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I was wondering how much it’s actually realistic to make assuming you make no major mistakes and you keep track of the count. Saying that the casino has a 1 % advantage they’ll win 51 hands and we’ll win 49. We say that we only have 2 bet sizes, 5 and 10, min and max. We say that we’ve been counting and betting higher when the count is high and lower when it’s low and we’ve come out with 51 L: 41 min + 10 max = -305. 49 W: 24 min + 25 max = 370 so on average for 100 hands we’ll have earnt 370-305 = 65. Saying we take the standard approach of initial money 40x max bet our initial capital is 400. 65/400 = aprox. 16% increase per 100 hands so if you take a conservative approach of 100 hands per hour you’ll have doubled your money in 6 hours. 16*6=96.
I just wanted your input on wether these numbers are reasonable and realistic or if not then what your thoughts are on eventual profits and how much you yourself would expect to make on an average night
Your estimates have a lot of problems. Even your first calculation of 51 vs 49 yields the wrong answer… That would be a 2% house edge, not 1%. But honestly, you can’t even come close to understanding blackjack with a simple wins/losses idea. It’s too complex for that kind of simplification.
My advice? Ditch all the manual calculations. If you want concrete numbers, either run the sims yourself using something like the CVData software, or buy a book like Blackjack Attack where all this work has been done for you.
The bottom line is far less lucrative than your estimates. Assuming decent conditions, a card counter’s advantage is usually around 1% of his total action. In 100 hands, your profit is probably a couple of your minimum bets. And you’ll need to spread far more than $5 to $10 to make any profit at all. (The house edge can’t be overcome with such a small spread.)
Something I noticed is that the dealer will still hit even if their first two cards have a greater total than mine and its under 17. No sane dealer in real life would hit when they already have a total greater than yours, right?
That’s the way the game works. The dealer must follow the strict rules on hitting, and cannot choose to stand on a stiff total just because he would beat you.
For more, see Règles du Blackjack.
So do I have to keep changing back and forth from real count to true count between making my decisions and counting or did I miss the part where one of courses touched on that point?
Yes, you maintain the running count, and then need to convert it to a true count for making betting and playing decisions. Fortunately, it is usually obvious what the play is, and you’re not constantly having to do the conversion. Instead, you’ll have a pretty good idea what the true count is already, and precision is only needed occasionally.
One more question, you only start counting after the deck has been reshuffled into the shoe correct? If you jump in midshoe, you would just play according to the table in Lesson 1 correct?
You can begin counting immediately even mid-shoe, but you must treat the already dealt cards in the discard tray as if they were behind the cut card in the shoe instead. Some people find adjusting for that to be confusing, and choose to just play basic strategy for the partial shoe instead. It’s not a big deal either way.
I didn’t get the 76% calculation. In the later lessons we learn to calculate the house edge. And we did three examples with the results 33%, 33% and 30%. Ho do we calculate now our bets? 80%-10×0.4%=76%???? for the mentioned above? and why?
The GameMaster is pretty sparse in his explanation of the 76% factor, though he mentions it briefly above.
Here’s how he arrived at that number:
A “Kelly” bet is Your Bankroll * (Your Edge / Variance).
In blackjack, the variance is around 1.32. 1/1.32 = 76%. So instead of saying you should divide your bet by 1.32, he just multiplies it by .76 or 76% instead. Same effect. He’s taking your advantage and dividing by the variance before figuring the optimal bet.
(As for your other sentence mentioning the 33% stuff, I don’t quite understand what you’re asking.)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is how I interpreted your response. The 76% KC comes from the fact that blackjack has a higher variance than many other investments. So essentially, due to splits and dd’s, playing 76% KC in blackjack has the same risk/reward as full KC in investments where the initial bet and risk for that bet are known upfront.
If that’s true, then isn’t playing at 76% KC too risky for someone with a $4000/$5000 bankroll since it’s pretty difficult to find a table with less than a $5 min. I get that this question is relative to one’s risk aversity and whether or not that bank is replenishable. So I’ll phrase my question this way: would you recommend playing a smaller fraction of the KC if the bank was non replenishable?
I think kel was referring to making calculations regarding her bank at 33% KC, as to keep her risk of ruin very low. I’ve seen recommendations of anywhere from 25%KC to 80%KC for making betting calculations. I’m sure the latter is just a rounded version of your calculation and the former I read in Snyder’s Blackbelt in BJ. I don’t understand what difference it makes if they both have a theoretical RoR of 0%. My two guesses would be avoiding problems with table minimums and for mental peace of mind as bank fluctuations will be a much smaller percentage of your total bank with a lower percentage KC.
A final follow up question. Assuming your double deck scenario in later lessons, what would you estimate the risk of ruin to be for your betting scheme assuming one starts with the $5000 bank you made the calculations with, but the table minimum is $10. Obviously if my bank starts on a downswing, there isn’t much room for me to recalculate, so I would have to play it out far above my kelly calculations for any bank that dropped under $5000 in order to keep a 1-8 spread.
