Team play continued

[Kasi]

I hope I'm not creating a problem here by continuing the earlier "New Friends" thread that Sonny closed.

I regretted that AM did not have a chance to perhaps comment.

I only posted what I was guessing might be the response by members of the team to what he said.

In that vain, here's another response to AM's 7 points.

#1 I don't really see anything wrong with using someone in the way he proposed if that's what he would do with his team. Especially if team members agreed to it. Maybe an arrogant young lord is just the act needed.

#2 If he wants team members to invest a portion of the total bankroll of a team, and therefore in effect be risking his own money to some extent, fine too. If he requires players to play with own bankroll, and everybody agrees, fine. If everybody's happy with how they will be paid, win or lose, fine.

#3 If he chooses to utilize his callers to bet bigger with the count, why not? Extract every last dime if that's the way u want to run ur team.

#4 If u choose to have ur players play in a more agressive manner, perhaps jumping bets, etc and everyone is willing to trade the increased chance of being backed off for winning more, fine.

#5 Again, if he chooses to play with no cover whatsoever, betting very agressively etc , maybe it'll pay-off quicker. If everybody agress to it, no problem.

#6 If he wants to use a highly-skilled counter to send a rookie in a positive shoe as a BP because it is much more unlikely the highly-skilled player will reverse the count, I guess that's his choice of how to use his resources.

#7 I'm just trying to say here there really is no "right" and "wrong".

I'm sure if Bojack and AM each had $1MM and access to the 10, most-highly skilled BJ players in the world, proficient in all counts in all games for 1 year, their teams would be managed differently. Who did what, at what games, how expenses are handled, how controls are handled, etc.

In a nutshell, if it were me, I'd want to know the proposed plan in one heck of a lot of detail, and then decide if it was for me or not.

Anyone who wants to comment from a theoretical point of view on exactly how they might use the 10, or whatever number of players u'd want on ur team, best players in the world in team play for say one year or whatever, who would do what, what games they would play, how they would play them, what betting systems they would use, who gets paid how and when, who u would want to invest how much, how expenses might be shared, would u travel, how u might guard against, or not, the possibility of dishonest players, etc. feel free to comment. Or any variation thereof.

But be nice.

I certainly wouldn't have much of a clue how to run a team. But playing on one does sound like fun lol.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

The other thread was locked for a reason so I don't want to rehash it, but I would like to write something about team play as a generality.

Assuming a team is just counting (mixing counting with advanced AP techniques is a whole different thing) everything the team does including the structure of the team has to be for a reason. "I saw 'Bringing Down The House' and that's the way they did it" or "That's what Ken Uston would have done" is not a good reason.

Team play brings all the problems of business and employment into card counting and the first obvious problem with a team is that you have to pay all those people. This is a tough business and it's hard enough for a counter to even make enough money to pay himself, how the hell is he going to pay spotters who aren't playing? If you want to have a BP/spotter type of team you're going to have to pay your spotters, and if they're any good, they're not going to come cheap. You might think you can save a little money by paying them the certainty equivalent of their win rate if they were playing alone, but being that is a fixed expense it cuts into your bankroll. You have to pay them even on nights when you get your ass kicked at the table. (Or you might be getting your ass kicked in another way!) Cutting your bankroll is the same as cutting your win rate, if you believe in Kelly's Theorem. Forgetting that everyone needs to be paid, including you, and you get yours last, is the reason why most small business ventures fail.

The purpose of a BP/spotter team is to allow a combined bankroll to get very large bets down in stores that are not tolerant of bet variations. There is no other benefit to it. The problem is, there aren't that many games around that are good enough to warrant giving up EV for longevity, and most of the games that have limits high enough to support more than one player are no-mid-shoe-entry, which obviously makes it impossible to use any kind of backcounting or call-in. So in the spirit of TANSTAAFL, you gain longevity by using the spotters but you give it right back because there are now a much smaller number of pits you can spread your action around in.

In the case of Atlantic City, the games are so bad many players consider the venue unplayable to begin with. If you do play it, you have no EV to spare. You can't afford to play negative counts, you can't afford to tip, and you can't afford to pay skilled counters to backcount tables for you. Sufficient money just isn't in those games. Being there is little to no heat due to state law, I cannot fathom why anyone would want to use a tactic that gives up EV to deflect heat, to deflect heat that isn't there. Read into that what you will.

