stories

[newbctr]

Send me the similar story from a year ago... I wouldn't mind seeing that.

You guys are all just so smart - can't get anything past any of you! well, off to sleep thinking of what story I will make up tomorrow! Rest assured, I have some good ideas in mind. maybe i will create a new name, and put a "1" at the end. That way, no one would ever suspect it's the same person.

My streak isn't that much above EV - what makes the story implausible to you ploppy's is that I started with essentially 0. For anyone that has counted well, you know that it's very possible to book several wins in a row, which I was lucky enough to do early.

May post under a new handle tomorrow since my credibility is ruined

 

[blackjacktilt]

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:

 

[jack.jackson]

At least the OP has a sense of humor. I once heard a story about this homeless guy that got hit in the head by a quarter, that fell out of the pocket of some construction worker from above. He took the quarter(with bump on head) and put it into a slot machine and won millions of $$$. Hey.... Miracles do happen.

 

[FLASH1296]

newbctr,

- If I start a shoe with a 2 unit bet, then what is actually considered the "spread?" I mean, is going from 200 to 800 a 4 to 1 spread or 8 to 1 spread, assuming I sometimes drop to 100 in negative counts?

Yes that is an 8−1 spread. You hope that somehow the $100 bets are invisible.

- Played with another counter for the first time during my run at a major strip shop.... excellent player with excellent cover spreading 5:1 at DD and playing insurance and negative counts perfectly. He left probably because he knew what I was up to

The 2nd counter arriving should leave immediately. Common courtesy.
You needed to leave if s/he didn't. Playing at the same table with a skilled player is suicidal.

- Bringing money orders to vegas = bad idea... no where will cash them without trouble

- No problem playing in HL rooms (except 1 back off), but I spit a lot of cover at these places.

Presumably, you know that back-offs are frequently communicated between casinos.

- What is a break-even spread on DD assuming play all?
It depends on the rules and the count used and pen'
The best case is S17. DAS, 65% pen' Hi-Opt II with Aces and Sevens side-counted, Indices galore.
THREE to ONE suffices.
The worst (practical)case is H17, DAS, 55% pen' Hi-Lo with Ill' 18.
I believe that FIVE to ONE suffices.

- Was spread to 700 on great count on DD, and hit 3 straight BJ's.

I suspect that upon return, whenever that may be, you will be quickly 86'd;
as they probably reviewed your play after your departure.
Second visits, even after years, are fraught with this risk.

Overall, the DD was profitable, fun, and quite volatile... I still prefer 6D. Less cover is necessary and I feel more comfortable playing perfectly without worrying so much. The DD has nice odds and EV, but I used so much damn cover that I feel like my results were a lot of + variance.

Yes, you are probably correct about your having been lucky;
but more importantly the SIX deckers are MUCH safer.

 

[Sharky]

i don't find DD "dangerous" one bit, of course, given a proper br.....assuming your TRIP br was, say, $15k spreading $100-$800 in DD IS dangerous...obviously, i am assuming -$13k being "nearly trip br" that you may have brought $15k...VERY interesting that when down to, say, 20 units ($2k) you don't mention resizing... did you still spread $100-$800...turning $2k into $21k, that's awesome...but you could've VERY easily lost it all

best of luck

 

[kewljason]

Ok, so here's the story so far:

You started with 0 bankroll back in october which you built to $3000 in day one of your career.

You kept going back to that local casino “booking win after win”, some day's cashing out at over $9000.

Then your first trip to vegas, Cashed out over $10,000 your first day. Played 2 other casinos and cahed out another 10 grand. (no CTR's)

Now you made second trip to vegas, starting with 15K bankroll which you thought was 18K. (what's a few K, we all lose track of thousands of dollars) You won 210 units ($100 units) speading $200-$800 on double deck. Incidentally that means you had less than 20 max bets. Very high RoR. You should have 40-50 grand to play that spread. Anyway another $21,000 win in Vegas.

