Tree is correct, and even if he wasn't, I can once again care less about what knowledge people think I have/don't have - I am not going to respond to people who question my skills so such. Instead of questioning my knowledge, why don't you run a simulator and calculate the lost value of never taking insurance below TC 3.2, and then we can compare it to the ridiculus comp offers sitting on my kitchen table that can literally be liquidated into thousands at one casino (including all my points). Insurance is a very marginal probability advantage to the counter. The reasons it becomes such a profitable index play are the substantial bets, relative to your average, associated with it, and the frequency of the occurance in the positive counts.
I advise people to read burning the tables. There are bits and pieces in the book that make the guy a genious. Someone gave me a hard time about being "friends" with the crew, but forging relationships is important, especially for someone like me that that doesn't live close to casinos and must frequent the same places - Ian does a great job emphasizing this. When I play, I play just like another young ploppy that probably has no clue what's going on. I have one "bonehead" play I make 100% of the time, and it occurs frequently. And if the TC is +3, why not just insure the 20? After all, you have 20, so gotta insure it (sarcasm, but people, including bosses, believe this stuff). And if the insurance bet is at the margin, why not go ahead and take the even money? Why not just take it every time, give up a tiny bit of EV, but make the play that casinos know is wrong?
Someone said I would surely be banned all over in no time, but I have been mostly ok. The two places I can't return to were for 1) cummlative win being super high, with 1 losing day out of 13 and 2) casino that is simply off the wall - watched EVERY hand hour after hour, and booted me for 8X spread. I blame myself for this one as the situation was fishy from the start, and I over-stayed. Ironically, I had read on this forum that the casino was a good place to play, and you could spread very high