I hope I worded my questions so that they make sense to everyone. I know I have a tendency to ramble.
Thanks for all your help. I love this site; it’s a very helpful source.
Your understanding of the Kelly bet being reduced because of the variance is accurate, although your use of the abbreviation “KC” in your post is not quite right. The Kelly Criterion already by its definition includes the 76% factor. If you had a different game where bets have a variance of 1.0, the Kelly Criterion would have you bet 100% of your edge as a percentage of the bankroll. Blackjack’s higher variance makes the Kelly Criterion number only 76% of your edge for blackjack bets.
Most people find Kelly too aggressive for their taste, and I agree. I recommend 1/4 Kelly if possible. For small bankrolls, that is really not practical for the very reasons you mention. Table minimums are going to restrict your ability to even stick with full Kelly sometimes.
(I will point out that many players with a supposed bankroll of $5000 are actually willing to lose it and raise another bank to try again. In that case, your real bankroll is effectively a lot more than $5000. That helps a lot!)
I don’t have a quick answer for your specific risk of ruin question on the double deck $10 scenario, and I’m too pressed for time at the moment to delve into the details. Maybe early next week I’ll have a chance to take a look.
That clears things up. I will strive for 1/4 Kelly and probably wait awhile longer until I have a larger bank behind me.
I have used various charts and graphs available to me through blackjackforum and qfit to find that my risk of ruin is slightly over 5%, which makes sense using Uston’s 5% curve as an estimation but I’m unsure on my standard deviation per 100 hands. Any idea how I can calculate/where I can find that number? Also, the dd game available to me deals 65% of the cards and I’m using zen with indexes -4 to 12. This should be a bit better than the game in your scenario, but any help I can get on the calculations would be much appreciated.
That would make sense on the surface of it. But I seem to recall reading that there are decisions with the direction reversed. (In tables, they are marked with an asterisk.) So it seems that, no matter how you go about it, you need two pieces of information. Index and normal/reversed; or basic decision and index of change.
I was playing in Poland few month. So I can say the basic strategy, card counting, and other beting system really works my mounth profit was ~ 3000euro, ante was 3euro
Thanks for the BJ game. It’s a real good one. The black letters on the green are a little hard for me to see. Only problem I’ve noticed.
I was wondering how much it’s actually realistic to make assuming you make no major mistakes and you keep track of the count. Saying that the casino has a 1 % advantage they’ll win 51 hands and we’ll win 49. We say that we only have 2 bet sizes, 5 and 10, min and max. We say that we’ve been counting and betting higher when the count is high and lower when it’s low and we’ve come out with 51 L: 41 min + 10 max = -305. 49 W: 24 min + 25 max = 370 so on average for 100 hands we’ll have earnt 370-305 = 65. Saying we take the standard approach of initial money 40x max bet our initial capital is 400. 65/400 = aprox. 16% increase per 100 hands so if you take a conservative approach of 100 hands per hour you’ll have doubled your money in 6 hours. 16*6=96.
I just wanted your input on wether these numbers are reasonable and realistic or if not then what your thoughts are on eventual profits and how much you yourself would expect to make on an average night
Your estimates have a lot of problems. Even your first calculation of 51 vs 49 yields the wrong answer… That would be a 2% house edge, not 1%. But honestly, you can’t even come close to understanding blackjack with a simple wins/losses idea. It’s too complex for that kind of simplification.
My advice? Ditch all the manual calculations. If you want concrete numbers, either run the sims yourself using something like the CVData software, or buy a book like Blackjack Attack where all this work has been done for you.
The bottom line is far less lucrative than your estimates. Assuming decent conditions, a card counter’s advantage is usually around 1% of his total action. In 100 hands, your profit is probably a couple of your minimum bets. And you’ll need to spread far more than $5 to $10 to make any profit at all. (The house edge can’t be overcome with such a small spread.)
Something I noticed is that the dealer will still hit even if their first two cards have a greater total than mine and its under 17. No sane dealer in real life would hit when they already have a total greater than yours, right?
That’s the way the game works. The dealer must follow the strict rules on hitting, and cannot choose to stand on a stiff total just because he would beat you.
For more, see Règles du Blackjack.
So do I have to keep changing back and forth from real count to true count between making my decisions and counting or did I miss the part where one of courses touched on that point?
Yes, you maintain the running count, and then need to convert it to a true count for making betting and playing decisions. Fortunately, it is usually obvious what the play is, and you’re not constantly having to do the conversion. Instead, you’ll have a pretty good idea what the true count is already, and precision is only needed occasionally.
One more question, you only start counting after the deck has been reshuffled into the shoe correct? If you jump in midshoe, you would just play according to the table in Lesson 1 correct?