Another type of team that is viable in many more situations is a bankroll-sharing team. There is no limit to the size or structure of team you can form this way because everyone is doing the same thing and everyone is producing EV. You and I can form one right now without ever meeting; we just agree to share our wins and losses with one another, balanced for our individual investment and hours played. Of course, you have to trust me that when I say I lost $1000 at the table I didn't just blow it on coke and whores, and when I proudly inform you I won $4000 in 4 hours and send you your check, I didn't really win $5000 and blow the difference on coke and whores.

But being we're always playing at separate tables, it does significantly reduce our variance and allow us to play higher stakes, and thus higher win rate, than if we were playing individually. Exactly what a bankroll-sharing team of individual players does is eliminate some of the variance associated with cards and replace it with the variance associated with human beings. You think cards are unpredictable? The fact is that people change and you never can tell how or when. You just have to take your chances, and all AP's know exactly what that means.

I'm sure there are a lot of other ways to apply team play, but the fundamental is no different than individual play. Get lots of money down on the table in good counts. Any team that does not help you do this in proportion to the added expenses and risks is not worthwhile.

 

[Kasi]

Thanks AM for ur reply.

Appreciated the objectivity

Nice to know ur philosophy on the subject.

Getting a little late so no specific comments at the moment!

Although, in general, I'd ceratinly sacrifice win rate for longevity.

(Not even sure what u said about this, if anything lol).

 

[mdlbj]

Playing blackjack is volatile , weather you are an advantage player or not. In business, as a professional player, you either enable your team as a mentor or you cripple the investment as a gung-ho wannabe.

Dont think, Do.

 

[RJT]

AM,
I'm satisfied that the people here don't believe what you've previously insinuated about me. Hence from this point on i'm going to ignore the fact that you made those comments in the first place and hope we can a least be civil towards each other in the future.
I can see why you think what you think but you are wrong in many aspects. The first point i'd make is that many people who choose to take on the spotter role, never become any more skilled than the spotter role requires. They achieve a level that allows them to take part, many of them enjoy the thrill, but they never push themselves to do more than spot. I'd go as far as to say that, unlike many of the people here, many spotters have never and will never read a book on advantage play. They've been trainined by the team to do a job and they are satisified getting what is in a relative sense, a small paycheck to do a simple job. How much would you honestly pay for someone who can only play BS and keep a simple running count? Even if they are extreemly proficient at it?
That is not an exclusive rule, but the ones who do take a further interest end up practicing to become the BP, then they start making more serious cash.
Where Bojack's team is concerned, the fact that - as far as i'm aware - every player on the team is also invested to some extent or another, makes the whole adventure more profitable for these otherwise low paid players. This also ensures that they are driven to win as much for the team as possible meaning that they'll always seak out the most advantageous situations.
As to Uston and MIT, yes that is not enough justification to do things that way. You have to analyze every situation as they did - especially the MIT lot. But as a counter argument, neither is it a good idea to ignore all they achieved. They were both highly sucessful and if you can't learn from what they've done you've got to question how you are going to survive in the game. You have to learn from the successess and failures of the past and evolve the systems to suit your uses. Change what no longer works and keep what does.
Getting you ass kicked in other ways - AM, seriously i know a large number of serious players from the past and present and their encounter with violence and sleeze have been few and far between to say the least. Yes a prudent sense of caution is alway envolved in any endevour you participate of in life, but you certainly shouldn't always fixsate on the negaitves. I don't know, maybe the people here do like to partake in stip clubs, whores and illecit substances. Most of the guys i know never did - despite what might have been written about them. Certainly I've no interest in strippers or whores and if i've ever indulged in illecit substances, it has been with good friends far away from any blackjack tables or bankrolls.
Your point about giving cover back due to the smaller amount of pits that you can play in ; it is true that you limit where you can play, but there's 2 points that you've missed here. Firstly time and again i've emphasized the point that you have to travel around a lot. This style of team play and in fact any style of play that is going to earn you a lot of money demands that you move round a lot. If you play Foxwoods this weekend you can guarentee that you won't be back for several months. As long as you are prepared to move around, and this team plays all over the states and indeed many places outside of the states you can play a very profitable game.
The other point i would make is that you have to tailor your play to suit your surroundings. You use the unit that you can get away with in the venue you are playing. Yes you can get away with bigger bets in some places than you can in others - so adjust. Yes some pits can withstand a smaller attack than others - so adjust. Perhaps your best venues do allow your largest unit for the longest amount of time, but that doesn't mean that there's not a good amount of money to be made playing elsewhere. A call in with a TC of +8 in a six deck game is worth the same to me in this pit that we can only safely play for 30-45min or a couple of call-ins as it is in the pit accross the street where i can play for an hour and a half+.
Yes there are many structures that a team can use. Gorilla play is one of them - ideal for certain types of cover, but there are draw backs as well. For one thing, and this is coming from many players practical experience, you will always suffer from dropped signals. No matter how good you are your Gorilla will always miss signals that you try to pass. It's a fiddley game. Still a useful one when the circumstance arrises.
Combined bankrolls is another, but again it has its limits. Lack of cover and trust being 2 big ones.
BP is one of the most flexible. A large amount of cover at a low cost and more importantly, you only need 1 player - depending on the size of the team - who is skilled enough to be trusted with large amounts of cash. We're not talking about dishonesty here - that's a seperate issue - we're talking about demonstrating the type of skills that convince everyone on the team that when the big money hits the felt, they're going to do the job needed. As long as the rest are competent at performing the far simpler tasks - and everyone needs to have faith that they are capible of that too - you can leave the body of skill to that one player.
If i was to start a team today, recruiting from people i know, i certainly wouldn't be looking to get them to a skill level that i'd trust them to wager my money and win. Training a winning player takes a good amount of time and effort. Training someone who can competently assess whether i'll have an advantage on a certain shoe is a far easier task. This means that when a spotter comes back - again assuming no honesty issues here - and says that they dropped $300 tonight, i don't think, 'did that happen cause they were betting at the wrong amount or making incorrect deviations?' instead i think 'they dropped that playing basic strategy and finding good situations for me to play'. In this sense it's a lot less stressful than combining bankrolls with other players.
This is another good reason that teams using this technique often choose to recruit new players who have never even thought about playing blackjack before. If you already play then i'm sure that you'll understand me when i say that starting to gain a real advantage does one of two things to a person :
1) Makes them more suspicious and less trusting of other people who do the same or
2) Makes them less trustworthy.
Now whether you want to believe that everyone who know how to play the game is out to get your cash or you just realise that learning to play installs a certain amount of paranoia is up to you, but if you are trying to set up a team with other people who already know the game you are going to have to deal with the fact that these people are going to be less trusting and more suspicious of everyone on the team whether there is reason to be or not. People who haven't played before are more like to be friends or family who you already trust and are less likely to have developed the paranoia complex that we've all developed as a safe guard.

