A blackjack information site claims a 8 deck half penetration game can not be counted. Is this true?
Maybe what they meant is in a 8 deck half penetration game, it isn't worth putting up with the -0.7% house edge long enough to get a good count, and profit from the count enough to make up for the loss.
Would that be true then? I still think no...
Determining the count would matter but it would only tell you if you should stay or walk away from the table. If the Count was low rich, 27 face cards out of 61 dealt, it's time to walk, if it's close to even, stay.Quote: NeutrinoMy intuition says that's BS. But what do you guys think?
Maybe what they meant is in a 8 deck half penetration game, it isn't worth putting up with the -0.7% house edge long enough to get a good count, and profit from the count enough to make up for the loss.
Would that be true then? I still think no...
Quote: NeutrinoMy intuition says that's BS. But what do you guys think?
Maybe what they meant is in a 8 deck half penetration game, it isn't worth putting up with the -0.7% house edge long enough to get a good count, and profit from the count enough to make up for the loss.
Would that be true then? I still think no...
I think Geoff basically nailed it. Any game is technically countable, so you are being too hypertechnical with the wording. What the site means is that you cannot gain a long term advantage over the house through counting with a play-all style. Although the house edge is large, the main issue is penetration.
Quote: SonuvabishI ran a sim. With anything resembling a normal bet spread, you cannot get a long term advantage with a play-all style. If you have some sort of whacky monster spread that you could only realistically use if you were A) already rich or B) mentally ill, then yes, you could get plus EV. But for all intents and purposes, the information on the site the OP read was correct and the context to which it was referring has been defined.
Yeah, probably if they were to make sure they enforce no card counting will profit, they can just impose a smaller table max-min.
Which happens to be what, according to your sim? 5-100 seems to be the the lowest max-min that i know of, which is 1-20 spread.
8 decks, 50 to 55% penetration. 7 spots. One counter and table collusion. All bettors wait for the counter to act then all have at least a 10 unit spread.
Is this game +EV?
Quote: NeutrinoYeah, probably if they were to make sure they enforce no card counting will profit, they can just impose a smaller table max-min.
Which happens to be what, according to your sim? 5-100 seems to be the the lowest max-min that i know of, which is 1-20 spread.
I couldn't go lower than 5 out of 8 decks. But SCORE was in the low single digits with a play-all approach. With a $3 minimum and a 1-16 spread, optimal betting yielded about $2/hr (15 min yields about 10). And you have to remember, it's perfect simulation play with all indices. Yielded about a .4% advantage. Each half deck showed to be worth about 1/2 of score, 1/4 of hour rate, and almost .1% of advantage in later decks. You are looking at a game with .25% adv. and a score of 2...You'll give that .25% away by not playing as perfectly as a computer, not knowing 200 indices, and probably not using as strong of a count as simmed. With a large risk of ruin and/or a huge bankroll, or a lot of wonging, the half-penetration 8-deck can be beaten...but it's not really worth the effort unless you don't live within a 1000 miles of anywhere. It's a break-even game if youre counting...if u are not really an AP and are just practicing, you can play it.
Going from table min (and not playing real bad counts) to table max as soon as you had the advantage, at 5-200 (or two spots of 100), would probably be enough for a human counter to get a long-term advantage. It's not like they'd possibly allow this for more than a few weeks.
Quote: TomspurHow about the following situation......
8 decks, 50 to 55% penetration. 7 spots. One counter and table collusion. All bettors wait for the counter to act then all have at least a 10 unit spread.
Is this game +EV?
Probably not.
Quote: geoffIf everyone is doing a 1 to 10 spread then it would be the same as if the counter just went to 7 spots which wouldn't matter much in terms of ev. If everyone put down table max once the counter hit hit max bet then you could get +EV.
It would also be like he was betting 7 times the minimum every time he was at a disadvantage. Since people seem to want to discredit the information this site provided, perhaps someone can post a link so we can decide whether they are providing legitimate advice? So far, their advice seems a little bit generalized, but accurate.
Quote: SonuvabishIt would also be like he was betting 7 times the minimum every time he was at a disadvantage. Since people seem to want to discredit the information this site provided, perhaps someone can post a link so we can decide whether they are providing legitimate advice? So far, their advice seems a little bit generalized, but accurate.
That was my concern but then I looked at the effective spread....
$70 at negative counts and $14000 at positive counts. That is a 200 unit effective spread or am I missing something?
Thanks for the answers
Quote: TomspurHow about the following situation......
8 decks, 50 to 55% penetration. 7 spots. One counter and table collusion. All bettors wait for the counter to act then all have at least a 10 unit spread.
Is this game +EV?
Ugh. This is an awful lot of work for a crappy game.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceUgh. This is an awful lot of work for a crappy game.
I wouldn't want to put you out at all. It is merely a situation I have had to deal with in the last 6 months. I was happy for the counter to play alone but as soon as the entire table jumped on positive counts like they were one man, I thought it best to ask the counter to stop playing. Funnily enough as soon as I did, everyone else left too.
I don't have enough mathematical skills to work out the exact advantage but I had a gut feel that with 7 spots with a 200 unit spread they could have a small +EV situation.
Just my opinion of course.
Quote: TomspurI wouldn't want to put you out at all. It is merely a situation I have had to deal with in the last 6 months. I was happy for the counter to play alone but as soon as the entire table jumped on positive counts like they were one man, I thought it best to ask the counter to stop playing. Funnily enough as soon as I did, everyone else left too.
