Query...

L

Licentia

Banned
I was testing a strategy tonight. Here are my stats:

Hands - 3641
Won - 1547 42.488%
Lost - 1800 49.436%
Pushed - 295 8.102%

I started with $5000.00. I finished with $5842.50.

Now I am not certain as how to calculate the Standard Deviation yet or if that would even help with this. I need to learn that though. But can anyone tell me if this is possible for a Basic Strategy player to have such stats? Up $842.50 only winning 42.488% of one's hands? I want to know if this strategy works or not without having to test any more hands.

My base bet is $5 and my max bet is $25. Any help would be appreciated.

Licentia.
 
aslan

aslan

Well-Known Member
Licentia said:
I was testing a strategy tonight. Here are my stats:

Hands - 3641
Won - 1547 42.488%
Lost - 1800 49.436%
Pushed - 295 8.102%

I started with $5000.00. I finished with $5842.50.

Now I am not certain as how to calculate the Standard Deviation yet or if that would even help with this. I need to learn that though. But can anyone tell me if this is possible for a Basic Strategy player to have such stats? Up $842.50 only winning 42.488% of one's hands? I want to know if this strategy works or not without having to test any more hands.

My base bet is $5 and my max bet is $25. Any help would be appreciated.

Licentia.
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I'm not an expert, but it's my understanding that BS will win 42% of the hands played. I don't pretend to know the exact number; i.e., it might be 42.488%. But anyway, you're right in the ballpark. Sometimes, you will win, and sometimes you will lose. Overall, playing BS alone you should end up about 0.5% loser, give or take a little.

My BJ buddy is a BS player. He wins nearly as much as I do counting. He relys on BS and gut instincts (luck?) to determine the amount of his bets. He successfully employs the gambler's fallacy, "I'm due to win this one." But you can't argue with success. Me? Show me the math. Feeling the flow is something I tried before I found a statistical edge. I don't think I'll be turning back at this stage.
 
A

AnIrishmannot2brite

Well-Known Member
aslan said:
I'm not an expert, but it's my understanding that BS will win 42% of the hands played. I don't pretend to know the exact number; i.e., it might be 42.488%. But anyway, you're right in the ballpark. Sometimes, you will win, and sometimes you will lose. Overall, playing BS alone you should end up about 0.5% loser, give or take a little.

My BJ buddy is a BS player. He wins nearly as much as I do counting. He relys on BS and gut instincts (luck?) to determine the amount of his bets. He successfully employs the gambler's fallacy, "I'm due to win this one." But you can't argue with success. Me? Show me the math. Feeling the flow is something I tried before I found a statistical edge. I don't think I'll be turning back at this stage.
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Relying purely upon luck is a fool's idea. However I do believe that positive thinking is a resource. So I generally wait for a good feeling about when to go out to the casino. This may not have anything to do with metaphysics or luck. Just means I've made up my mind to think positive and expect success.

Under those circumstances I'm more likely to stay patient and win in the long run.
 
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shadroch

Well-Known Member
If most of your losses were on $5 hands,and the majority of your wins were on $25 hands,its quite possible to get results like you did. But its just as possible that the next time you play,the situation will be completely reversed.
Go back and refigure your percentages,but this time ignore pushs.You won 1547 hands out of 3347.Thats a much higher win rate,but its still pretty meaningless.
 
Sonny

Sonny

Well-Known Member
The standard deviation for a flat betting BS player is about 1.16 units per hand. That gives us a SD of 1.16 * Sqrt(3641) = 70 units for 3641 hands. At $5 per hand we get a range of:

-$441 to +$259 about 68% of the time
-$791 to +$609 about 95% of the time
-$1,141 to +$959 about 99.7% of the time

Since your average bet is higher than $5 your results will be a little above those numbers. But even for a $5 flat betting player your results are just over the 95% range. I don’t know what kind of bet spread you were using but I would assume that it would bring your results down to much less than the 95% range, which is completely normal.

Unfortunately, those results really don’t tell us much. It would take well over 500,000 hands to really determine anything.

-Sonny-
 
I

InPlay

Banned
Sonny said:
The standard deviation for a flat betting BS player is about 1.16 units per hand. That gives us a SD of 1.16 * Sqrt(3641) = 70 units for 3641 hands. At $5 per hand we get a range of:

-$441 to +$259 about 68% of the time
-$791 to +$609 about 95% of the time
-$1,141 to +$959 about 99.7% of the time

Since your average bet is higher than $5 your results will be a little above those numbers. But even for a $5 flat betting player your results are just over the 95% range. I don’t know what kind of bet spread you were using but I would assume that it would bring your results down to much less than the 95% range, which is completely normal.

Unfortunately, those results really don’t tell us much. It would take well over 500,000 hands to really determine anything.

-Sonny-
Click to expand...

How long will it take you to play 500,000 hands ? Playing a six deck shoe with 2 people at the table playing 3 x a week 6 hours a day ? Can I get there before I die ? I am 45 years old.
 
E

EmeraldCityBJ

Well-Known Member
InPlay said:
How long will it take you to play 500,000 hands ? Playing a six deck shoe with 2 people at the table playing 3 x a week 6 hours a day ? Can I get there before I die ? I am 45 years old.
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For the conditions you described, playing 100 hands per hour would be a reasonable estimate. At this rate with the numbers you provided, you'd play 600 hands in a day, or 1800 hands in a week, or 93,600 hands per year. Playing 500,000 hands would take somewhere from 5 to 5.5 years.
 