RJT.

 

[RJT]

I'd like to use a sim i've just run emphasize the point i was making above. This isn't perfect - aka it's a very crude comparison - but as far as i'm aware there's not a simulator on the market that can accurately simulate a team playing with multiple counters on different tables - even CVDate ST doesn't cover this function.
I'm comparing a counter with a $10000 bankroll playing a fairly standard game using a 1-15 spread to another counter i've given him a bankroll of $40000 to represent 4 players working together and used a 1-100 spread to represent a BP call in system assuming 1 BP and 3 spotters. Now i am aware that this isn't perfect - You are essentially representing only one of the 3 spotters working with the BP here so you'd think to multiply by 3, that isn't accurate however as the BP wouldn't get to every good count which would reduce the win somewhat, but then the spotters certainly shouldn't play every bad count and should be back counting through many of the neutral ones. So for the purposes of this rough comparison i'll be very conservative and multiply the team hourly win by 2.25 to represent multiple spotters and this would be assuming that your BP doesn't back count at all.
What i would like to point out is that the team representation of the 1-100 spread used by the team provides over 11 times the hourly with of the 1-15 counter playing solo ($177.95 to $15). So you can more than afford to compensate the 3 spotters for their time. As a side benifit the RoR has also decreased.
Now EMFH strategy using the same 4 people each using a 1-15 spread in the same game should produce a win rate that is higher (approx $180), but fails to provide the cover. The difference is substancial, but now each of your players is laying black at a true of 3 or higher and is more likely to draw attention and heat sitting at tables for any length of time or indeed backcounting and jumping in at these stakes. It's great having the bigger win rate, but it's not really that much higher ($2) and considering i've been conservative with my multiplication factor for the team it could be lower and if you get backed off a lot quicker then you've lost out in the long run.
If i had the hosting facilities i had in the past i'd post screen shots, but i don't so i'll just say that if you would like to see screen shots of each of these sim results you can PM me an email address and i'll send them over to you.

RJT.

 

[Kasi]

Very happy u'll be around for a while because I very much enjoy ur posts.

And I don't even care if it's vice-versa lol.

Oh, I mean "you'll", or maybe even "you will", and "your", and lots of laughs lol.