I can hardly wait for the next chapter.


Where are all the members who in the past have accused me of sugar coating and glamourizing the lifestyle and encouraging new players down this path, when I posted my experiences? (which wasn't my attempt and I don't believe I ever did) Why the strange silence with this joker?

 

[paddywhack]

Ok, so here's the story so far:

You started with 0 bankroll back in october which you built to $3000 in day one of your career.

You kept going back to that local casino “booking win after win”, some day's cashing out at over $9000.

Then your first trip to vegas, Cashed out over $10,000 your first day. Played 2 other casinos and cahed out another 10 grand. (no CTR's)

Now you made second trip to vegas, starting with 15K bankroll which you thought was 18K. (what's a few K, we all lose track of thousands of dollars) You won 210 units ($100 units) speading $200-$800 on double deck. Incidentally that means you had less than 20 max bets. Very high RoR. You should have 40-50 grand to play that spread. Anyway another $21,000 win in Vegas.

I can hardly wait for the next chapter.


Where are all the members who in the past have accused me of sugar coating and glamourizing the lifestyle and encouraging new players down this path, when I posted my experiences? (which wasn't my attempt and I don't believe I ever did) Why the strange silence with this joker?

IDK Kewl, but I, for one, haven't paid any attention to these stories. So I'm not as able to see through the garbage as you are.

 

[shadroch]

Are you really going to get on people for ignoring this fool?

 

[newbctr]

Well I stopped posting for a while because I don't appreciate all the comments people made about my story. I find the site useful and read on here everyday. I have also given other people information on casino conditions. I have even talked to kj online & given him tips despite the comments he made toward me on these boards. But my story is 100% real, and here is an update that should have it more believable.

As I stated previously, I strarted with 0 bankroll. Since my previous post, I was winning more soon after. In fact, I once went $50k with 0 losing days. At one point, I was up to 80k and that is despite spending alot for expenses.

Well luck has finally caught up to me, and the streak has been unreal. I still own the pa shops w the good rules, but ac has demolished me. It all started when over 4 hrs I lost 150 units... I figured no biggie, pretty normal. Returned the next week, and played all day for 2 straight days - horrible luck. Lost 200 units... Wonged aggressively, 16x spread, lost seemingly all doubles and splits, and the dealer pulled all low cards to make a hand in tc's 3 - 7. I was getting stiffs every single time I had big bets out.

So more recently, I returned knowing I would be welcome. And I was right: to the amount of another 300 unit loss in about 8 hours of play. My overall profit has been more than cut in half. In terms of the steak, I have to say I have never seen anything like it in my life. At one point, I was questioning to myself whether high cards were removed. For 2 days, I saw at least 90% positive counts with most running above 2. They never seemed to revert toward 0 and the dealer ALWAYS pulled the low card for 20 or 21 when I had huge bets. I didn't even have a decent run where I made 30 units... It was straight down.

I knew these results were possible and worried about it since day 1. However I have to say this is worse than I thought. Ironically, my play has improved and I thought I played much better than Vegas when I made 250 units.

Would love to hear other peoples stories regarding losses of 500+ units and how common they are all. Also, I know surrender adds .2% for a counter, but how big is this? I ask because I have crushed pa since day 1. I have a 90% win rate in pa with net wins at every casino expect 1 place where I played only once. Can it really matter THAT much?

Final point is regarding risk. Per kj, I ditched the increase after win only and decrease after loss. This has HUGELY increased my standard deviation. I don't think it can be anecdotal either: the swings are way beyond anything I saw in about 400 hrs of play

 

[kewljason]

Final point is regarding risk. Per kj, I ditched the increase after win only and decrease after loss. This has HUGELY increased my standard deviation. I don't think it can be anecdotal either: the swings are way beyond anything I saw in about 400 hrs of play

Hold on there young buck. Don't try to pin your problems on any advice that I or anyone else gave you. You take, or not take any advice with a grain of salt and make your own decisions. That said, to clarify, the advice you are referring to was that I pointed out the flaws in your god, Ian Anderson's play. That parlaying up on winning bets only and not dropping bets on winning hands even if the count calls for it, may be ok for single/doubledeck games, but for 6 deck games you get to the really good counts very infrequently and you gotta be prepared to get the money out their when these rare situations occur to take advantage of them. If you waste time slowly parleying up when these situations occur, you will miss half of them.