Sonny

Sonny

Well-Known Member
InPlay said:
How long will it take you to play 500,000 hands ?
Click to expand...
If you play on a computer (either online or using software) you can get 200-300 hands per hour. Better yet, a good simulator can do it in 10 minutes.

-Sonny-
 
aslan

aslan

Well-Known Member
InPlay said:
How long will it take you to play 500,000 hands ? Playing a six deck shoe with 2 people at the table playing 3 x a week 6 hours a day ? Can I get there before I die ? I am 45 years old.
Click to expand...
You'll have to form a team of players who play just like you. I wouldn't bet my life savings though. If you get 20 hands per shoe you'll only have to play 25,000 shoes. A team of five players can each take 5,000 shoes. Say you play 25 shoes a day, you only have to play 200 days. Heck not even a year. Go for it! And let us know what happens. :laugh:
 
K

Kasi

Well-Known Member
Licentia said:
I was testing a strategy tonight. Here are my stats:

Hands - 3641
Won - 1547 42.488%
Lost - 1800 49.436%
Pushed - 295 8.102%
Click to expand...
By hands, do you mean total dealer upcards or do you count splits as 2 hands? Do you count a W/L on a split as one push or 1 win and 1 loss?

Also we'd need how many hands were doubles and your W/L/T results of same.

Total actually wagered would be nice too to get avg bet/hand.

Assume these stats are manual (since they don't add up lol) and, if so, I give you even more credit for manually tracking results like this :)

And we'd also need the HA!

But, then, with all that, we'd be cooking with gas :)
 
S

SilentBob420BMFJ

Banned
Sonny said:
The standard deviation for a flat betting BS player is about 1.16 units per hand. That gives us a SD of 1.16 * Sqrt(3641) = 70 units for 3641 hands. At $5 per hand we get a range of:

-$441 to +$259 about 68% of the time
-$791 to +$609 about 95% of the time
-$1,141 to +$959 about 99.7% of the time

Since your average bet is higher than $5 your results will be a little above those numbers. But even for a $5 flat betting player your results are just over the 95% range. I don’t know what kind of bet spread you were using but I would assume that it would bring your results down to much less than the 95% range, which is completely normal.

Unfortunately, those results really don’t tell us much. It would take well over 500,000 hands to really determine anything.

-Sonny-
Click to expand...
its that easy to calculate? what if i played 5555 hands in only positive running counts, flat betting $10, and lets just say for the sake of simplicity, playing bs? im assuming that complicates things.. damn.. it would be easy to calculate the wonging, as you would just say im playing about 48% of all hands, which i think is correct, and then you would have to calculate my advantage, which you would do by taking each count and multiply it by the frequency, then do the same for each count, and add them all together.. i dunno
 
I

InPlay

Banned
Sonny said:
If you play on a computer (either online or using software) you can get 200-300 hands per hour. Better yet, a good simulator can do it in 10 minutes.

-Sonny-
Click to expand...
I was talking about real conditions in a real casino for real money not simulators or online with a computer. Thanks for the reply.
 
K

Kasi

Well-Known Member
SilentBob420BMFJ said:
its that easy to calculate? what if i played 5555 hands in only positive running counts, flat betting $10, and lets just say for the sake of simplicity, playing bs? im assuming that complicates things.. damn.. it would be easy to calculate the wonging, as you would just say im playing about 48% of all hands, which i think is correct, and then you would have to calculate my advantage, which you would do by taking each count and multiply it by the frequency, then do the same for each count, and add them all together.. i dunno
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Pretty much. That's exactly it. You got it.

Piece of cake :)
 
L

Licentia

Banned
SilentBob420BMFJ said:
that site is just an estimate, and doesnt take spreading into account, but then again, you dont card count, since its just a big scam by the authors right?
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I was up almost $800 after 170 or so hands testing my new strategy. My average bet is about $15 to $18. You do the math and tell me if a Basic strategy player can do that. If the website says there is a 0% chance of that occuring I think that can be a pretty good indicator.

I did not say that Card Counting is a scam. I know full well that it works. But it is rarely free. It's all about making money and the people who make the big money are the ones with the websites and the books. Not the people who actually count cards at the tables.

Licentia.
 
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T

toastblows

Well-Known Member
so you were up $800 flat betting $15-18? if you bet $30-36 you would be up $1600....better polish up on that system brody :)
 
Sonny

Sonny

Well-Known Member
Licentia said:
I was up almost $800 after 170 or so hands testing my new strategy. My average bet is about $15 to $18. You do the math and tell me if a Basic strategy player can do that.
Click to expand...
A basic strategy player with an $18 average bet will earn between $527 and $789 about 2.35% of the time (about 1 in 43). That's not unusual for such a small number of hands. Such short-term results really don't tell you anything.

-Sonny-
 
G

Guynoire

Well-Known Member
Everyone approximates blackjack probabilities using a normal distribution, probably the website does too.
Anyway, I just ran the numbers regarding your $18 dollar "average" bet. If the house had a typical .05% then your results are truly 1 out of a million.
However if your "average bet" failed to incorporate double downs as betting twice the amount then the probability of winning $800 dollars or more after $170 hands due to random chance is approximately 1.1%.
1.1% is a borderline situation, things with 1/100 probability do occur every once in a while and these numbers certainly aren't strong enough to hold up in court.
 
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