 

[EasyRhino]

... I just imagined what it would be like for an EMFH team to go into one casino, and have every member betting big at the same time. Preferably a place like the Orleans. Or somewhere in Reno. Definitely something I'd want to see!

 

[Automatic Monkey]

AM,
I'm satisfied that the people here don't believe what you've previously insinuated about me. Hence from this point on i'm going to ignore the fact that you made those comments in the first place and hope we can a least be civil towards each other in the future.

What comments?

I can see why you think what you think but you are wrong in many aspects. The first point i'd make is that many people who choose to take on the spotter role, never become any more skilled than the spotter role requires. They achieve a level that allows them to take part, many of them enjoy the thrill, but they never push themselves to do more than spot. I'd go as far as to say that, unlike many of the people here, many spotters have never and will never read a book on advantage play. They've been trainined by the team to do a job and they are satisified getting what is in a relative sense, a small paycheck to do a simple job. How much would you honestly pay for someone who can only play BS and keep a simple running count? Even if they are extreemly proficient at it?

Zero. I would never join forces with a player who didn't take AP as seriously as I do, certainly not to count cards for me. I probably wouldn't even identify myself as an AP to such a person. There's an abstract math principle called the Clinton-Lewinsky Theorem that states that it is unwise to share a secret with someone who has less to lose than you if that secret were to be revealed.

That is not an exclusive rule, but the ones who do take a further interest end up practicing to become the BP, then they start making more serious cash.
Where Bojack's team is concerned, the fact that - as far as i'm aware - every player on the team is also invested to some extent or another, makes the whole adventure more profitable for these otherwise low paid players. This also ensures that they are driven to win as much for the team as possible meaning that they'll always seak out the most advantageous situations.

I don't understand. Are you an investor or a paid employee? If you are an investor, do you have the ability to pull all of your money out of the enterprise at any time you want?

Furthermore if you are an investor, you have just as much a right to test the skills of whoever else is playing as they have to test yours, and you have just as much a right to say one of them isn't fit to be a "big player" as they have to say it to you.

As to Uston and MIT, yes that is not enough justification to do things that way. You have to analyze every situation as they did - especially the MIT lot. But as a counter argument, neither is it a good idea to ignore all they achieved. They were both highly sucessful and if you can't learn from what they've done you've got to question how you are going to survive in the game. You have to learn from the successess and failures of the past and evolve the systems to suit your uses. Change what no longer works and keep what does.

Very little of it still works. Ken Uston had early surrender games available to him, for God's sake. None of these people played in the environment that we have to deal with now. The days of the eccentric high roller steaming around a BJ pit throwing $5K cheques down on the layout seemingly at random are over.

Getting you ass kicked in other ways - AM, seriously i know a large number of serious players from the past and present and their encounter with violence and sleeze have been few and far between to say the least. Yes a prudent sense of caution is alway envolved in any endevour you participate of in life, but you certainly shouldn't always fixsate on the negaitves. I don't know, maybe the people here do like to partake in stip clubs, whores and illecit substances. Most of the guys i know never did - despite what might have been written about them. Certainly I've no interest in strippers or whores and if i've ever indulged in illecit substances, it has been with good friends far away from any blackjack tables or bankrolls.

You missed what I said. What I meant was this: suppose a game offers me a win rate of $100/hr and another player offers me a $75/hr certainty equivalent to backcount for him. He has bad variance, and when I meet him outside to get paid he tells me "Man I never could have expected that would happen, sorry, but I can't pay you." He might be going face first into the pavement. I'm not saying I definitely would respond that way, nor that I definitely wouldn't, just that I would feel justified in doing so.

Your point about giving cover back due to the smaller amount of pits that you can play in ; it is true that you limit where you can play, but there's 2 points that you've missed here. Firstly time and again i've emphasized the point that you have to travel around a lot. This style of team play and in fact any style of play that is going to earn you a lot of money demands that you move round a lot. If you play Foxwoods this weekend you can guarentee that you won't be back for several months. As long as you are prepared to move around, and this team plays all over the states and indeed many places outside of the states you can play a very profitable game.

If they travel around and have access to the best overseas games, what the Christ are they doing in Atlantic City, home of some of the worst games?

And if you are moving around that much, why would one want to use the inefficient and limiting BP style of play for cover? An occasionally visiting player doesn't need cover, not in AC, not a backcounter. This is a venue I have played many times, with tactics so aggressive you'd feel sick, bumping up against table limits, and the only place I have ever gotten heat is now being torn down.