That said, that really has nothing to do with your problem. But before I address that, I will answer your question concerning swings of 500+ units. If you are playing 6 and 8 deck games, especially mediocre games such as Pa and especially AC, you need a large spread to beat them. Larger spreads unfortunately mean larger swings, both good and bad as sometimes, (far too often) you lose many of those big bets in a row. I too, have experienced a few extreme swings over the first half of this year like none that I had encountered before, luckily to date more positive than negative, but could just as easily go the other way. Again, you gotta bet big to win and betting big sometimes means losing big for a period. That is the whole reason one must be properly bankrolled, which brings me back around full circle to your problem.

In various posts on this site and the other you have talked about playing both $50 and $100 units. You have also mentioned spreading 16-1 and playing 2 hands totaling $1000. In short, you are overbetting your bankroll. Without knowing the exact specifics of the games you are playing, I wouldn't attempt to figure your exact RoR, but I would guess you are playing full Kelly, if not more. And that means a pretty high chance of not only losing 500 units but losing your entire BR. Anyone planning on safely playing for any period of time off a set BR is playing a small fraction of Kelly. The only acceptable reason for playing full kelly, would be if your BR was easily replenishible, in your case meaning you could easily lose the 50 grand and start again with another 50 grand, because again, there is a reasonable chance that will happen and I dare say, you may be in the middle of that now. :sad:

During the “cost of cover” thread, you talked about sometimes playing your Max bet off the top of a new shoe for cover purposes. I tried to tell you this method of cover is costly. Not only the cost per hand of playing a max bet with negative expectation. That may only be a few dollars each time, but this play also increases RoR, which you are going thru. So don't blame me for that one. Blame our friend Zg. He is the one pushing this as inexpensive cover.

One final point about Pa and AC, If you have equal access to several of the PA stores as you have mentioned, why are you continuing to play the inferior games in AC so often? All other things being equal, the LS on Pa games is a big deal and makes them far superior to AC.

 

[FLASH1296]

"I know surrender adds .2% for a counter, but how big is this?"

It matters a whole lot. It is worth .19% with flat-betting Basic Strategy;
taking L.S. only with 16 vs. 9,10, Ace and 15 vs. 10 [at all counts].

A Card Counter takes L.S. much more often than a Basic Strategy player and
with increasing frequency at higher True Counts — thus on higher bets.

Depending on the bet spread and what count is being used, L.S. can be worth considerably more.
A good benchmark might be .30%; and if you do not realize that that is extraordinary, you have a lot to learn.

L.S. reduces the Standard Deviation and (to a degree) the volatility [the wild fluctuations] that we ALL experience.

 

[newbctr]

Hey KJ,

I surely wasn't blaming you or anyone one bit. I play my own game and make my own decisions, and surely changing my betting patterns doesn't make the dealer more likely to pull 21 40% of the hands . The streak started before I changed anyway. I do think your way has higher return coupled with higher flucuation, but a well capitalized player can stand it. Ian's parlay strategy is costly, but he says he compensates for it by going beyond a 12 or 16X spread, up to 18. I guess he offsets one lower flucation play with a higher one.

