When the count is good...

21forme

Well-Known Member
... is there an advantage to betting 10 units on one hand vs. betting 5 units on each of 2 hands?
 

zengrifter

Banned
21forme said:
... is there an advantage to betting 10 units on one hand vs. betting 5 units on each of 2 hands?
Its a trade-off between risk and gain. 1 hand will win more$ per 100 rounds, 2 hands will have a lower risk.

The optimum 2-hand bet is 7u per hand - same risk at 1hand 10u with higher gain. zg
 

Cass

Well-Known Member
zengrifter said:
Its a trade-off between risk and gain. 1 hand will win more$ per 100 rounds, 2 hands will have a lower risk.

The optimum 2-hand bet is 7u per hand - same risk at 1hand 10u with higher gain. zg

This question seems to come up every so often and I still havent come to a conclusion towhat i believe. ZG why would 1 hand of 10u win more than 2x 5u? The only reason I could think of is you would get more hands per hour playing only one hand, but you said "per 100 rounds" please explain. It seems to me it wouldnt matter if you have 5 hands at 2u, 2 hands at 5u, or one hand at 10u except for reduced variance.
 

Tom007

Well-Known Member
Another question is if my max bet is 1% of my BR and the count is +6 I push out my max bet of 12 units, if I bet 2 hands of 8 units I am now betting 16 units for 1 round. Is this breaking the never more than 1% of BR rule?

Thanks in advance guys.
 

sagefr0g

Well-Known Member
Tom007 said:
Another question is if my max bet is 1% of my BR and the count is +6 I push out my max bet of 12 units, if I bet 2 hands of 8 units I am now betting 16 units for 1 round. Is this breaking the never more than 1% of BR rule?

Thanks in advance guys.
my understanding is no you would not be overbetting your bankroll in this case. the reason is you are taking advantage of covariance with which we are able to increase our total amount bet over two hands while maintaining about the same degree of risk we would have had if we had bet our optimal max bet for one hand according to our desired ROR. you should be able to bet (for two hands) a total amount of 50% more than your max bet for one hand. of course you only want to do this when you have a 'significant' advantage. say a true count of +4 or greater. that way you are 'protecting' your larger bets and getting more money on the table when your chances are best.
when you play just one hand at or near your max bet you are exposing your self to higher variance but if you spread the max bet out over two hands you reduce the variance through the effect of covariance. now if you increase the total amount bet by about 50% you end up getting away with betting more for about the same risk you would have had for an optimal max bet for one hand.
it's kind of how investors do in the stock market that is they diversify to reduce risk. if the various stocks are differant in nature the risk factors are going to affect them in differant ways (to some degree) so one type of stock may do well and the other may not. sometimes they will both do well and other times they will both not do well but at least one risk does not tank the both of them in some hopefully prevalent cases.
it's like the old saying don't put all your eggs in one basket. with covariance if we use two baskets (two hands) we can more safely carry more eggs (bets).

best regards,
mr fr0g :D
 
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mdlbj

Well-Known Member
sagefr0g said:
it's like the old saying don't put all your eggs in one basket. with covariance if we use two baskets (two hands) we can more safely carry more eggs (bets).

best regards,
mr fr0g :D
Mark Twain said: put all of your eggs in one basket and watch that basket closely!!
 
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