Combined bankrolls is another, but again it has its limits. Lack of cover and trust being 2 big ones.

WAIT! You told me you trust one another. You mean Bojack doesn't trust you enough to walk around AC with his money? I'm so disappointed!

BP is one of the most flexible. A large amount of cover at a low cost and more importantly, you only need 1 player - depending on the size of the team - who is skilled enough to be trusted with large amounts of cash. We're not talking about dishonesty here - that's a seperate issue - we're talking about demonstrating the type of skills that convince everyone on the team that when the big money hits the felt, they're going to do the job needed. As long as the rest are competent at performing the far simpler tasks - and everyone needs to have faith that they are capible of that too - you can leave the body of skill to that one player.

It seems that you are reverting to the language and beliefs of gamblers. You don't need skill to win when you are sent in to play at a table with a high count. You need Counter's Basic Strategy and some money. Even a monkey could do it.

If i was to start a team today, recruiting from people i know, i certainly wouldn't be looking to get them to a skill level that i'd trust them to wager my money and win. Training a winning player takes a good amount of time and effort. Training someone who can competently assess whether i'll have an advantage on a certain shoe is a far easier task.

The only skill I apply when counting is knowing when I have an advantage and sitting down and effing them over. It takes no additional skill to rake in the cheques when I put down a big bet and get a natural dropped on it.

This means that when a spotter comes back - again assuming no honesty issues here - and says that they dropped $300 tonight, i don't think, 'did that happen cause they were betting at the wrong amount or making incorrect deviations?' instead i think 'they dropped that playing basic strategy and finding good situations for me to play'.

WAIT!!!! I thought you were just backcounting. What is the purpose of sitting down and playing Basic Strategy? It wastes money and makes it difficult to backcount two tables. And besides, you're a counter, you know when to stand on 16 vs. 10, why would you be playing BS ever?

In this sense it's a lot less stressful than combining bankrolls with other players.

Uh, I guess, for some people.

This is another good reason that teams using this technique often choose to recruit new players who have never even thought about playing blackjack before. If you already play then i'm sure that you'll understand me when i say that starting to gain a real advantage does one of two things to a person :
1) Makes them more suspicious and less trusting of other people who do the same or
2) Makes them less trustworthy.
Now whether you want to believe that everyone who know how to play the game is out to get your cash or you just realise that learning to play installs a certain amount of paranoia is up to you, but if you are trying to set up a team with other people who already know the game you are going to have to deal with the fact that these people are going to be less trusting and more suspicious of everyone on the team whether there is reason to be or not. People who haven't played before are more like to be friends or family who you already trust and are less likely to have developed the paranoia complex that we've all developed as a safe guard.

I'm particularly interested in your role as an investor in this team that won't let you touch the money. I guess once you call one of the "big players" in, your job is to go backcount another table so you don't really get to see how he's doing, huh? Would it be a violation of team policy for you to explain how this all works?

(Disclaimer: I am not suggesting RJT is himself doing anything disreputable.)

 

[RJT]

(Disclaimer: I am not suggesting RJT is himself doing anything disreputable.)

You make me out to be some newbie rube like you actually know anything about me, that's simply not the case, i just know when there's someone who i can learn from and that someone is offering to help me for no other reason than a friend of his said I was a good person and a knowledgeable player.
When you insult one of my friends on such a personal level, then yes i take it personally. Just like if someone comes up to my gf in the pub and starts calling her a prostitiue or if someone starts walking around that same pub telling everyone that one of my friends is a theif, when they've never met the guy.
I had hope to end all this non-sense here.

If anyone else would like to ask any questions, feel free to ask away. This part's just not worth the time i've spent dealing with him and i hope you can all see the reasons why.

RJT.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

You make me out to be some newbie rube like you actually know anything about me, that's simply not the case, i just know when there's someone who i can learn from and that someone is offering to help me for no other reason than a friend of his said I was a good person and a knowledgeable player.
If anyone else would like to ask any questions, feel free to ask away. This prat's just not worth the time i've spent dealing with him and i hope you can all see the reasons why.

RJT.

Thank you for making my point!

So are you conceding that you are unwilling to answer the questions I have asked (that were led to by your own statements about this team) about its nature and structure, and how one invests? That's OK, I'm a trusting person, I want to invest! Where do I send my money? :laugh:

 

[RJT]

Thank you for making my point!

I conceed that i'm not willing to answer your questions simply cause you seemingly can't even deal with the simple aspect of comprehending the answers and have to ask the same questions over and over again. If someone else were to ask exactly the same questions i'd be happy enough to answer them.

