-term isn't _that_ long term for me...

Let me throw out the welcome mat to you and invite you to contribute here in any way you like.

With respect and affection,

--Mayor

 

[gorilla player]

thanks...

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Now, this is amazing. I used to run your program online from my SPARC station when I lived in Ohio on FICS (or was it the old ICC before it was a pay site?). In fact, I ran the original login name "crafty" with your permission, as you debugged some of the early versions. Later, I crafted an online personality using the Zippy interface, named "meru" (named after my dog) that had about 250 different things it did. I still play almost daily on FICS against your versions of your program (but not under the name "mayor" any more, though my login still exists.
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OK. I certainly remember those days. Crafty still plays on ICC, has since it was the "original" ICS/FICS, before Sleator went commercial.

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And what you DIDN'T say is that you WON the world computer championship with one of your early programs!!! Fine work. Top notch. Then didn't Hans Berliner win it shortly after that? I do forget my early chess computer history, but I recall Berliner's program in the mid 80's playing at a tournament in Ohio I was at.
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Obviously I could talk about the history of computer chess for hours. But yes, "Cray Blitz" won the WCCC in 1983 and 1986. HiTech never won it although it did win one of the ACM annual computer chess tournaments. 1985 I believe was the year. Another CMU group kind of "stole the show" of course, Hsu and the "chiptest"/"Deep Thought"/"Deep Blue" series of special-purpose chess machines wrecked havoc for years.

In any case, I appreciate the kind words, and am glad that we have yet another "common interest" that of depleting casino quarterly reports, albeit (for me) at a _very_ small rate...