Regarding BR, at one point, I had actually grown into my stakes (ironically, by overbetting my BR). I felt comfortable with my RoR and playing with 800+ units. However, during the cold streak, I needed to resize and failed to. I guess I was used to luck turning after 1 or 200 units, as it always has for me. Now I am down to 800 units if I resize in half, and I dumped 3/4 off for a potential investment (may or may not happen) and 1/4 is now stuck in my safe.... I traveled with my safe, and forgot that I had hidden the key in my car. Since my car was in for service when I left the country, I hid the key in my safe. Sadly, it worked fine for my whole losing steak. After I got 80% of the money out I lost, the batteries died and I cant get the rest.

Regarding casino choice, you and flash are def right. I thought I read somewhere that surrender is 0.08% for BS player and 0.2% for counter but maybe Flash's numbers are right. My worry is that the PA shops are much more scared of the big action. In Vegas/AC, they don't blink over 10k. In PA, they sweat the big action. The better rules coupled with great luck have allowed me to demolish PA. I am black listed at some places and others I have won 80+% of my trips. In fact, during the recent losing streak, I snuck in a HUGE win at a PA shop.

In dominican republic, I got half shoed at a tiny casino with 100 max (I won 2000 spreading 2 X 100). They spoke 0 english and didn't seem to have a clue. I became friends with a guy, so he followed me, and the only other lady playing BJ there also followed for 1 shoe, and the table got super hot (coindidently with a TC +5) and we all won. The next day, 1/2 shoed.

Regarding max bet off the top, we already debated that... but that was out the window this last trip for me, so that didn't hurt me. I used next to no cover where I lost 80% of my money. I suspect that since this casino doesn't sweat big action, and I am down so much, I have a free pass. God (Ian Anderson) mentions dumping 1200 units at one place, and played there 6 days a month after with 0 heat, and won back over twice what he lost before getting heat through word of mouth. So Flash, should I keep playing in PA until I get heat or go to the game in AC where I have huge losses and play perfectly to the extent I can?

 

[tthree]

It sounds like you are burning out the best games by trying to win to much to fast. The key to being a truly successful AP is longevity. That means playing within the casino's tolerance level for bet spreads and win size. Avoid suspicious activity like ratholing. Once they catch you ratholing every session you play after that you will be clocked for a bigger win than you actually had. Many casinos share information so a bad experience at one casino can poison many games for you. You want to be the most conservative at the best games. They have more of a reason to be sweaty. You also want to be sure you are welcome back forever. You don't need a huge spread on those games anyway unless you use a weak counting system. Learn as strong a system as you can handle. You can use a smaller spread and still be as profitable as a weaker system with a bigger spread. A high playing efficiency is very important especially when the big bets are out. The last thing is an understanding of what matchups your system provides weak information about due to a lack of information on the key cards. Hilo has a very poor playing efficiency but for many hand match ups it is quite strong. Knowing which hand matchups are dragging down the PE of HILO and understanding why allows you to use a side count of aces and sevens to modify those plays giving it a respectable playing efficiency and wouldn't make a huge spread with extra high variance due to poor PE a necessary evil.

 

[newbctr]

hey -

you are definetely right about your comments... it's just hard because I don't live close to any casinos. I make trips often and try to bounce around. When I was winning, I tried to keep my wins relatively low. The problem is, when I play 50/100 units, the big wins just happen. The $16,000 win recently was FAST. And I wasn't even super hot... I lost some big doubled etc, but obviously the luck was good. I can't control the fact that I win consistantly at some shops. At one, I have won every trip (10 at least) the whole year, and it has the same rules/pen as the one that OWNS me. In fact, no casino is over 100 units up on me (few up at all), except the one casino is up 500 units (minus some I won before the streak).

I thought hi/low was fine for 6 decks. I could sidecount 7's (heard it was better then aces), but I just dont see how often this would help. I guess I could double A2 & A3 more often with this info and perhaps raise/lower the index for 12 vs 2/3? Or maybe change the index for 14 vs 10 surrender? I know the dealer is going to make more hands with 2, 3, 4 with a 7 rich deck, but what splits/doubles does this effect (I only care about relatively high counts/bets)?