Anyway, i'll leave contact details with Sonny for anyone who want to discuss the realities of either team play or the advanced techniques. Aaside from that, i won't be posting here anymore.

RJT.

 

[Bojack1]

What comments?



Zero. I would never join forces with a player who didn't take AP as seriously as I do, certainly not to count cards for me. I probably wouldn't even identify myself as an AP to such a person. There's an abstract math principle called the Clinton-Lewinsky Theorem that states that it is unwise to share a secret with someone who has less to lose than you if that secret were to be revealed.




I don't understand. Are you an investor or a paid employee? If you are an investor, do you have the ability to pull all of your money out of the enterprise at any time you want?

Furthermore if you are an investor, you have just as much a right to test the skills of whoever else is playing as they have to test yours, and you have just as much a right to say one of them isn't fit to be a "big player" as they have to say it to you.




Very little of it still works. Ken Uston had early surrender games available to him, for God's sake. None of these people played in the environment that we have to deal with now. The days of the eccentric high roller steaming around a BJ pit throwing $5K cheques down on the layout seemingly at random are over.




You missed what I said. What I meant was this: suppose a game offers me a win rate of $100/hr and another player offers me a $75/hr certainty equivalent to backcount for him. He has bad variance, and when I meet him outside to get paid he tells me "Man I never could have expected that would happen, sorry, but I can't pay you." He might be going face first into the pavement. I'm not saying I definitely would respond that way, nor that I definitely wouldn't, just that I would feel justified in doing so.




If they travel around and have access to the best overseas games, what the Christ are they doing in Atlantic City, home of some of the worst games?

And if you are moving around that much, why would one want to use the inefficient and limiting BP style of play for cover? An occasionally visiting player doesn't need cover, not in AC, not a backcounter. This is a venue I have played many times, with tactics so aggressive you'd feel sick, bumping up against table limits, and the only place I have ever gotten heat is now being torn down.



WAIT! You told me you trust one another. You mean Bojack doesn't trust you enough to walk around AC with his money? I'm so disappointed!



It seems that you are reverting to the language and beliefs of gamblers. You don't need skill to win when you are sent in to play at a table with a high count. You need Counter's Basic Strategy and some money. Even a monkey could do it.




The only skill I apply when counting is knowing when I have an advantage and sitting down and effing them over. It takes no additional skill to rake in the cheques when I put down a big bet and get a natural dropped on it.



WAIT!!!! I thought you were just backcounting. What is the purpose of sitting down and playing Basic Strategy? It wastes money and makes it difficult to backcount two tables. And besides, you're a counter, you know when to stand on 16 vs. 10, why would you be playing BS ever?



Uh, I guess, for some people.



I'm particularly interested in your role as an investor in this team that won't let you touch the money. I guess once you call one of the "big players" in, your job is to go backcount another table so you don't really get to see how he's doing, huh? Would it be a violation of team policy for you to explain how this all works?

(Disclaimer: I am not suggesting RJT is himself doing anything disreputable.)

Wow, I leave for a few days and I come back to......... exactly the same thing. I wonder why someone would try so hard to dispute anothers accomplishments and endeavors. To be honest I would have to care to figure that out. But what I will do for those that aren't so jaded and would like to actually listen to some answers about these questions is answer them.

Okay, on my team all the players are invested. There are different percentages of investment, but all are entitled to at least be heard on their opinion if a team makes a decision. All investors money is locked up until the team breaks bank at a predetermined money goal. That means no more can be invested, nor taken out until such time.

As far as testing skills, all who play on the team get tested. So it doesn't matter if you are a BP or a spotter, you will be tested, and every player on the team has a hand in the testing process. So regardless of what someone's playing status on the team is, everyone is confident that all will do their job well.

Yes the game has changed a bit from the days of Uston, and even the earlier MIT days. So that just means players need to adapt also. Of course we can't play at the stakes of those before us, but we can still play large enough for it to be a very worthwhile system in which to play. You can easily get away with a base unit of multiple black, with huge spreads based on the spotters play, it makes for a very profitable game.

As far as a situation where you don't get paid due to variance, well I think I explained how payments work so that doesn't become an issue. As far as my team goes I'm fairly confident anyone that would think about resorting to violence in trying to solve a dispute, it just wouldn't end well for the unreasonable person in question.

