Variance?

[Heetseeker]

Hi guys!

I am new in the counting world, and I have a strategy question. I live in a small city with only one casino, and the only BJ games I can really play are a 6 deck shoe with S17, DAS, No surrender. The question I have is about variance. I've found in my simulations that the most profitable times are when you have a high TC at the end of a shoe, because with only ~70 cards left the count seems to be very "accurate". However, at the casino tables I play at the deck is cut in a 60%-40% split, with the last hand in the shoe coming with 40% of the cards unplayed(about 130 cards or 2.5 decks). So what I have been finding is that even when I have counts like +15 (TC around 4 or 5) I'll still see a lot of positive value cards on the table and lose a lot of hands .

I guess my question is this: Is this a problem that should work itself out in the long run or should I be wonging and waiting for a really high count?

Any advice would be a big help .

-Heet

 

[Sonny]

You shouldn’t be playing that game at all. A 6D game with 2.5 decks cut off is a waste of time for a card counter. Profitable counts will be infrequent because they are not dealing enough cards. You will spend most of your time either making minimum bets (wasting money) or backcounting waiting for good counts (wasting time). You will not play many hands per hour so your profit will be tiny. The variance will be huge so you will be taking a lot of risk for a very small reward.

For example, spreading $5-$80 in that game would earn about $5 per hour with a 7% chance of losing a $10,000 bankroll. I don’t know many people with $10k that would be happy making $5/hour with such a large chance of going broke.

-Sonny-

 

[zengrifter]

On the other hand, sometimes very poor quality games, like you describe,
lend themselves to techniques like cutoff tracking and transform them into superior games. zg

 

[Heetseeker]

Cutoff tracking hey? Could you recomend any literature about that topic / quickly describe it? I am not familiar with it.

 

[Sonny]

Cutoff tracking hey? Could you recomend any literature about that topic / quickly describe it? I am not familiar with it.

Cutoff tracking involves watching the unplayed cards (the cutoffs) and seeing what happens to them during the shuffle. If they are small cards you can cut them to the back again or if they are big cards you can cut them to the front. Either way you are "stacking" the deck in your favor. There is a list of some sources for tracking info in this thread:

http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=3995

-Sonny-