I was intrigued by some of the comments posted here on team play. I've been going crazy the last couple of days thinking about this and maybe some of you can help me out. Recommended good books on team play? or better yet, personal experience or knowledge of team play would be interesting to me?
I noticed there was emphasis placed on total bankroll in a few of the comments. It seems to me that with a BP scheme the betting spread and lower risk of being identified as a counter are just as important to consider. I've been driving myself crazy trying to come up with a simplistic analysis to understand the advantages of team play and also the effect of betting spread with BP scheme vs. higher bankroll alone. I'll lay what I've come up with so far on the table for you to comment on (please). Please especially let me know where the logic might be flawed, so that I can get a more solid understanding of calculating advantage, return, risk, etc.
As one way to consider team play, compare the case for 5 players playing individually versus 5 players playing as a team under equivalent conditions. When playing individually, each of the 5 players has a modest $6,000 bank roll, plays a simple hi/lo counting system with a 1:8 spread, in a 6D game with H17/DAS and 75% penetration (for stats on this I grabbed info from bjstats.com). Each player is comfortable that with a $5 betting unit and $60 max bet, there is reasonable safety cushion for the bankroll (100 times max bet).
For team play consider the same playing conditions where the team combines their bankroll. 4 of the 5 players (spotters) play only 1-unit bets ($5) and in the long run lose money according to the house advantage. The 5th player (BP) is switching tables signaled by the spotters so as to play at a table only when the true count is +2 or higher. The 4 spotters each play with a bank of $500, leaving the BP with $28,000 of their combined bankroll. The BP consistently bets a stake of $300. This gives the team a betting spread of $5 to $300 while not making it obvious that the spotters are counting.
Now for a simple analysis of the return of investment for the two cases; individual vs. team play with BP.
For team play, assume that the spotters played 100 hands/hr and the BP was able to play 25 hands/hr with time taken to switch tables (this may be a bit of a stretch since the count at a given spotters table would only be +2 or higher 7.65% of the time for these conditions, and at times two or more of the spotters tables would have the desired conditions simultaneously). In the long run, the spotters would be losing $2.55/hr while the BP would be gaining ~$141/hr (this was calculated by using the expected distribution of counts +2 or higher and their respective advantages for average play of 25 hands/hr). The overall team gain would then be $130.80/hr; which divided between players is $26.16/hr/player. For the individual play case the return would be $2.19/hr; very small in comparison to the $26.16/hr average for the team play scenario. If a single player were to play with the combined bankroll and raised the betting unit from $5 to $25, the gain would then be $10.95/hr; which divided 5 ways still gives each player the much lower $2.19/hr. The players could also play alternating shifts with the higher betting unit increasing their total return to $10.95/hr; still quite a bit lower than the $26.16/hr average for the BP scheme. Is this primarily because of the higher spread? I also questioned whether all five players could safely play simultaneously with the higher betting unit for a combined bankroll (mainly wondering if they would have to shift money back and forth between players to cover swings). Of course their return could be raised compared to the BP case by increasing the spread to 1:12 instead of 1:8, but the overall return would still be quite a bit lower than the BP scheme (plus how fun would it be to play the BP role).
I noticed the Mayor referred to the Uston book as a source for team play. Would this be one of the better books on the subject? And does he go into much depth on the advantages/disadvantages of team play or compare different approaches to team play? I also wonder how practical it is to use the BP scheme; what is the relative risk of being suspected as a counter vs wonging in and out or playing through with a 1:12 spread. It seems like the attention would mostly be directed to the BP and not so much to the spotters if everyone were pretty capable. Maybe a committed team of spotters could cycle through a number of part-time BP's to help avoid detection.
OK, enough rambling, I'd better get back to my day job.
I noticed there was emphasis placed on total bankroll in a few of the comments. It seems to me that with a BP scheme the betting spread and lower risk of being identified as a counter are just as important to consider. I've been driving myself crazy trying to come up with a simplistic analysis to understand the advantages of team play and also the effect of betting spread with BP scheme vs. higher bankroll alone. I'll lay what I've come up with so far on the table for you to comment on (please). Please especially let me know where the logic might be flawed, so that I can get a more solid understanding of calculating advantage, return, risk, etc.
As one way to consider team play, compare the case for 5 players playing individually versus 5 players playing as a team under equivalent conditions. When playing individually, each of the 5 players has a modest $6,000 bank roll, plays a simple hi/lo counting system with a 1:8 spread, in a 6D game with H17/DAS and 75% penetration (for stats on this I grabbed info from bjstats.com). Each player is comfortable that with a $5 betting unit and $60 max bet, there is reasonable safety cushion for the bankroll (100 times max bet).
For team play consider the same playing conditions where the team combines their bankroll. 4 of the 5 players (spotters) play only 1-unit bets ($5) and in the long run lose money according to the house advantage. The 5th player (BP) is switching tables signaled by the spotters so as to play at a table only when the true count is +2 or higher. The 4 spotters each play with a bank of $500, leaving the BP with $28,000 of their combined bankroll. The BP consistently bets a stake of $300. This gives the team a betting spread of $5 to $300 while not making it obvious that the spotters are counting.
Now for a simple analysis of the return of investment for the two cases; individual vs. team play with BP.
For team play, assume that the spotters played 100 hands/hr and the BP was able to play 25 hands/hr with time taken to switch tables (this may be a bit of a stretch since the count at a given spotters table would only be +2 or higher 7.65% of the time for these conditions, and at times two or more of the spotters tables would have the desired conditions simultaneously). In the long run, the spotters would be losing $2.55/hr while the BP would be gaining ~$141/hr (this was calculated by using the expected distribution of counts +2 or higher and their respective advantages for average play of 25 hands/hr). The overall team gain would then be $130.80/hr; which divided between players is $26.16/hr/player. For the individual play case the return would be $2.19/hr; very small in comparison to the $26.16/hr average for the team play scenario. If a single player were to play with the combined bankroll and raised the betting unit from $5 to $25, the gain would then be $10.95/hr; which divided 5 ways still gives each player the much lower $2.19/hr. The players could also play alternating shifts with the higher betting unit increasing their total return to $10.95/hr; still quite a bit lower than the $26.16/hr average for the BP scheme. Is this primarily because of the higher spread? I also questioned whether all five players could safely play simultaneously with the higher betting unit for a combined bankroll (mainly wondering if they would have to shift money back and forth between players to cover swings). Of course their return could be raised compared to the BP case by increasing the spread to 1:12 instead of 1:8, but the overall return would still be quite a bit lower than the BP scheme (plus how fun would it be to play the BP role).
I noticed the Mayor referred to the Uston book as a source for team play. Would this be one of the better books on the subject? And does he go into much depth on the advantages/disadvantages of team play or compare different approaches to team play? I also wonder how practical it is to use the BP scheme; what is the relative risk of being suspected as a counter vs wonging in and out or playing through with a 1:12 spread. It seems like the attention would mostly be directed to the BP and not so much to the spotters if everyone were pretty capable. Maybe a committed team of spotters could cycle through a number of part-time BP's to help avoid detection.
OK, enough rambling, I'd better get back to my day job.