As far as A.C. goes as stated before I agree its not the best playing conditions, but if we can beat it, and we can, its just another stop. No its not our favorite, but it gives us another place to play between the better venues, and seeing its on the same coast as our homebase, its a fairly convenient filler.

As far as trusting RJT, I do unquestionably. Thats why he was given money. He was given what all spotters on the team receive when starting a trip. And no there is not only backcounting going on, but that is what is most ideal. In the real world casinos unfortunately do to conditions sometimes the spotters have to take a seat. But they play basic strategy due to the fact they are not playing during advantages, and we don't feel negative indice play is that vital due the small amounts the spotters bet in proportion to the team bets. Also it frees up their minds to avoid fatigue. In the case of a spotter wanting to play negative indices, if he could prove to the team that he could do it, then I would have no problem allowing him to. Its just not mandatory.

I guess thats about it. Most of your questions I believe have been answered. I'm sure you won't agree, thats fine. But what I say about the way my team plays is not up for interpretation, it is fact, and a damn successful one at that. So I suggest if you can't fathom that just leave it alone and move on, from what I can tell its boring the others.

 

[EasyRhino]

The question of the spotter's money ration made me thing of something tangential.

Of your team's total bankroll (And I don't know if you guys regularly "break bank" or not), how much if it, while in venue, is in some form of cash (actually cash on hand, stuffed under mattresses, casino chips, on deposit at cages, etc.) and how much is at the bank or some other financial institution?)

 

[RJT]

After some discussion with forum admin, they have come to the conclusion that it is inappropriate to make insinuations about other poster’s honesty especially easily refuted ones – hence this thread has been trimmed back somewhat, much to my approval. As such, I now feel more comfortable posting in this forum and will add a few bits and pieces to the answers that Bojack has kindly given to the questions.

My position as an investor in Bojack’s team is non-existent. I was not, am not and never will be an investor in Bojack’s team. While all the full time members of the team are invested to some degree or another, myself and my gf could not have invested for several reasons.
First would be that as far as bankroll goes, this team has as large a bankroll as they could want. They play the largest unit that they are comfortable playing while keeping risk to an absolute minimum, so further investment would have been no benefit to them.
One of the points that has to be emphasized here is that we were never asked to contribute to the bankroll, so we never had to put any of our own money at risk on any level – be that from dishonest players (of which there weren’t any from what we saw) or from flux. Unfortunately, as with any short trip, there would be no guarantee of a win in the number of hands that we would get through, so an investment would be nothing more than a gamble and not a good plan for us.
We played simply for a players wage – you could consider us if you will ‘special guest’ players – not actually part of the team, but made to feel more than welcome to play. We got paid at the same rate as any other hired spotters would be simply based on the expectation for the hours we put in. Win, lose or draw we got paid for the work we did.
On a related matter, anyone who is invested in the team bankroll can and should have the right to check out the people playing the money. And they do. As much as spotters are checked out by BPs, BPs are checked out by the whole team or as close to as possible. The people who are present during a BP check out perform many different roles, from acting as other players at the table, moving in and out, complaining about the way the BP plays their hands to recording the count, bet amount, hand, play and depth of deal every round so that each play can be double checked later.
Back counting versus spotting at the table. It’s not one extreme or the other. If you needed to hold a seat at a table then you’d sit down. If you thought that you could get away with back counting and still have the spots there for the BP, you back counted. It’s a judgment issue.
It is completely feasible to use the BP technique in AC as long as you are careful with the venues you choose. The sims I made reference to above are very basic, but fit the AC model – which I’m still quite happy to send out screen shots of. As I’ve pointed out already, the cost of using the BP technique in this situation is minimal when compared to 4 players playing off of a joined bankroll and provides far better cover. Getting busted playing black in AC – alongside ruining a perfectly playable game - can get you backed off elsewhere where they can be more aggressive about it. For a cost of a couple of $ and hour, I’d take the extra cover. It allows you to play these games for longer, making more $$$ and reduces the chances of you having problems elsewhere meaning that you can make more $$$ elsewhere.
Getting caught shouldn’t be considered to be a badge of honor or a rights of passage. It should be thought of as avoidable. If you get caught you should be thinking ‘what happened and how can I stop it happening again?’ much like Ian Anderson suggests.
When it comes to the aspect of getting paid – if you are told you are getting paid based on hourly CE, then you should be paid on hourly CE every time and the trick is to make sure you are playing with people who will pay you regardless of the outcome. Their bankroll should be big enough that they can withstand the negative swings, so as much as it may be a bummer that they had a losing session today, if they understand the game they should have no problems handing you the money you earned as happened with ourselves.


