What is the house's edge at different counts?

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evilrobotmonkey

Well-Known Member
When I'm playing BS at a count of zero under good conditions (double deck, S17, 75% penetration, resplit aces, DD after splitting, DD any, BJ pays 3-2, etc), i'm guessing the houses edge is probably something like .7. What about when the count is 2, 5, 10, -4, -10, etc.? For example, when I'm betting at a count of +7, how often should I expect to win that hand? Is there an index for that?

I hope my question makes sense. I'm a n00b to counting cards, and so far I've had bad experiences. I lost $1000 last night doing bets of mostly $25-$150. Is this normal? It seems that every time the count got pretty high (7+), and I put a big bet out there, I'd lose. I'd see people at the table getting 20's, the dealer gets a 20 as well, and then I'd get a 13 or 16 and bust. Several times, when the count was high, the dealer got BJ. I got insurance for it, but still lost the big bet I put out there. On the other hand, I went on little streaks of winning 75% of my hands when I was flat betting at a negative count. It's frustrating.
 
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rukus

Well-Known Member
evilrobotmonkey said:
I lost $1000 last night doing bets of mostly $25-$150. Is this normal?
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yes, this completely normal. that's only 8 big bets lost. what happens during the high counts is what determines a session's results. if we happen to lose all our big bets on a given night, i dont care what happens on the mediocre counts, you will have a negative session result. it's not uncommon to lose a lot of big bets occasionally or even frequently :whip:.

evilrobotmonkey said:
It seems that every time the count got pretty high (7+), and I put a big bet out there, I'd lose. I'd see people at the table getting 20's, the dealer gets a 20 as well, and then I'd get a 13 or 16 and bust. Several times, when the count was high, the dealer got BJ.
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clearly, you should take comfort here in knowing that you were counting properly if high cards were consistently coming out when you had big bets out, even if they went to other players or the dealer.

also, when you mention "count" i hope you mean true count if you are using a balanced system.
 
bj bob

bj bob

Well-Known Member
evilrobotmonkey said:
When I'm playing BS at a count of zero under good conditions (double deck, S17, 75% penetration, resplit aces, DD after splitting, DD any, BJ pays 3-2, etc), i'm guessing the houses edge is probably something like .7. What about when the count is 2, 5, 10, -4, -10, etc.? For example, when I'm betting at a count of +7, how often should I expect to win that hand? Is there an index for that?
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The game you've described (DD,S-17,DOA,DAS,RSA) has a HA of <.20%. What's interesting about the TC is that it doesn't affect your pct. of winning numbers of hands. Your pct. remains at about 42-43%. What does change, though is that the hands you do win will produce more money due to BJ's, splits and successful DD's.
 
nightspirit

nightspirit

Well-Known Member
21forme said:
Seems odd that there is a big difference at +13 than other counts. Is that rounding error?
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I believe it has something to do with the manner the TC was calculated. Here is another example from Norm (Dead link: http://www.advantageplayer.com/blackjack/forums/bj-main/webbbs.cgi?read=22086) _Does advantage always increase with the count?_
 
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evilrobotmonkey

Well-Known Member
thanks for the responses. i went back today and won back the $1000 i lost yesterday in 2 hours. i won most of my big bets :D

i use a simple hi-lo system, and i divide the count by the number of decks to get the true count. since the game i play only have 2 decks, it's pretty simple. i'm pretty sure i'm getting the counts right because i don't miss any cards, and when the count is high i see a lot of high card come out and vice versa.

so i looked at this link http://www.bjrnet.com/member/bjapr/P.htm and it looks like when the count is positive, my edge is about 1-5%. i rarely see counts greater than 10 so it's hard to get to that 6%+ advantage zone.

after viewing that graph, i'm wondering what is the most advantageous game to play at in terms of number of decks? the graph seems to show that when playing with 6 decks, the players edge is more closely correlated to the count, and you get a greater edge when the count is high as compared to a double deck game.

what about number of players? is it more advatageous for me to play fewer players?
 
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EyeHeartHalves

Well-Known Member
"YOUR" Two-Deck Game is One of the BEST.

The rules you mentioned for DD are very, very good for 2008. However, you never mentioned "pen." I'm assuming they cut off .75 decks at most (62.5%). 75% pen. would of course, make this game an extremely, extremely good game. The only feasable ways it could be better is if they allowed surrender and/or if it were single-deck.

Shoe-games are what I play because that is what is usually available to me. So, you must "pick your battles" and "better rules" probably shouldn't be one of them.

You spoke of "less ploppies." In DD, this does matter somewhat. Like I said, I'm far from a DD expert but I know that even in a 6-deck, it matters a little bit. I think I remember some of my old sims showing that it matters by about 1 - 2% per ploppy off of my win rate/100. In other words, my exact style of play is at a win rate of $55 per 100 hands (one-on-one) but at a full table it's close to $50 per 100.

Now, "I am just guessing that" it might be 2 - 4% per ploppy off your win rate. In other words, if you had a win rate of $37.50 per 100 hands at this game (one-on-one), your win rate might be as small as $30.00 at a full table.

Halves
 
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