You can begin counting immediately even mid-shoe, but you must treat the already dealt cards in the discard tray as if they were behind the cut card in the shoe instead. Some people find adjusting for that to be confusing, and choose to just play basic strategy for the partial shoe instead. It’s not a big deal either way.
To confirm, the count starts at zero when the shoe is shuffled again correct?
Thanks again for your help and patience!
Yes, reset the count to zero when they shuffle.
I didn’t get the 76% calculation. In the later lessons we learn to calculate the house edge. And we did three examples with the results 33%, 33% and 30%. Ho do we calculate now our bets? 80%-10×0.4%=76%???? for the mentioned above? and why?
The GameMaster is pretty sparse in his explanation of the 76% factor, though he mentions it briefly above.
Here’s how he arrived at that number:
A “Kelly” bet is Your Bankroll * (Your Edge / Variance).
In blackjack, the variance is around 1.32. 1/1.32 = 76%. So instead of saying you should divide your bet by 1.32, he just multiplies it by .76 or 76% instead. Same effect. He’s taking your advantage and dividing by the variance before figuring the optimal bet.
(As for your other sentence mentioning the 33% stuff, I don’t quite understand what you’re asking.)
I would like to expand on kel’s question a bit.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is how I interpreted your response. The 76% KC comes from the fact that blackjack has a higher variance than many other investments. So essentially, due to splits and dd’s, playing 76% KC in blackjack has the same risk/reward as full KC in investments where the initial bet and risk for that bet are known upfront.
If that’s true, then isn’t playing at 76% KC too risky for someone with a $4000/$5000 bankroll since it’s pretty difficult to find a table with less than a $5 min. I get that this question is relative to one’s risk aversity and whether or not that bank is replenishable. So I’ll phrase my question this way: would you recommend playing a smaller fraction of the KC if the bank was non replenishable?
I think kel was referring to making calculations regarding her bank at 33% KC, as to keep her risk of ruin very low. I’ve seen recommendations of anywhere from 25%KC to 80%KC for making betting calculations. I’m sure the latter is just a rounded version of your calculation and the former I read in Snyder’s Blackbelt in BJ. I don’t understand what difference it makes if they both have a theoretical RoR of 0%. My two guesses would be avoiding problems with table minimums and for mental peace of mind as bank fluctuations will be a much smaller percentage of your total bank with a lower percentage KC.
A final follow up question. Assuming your double deck scenario in later lessons, what would you estimate the risk of ruin to be for your betting scheme assuming one starts with the $5000 bank you made the calculations with, but the table minimum is $10. Obviously if my bank starts on a downswing, there isn’t much room for me to recalculate, so I would have to play it out far above my kelly calculations for any bank that dropped under $5000 in order to keep a 1-8 spread.
I hope I worded my questions so that they make sense to everyone. I know I have a tendency to ramble.
Thanks for all your help. I love this site; it’s a very helpful source.
Your understanding of the Kelly bet being reduced because of the variance is accurate, although your use of the abbreviation “KC” in your post is not quite right. The Kelly Criterion already by its definition includes the 76% factor. If you had a different game where bets have a variance of 1.0, the Kelly Criterion would have you bet 100% of your edge as a percentage of the bankroll. Blackjack’s higher variance makes the Kelly Criterion number only 76% of your edge for blackjack bets.
Most people find Kelly too aggressive for their taste, and I agree. I recommend 1/4 Kelly if possible. For small bankrolls, that is really not practical for the very reasons you mention. Table minimums are going to restrict your ability to even stick with full Kelly sometimes.
(I will point out that many players with a supposed bankroll of $5000 are actually willing to lose it and raise another bank to try again. In that case, your real bankroll is effectively a lot more than $5000. That helps a lot!)
I don’t have a quick answer for your specific risk of ruin question on the double deck $10 scenario, and I’m too pressed for time at the moment to delve into the details. Maybe early next week I’ll have a chance to take a look.
That clears things up. I will strive for 1/4 Kelly and probably wait awhile longer until I have a larger bank behind me.
I have used various charts and graphs available to me through blackjackforum and qfit to find that my risk of ruin is slightly over 5%, which makes sense using Uston’s 5% curve as an estimation but I’m unsure on my standard deviation per 100 hands. Any idea how I can calculate/where I can find that number? Also, the dd game available to me deals 65% of the cards and I’m using zen with indexes -4 to 12. This should be a bit better than the game in your scenario, but any help I can get on the calculations would be much appreciated.
Thanks again for all the help
That would make sense on the surface of it. But I seem to recall reading that there are decisions with the direction reversed. (In tables, they are marked with an asterisk.) So it seems that, no matter how you go about it, you need two pieces of information. Index and normal/reversed; or basic decision and index of change.
Play alone or with your buddy
thanks, will try to find a chard on hitting with percentages
I was playing in Poland few month. So I can say the basic strategy, card counting, and other beting system really works my mounth profit was ~ 3000euro, ante was 3euro