RJT.

 

[RJT]

The question of the spotter's money ration made me thing of something tangential.

Of your team's total bankroll (And I don't know if you guys regularly "break bank" or not), how much if it, while in venue, is in some form of cash (actually cash on hand, stuffed under mattresses, casino chips, on deposit at cages, etc.) and how much is at the bank or some other financial institution?)

Now i'm a little out of my depth when it comes to Bojack's team here as i wasn't privy to exactly how much the BP was carrying at any specific time but he was carrying enough that the risk of tapping out was very low. So as far as i'm aware he would have carried a complete session bankroll in cash and chips and in the highly unlikely event of tapping out, would have had to have to make some phone calls to get access to more money.

RJT.

 

[EasyRhino]

Yeah, I guess I'm just interested in the more macro-accounting concerns of running a team. both from an investment perspective (I mean, once it's above a certain level, do you start investing some of it in boring things like stocks and bonds?) and from a liquidity standpoint. How do you make sure the BP has enough cash, and how much more funds are needed when multiple BPs are operating.

 

[aslan]

Kudos to all!

I must say that this thread is remarkable for all the knowledge it has compressed into such a tiny space, including the counterpoints by AM. I am thoroughly impressed with the combined experience and knowledge of the members of the forum. Threads like this are graduate level courses for sure; maybe even the basis for a doctoral dissertation. I hope the quality of the forum continues in this direction and I thank the participants and the administrators of the forum for making it happen thus far. I know how trying it must be for players at RJT, Bojack, and AM's level, all of whom appear to have a deep yet different reservoir of knowledge to draw from, to agree on certain basic principles, techniques, operating procedures, strategies, and related matters. From my vantage, all of you are correct and add immeasurably to my growing knowledge of the game. I try to see each of you through your different life experiences that have so strongly bonded you to your present attitudes and beliefs concerning team play. As a fledgling student of the game, I am not looking for "the" right team approach, rather I am enjoying "all" the right ways that you have offered so far, and hope there will be additional "right" ways put forth by members as yet reticent about discussing their own experiences on the tables. What I have heard here, over and above the personal snipes and retaliations, is a giant dialogue on real world team playing that I am sure is unparalleled anywhere on or off the web. Again, I'd like to thank everyone, participants and administrators alike, for pushing their fragile egos (we all have them) aside and letting this great lesson/debate/seminar happen to the benefit of all subscribers. I am not looking for a winner, as I consider all who have contributed to this lesson to be winners each in their own right. Thank you and kudos to all!
:1st: :toast:

 

[Bojack1]

Yeah, I guess I'm just interested in the more macro-accounting concerns of running a team. both from an investment perspective (I mean, once it's above a certain level, do you start investing some of it in boring things like stocks and bonds?) and from a liquidity standpoint. How do you make sure the BP has enough cash, and how much more funds are needed when multiple BPs are operating.

As far as investing outside of the actual blackjack team, that is up to the individual. The team itself does not invest in anything other than itself. At this point with my team we no longer reinvest into the bankroll due to the fact that it is funded to the point we can't raise our unit realistically anymore than what it is. So when the team breaks bank all profits are kept by the players and investors, which at this point are one in the same. There is a cap we set on our bankroll so the investors are locked in at whatever percentage they are at. If for some reason an investor wanted to pull all or some of his initial investment out, then another investor could up his percentage by filling that void up to the cap amount. It also motivates players with smaller investments to play more so they can also collect their players salary upon breaking bank. A player who makes all the trips can just about match a larger investors profit if the larger investor doesn't play that often.

How much money needed to bring on trips varies on playing conditions and number of people and length of trip. As far as multiple BP's, we never play them at the same time, we usually will use them in alternate shifts. There have been cases in the past when the team was bigger that we would use more than 1 BP at a time, but that would be in separate casinos, whether it be at one location or different cities. Basically a team with 1 BP and 2 to 3 spotters will bring 150 units per day. The spotters get usually no more than 5 units a piece to start as they are usually backcounting spending nothing, or flatbetting about 1/8 to 1/20 unit, depending on table minimums and unit size being used at the time. If the BP were to tap out, he has access to get money wired to him. That very rarely happens, but is set up just the same.

 

[EasyRhino]

So, amount that gets deployed on a given day is around 165 units, and the bulk of the funds other than that are just sitting in the bank, waiting to get wired if needed?

Can you do wire transfers directly to a casino's cage?

When do y'all usually break bank? after 100% increase? 50%?