I don't have enough mathematical skills to work out the exact advantage but I had a gut feel that with 7 spots with a 200 unit spread they could have a small +EV situation.
Just my opinion of course.
lol!! This actually happened? I thought it was a hypothetical.
By "an awful lot of work", I didn't mean to figure it out, I meant, to get 7 people together and bother with this horrible game.
I'm confused by the calculation of the spread. If they are all jump-spreading from 1-10 then the spread is 10, not 200. If some are going 1-10 and some are going 1-30 and some are in between then the spread is between 10 and 30. Unless, were they sitting out negative counts too?
Quote: AxiomOfChoicelol!! This actually happened? I thought it was a hypothetical.
By "an awful lot of work", I didn't mean to figure it out, I meant, to get 7 people together and bother with this horrible game.
I'm confused by the calculation of the spread. If they are all jump-spreading from 1-10 then the spread is 10, not 200. If some are going 1-10 and some are going 1-30 and some are in between then the spread is between 10 and 30. Unless, were they sitting out negative counts too?
It absolutely happened in a casino where they only have access to one hand dealt game. The min/max is $10 to $2000. The counter would bet first and then everyone else would jump on. This happened late one night and I reviewed the film the next morning. The casino wanted to know if this was a threat. Because of the game rules (0.355HA) and the large spreads I said the following:
Yes there is a threat if the players are colluding. No there is no threat if the counter doesn't influence what the tohers are doing.
I still feel like my assessement was correct even with mediocre penetration if you have a large enough spread on a good game then you are playing a +EV game. From my perspective, I didn't care what the players were doing individually, I only cared what their end result was as far as a combined spread was concerned. They bet $70 on the low end and $1400 combined on the high end.
That, in my mind, is a threat :)
If they are all spreading 1-200 ($10-$2000) then that is very different than 1-10, obviously.
My point was, if they were all spreading 1-10 (ie, betting $10 at neg or even counts and jumping to $100 at +1 or better) then I doubt that they would do much better than break even (if that) with only 55% pen at 8 decks. They would lose too much from their $10 bets to make it back with their (relatively rare) $100 bets.
But, yeah, if you change that "$100" to "$2000" then it's a different story. Jumping from table-min to table-max on any positive count is pretty bold.
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceI guess, then, I am confused by your original description when you said that "they are all spreading at least 1 to 10".
If they are all spreading 1-200 ($10-$2000) then that is very different than 1-10, obviously.
My point was, if they were all spreading 1-10 (ie, betting $10 at neg or even counts and jumping to $100 at +1 or better) then I doubt that they would do much better than break even (if that) with only 55% pen at 8 decks. They would lose too much from their $10 bets to make it back with their (relatively rare) $100 bets.
But, yeah, if you change that "$100" to "$2000" then it's a different story. Jumping from table-min to table-max on any positive count is pretty bold.
My original post was simply a hypothesis and then I moved on to a clearer description when I realized I was creating confusion. In my defence I guess I did say "at least" :)
Yeah it happened and in this particular casino the floors and dealers have zero training for such eventualities. Before I arrived neither did Surveillance. So I have been playing catch up here trying to teach in such a way that they don't overreact, which in the end they did anyway......Oh well.
Quote: TomspurMy original post was simply a hypothesis and then I moved on to a clearer description when I realized I was creating confusion. In my defence I guess I did say "at least" :)
Yeah it happened and in this particular casino the floors and dealers have zero training for such eventualities. Before I arrived neither did Surveillance. So I have been playing catch up here trying to teach in such a way that they don't overreact, which in the end they did anyway......Oh well.
I would like to see someone go from $10 to $2000. That is definitely bold! I think my record (in terms of ratio) is $25 to $500 (not in 1 hand, either)
Quote: AxiomOfChoiceI would like to see someone go from $10 to $2000. That is definitely bold! I think my record (in terms of ratio) is $25 to $500 (not in 1 hand, either)
Remember this is a non American casino where people still trust one another :)))
Quote: TomspurThat was my concern but then I looked at the effective spread....
$70 at negative counts and $14000 at positive counts. That is a 200 unit effective spread or am I missing something?
Thanks for the answers
Well, yeah, this would work. But it is ridiculous. It comes under my list of exceptions I posted at the beginning of the thread. These people are either already rich or mentally ill. In addition, that is not a 10 unit spread. I know people have different definitions for units. I like my using table minimum or the bet at TC 0 as a unit. But you are essentially saying, that more than 50% of the time, you bet 1/20th of a unit.
The variance on this would be huge. Even if you had some inside info that the casino was 100% convinced that the game could not be beaten and would never get suspicious (thus the only reason to do this), someone would eventually look into you to see if your bankroll could sustain a prolonged attack.
Quote: SonuvabishWell, yeah, this would work. But it is ridiculous. It comes under my list of exceptions I posted at the beginning of the thread. These people are either already rich or mentally ill. In addition, that is not a 10 unit spread. I know people have different definitions for units. I like my using table minimum or the bet at TC 0 as a unit. But you are essentially saying, that more than 50% of the time, you bet 1/20th of a unit.
The variance on this would be huge. Even if you had some inside info that the casino was 100% convinced that the game could not be beaten and would never get suspicious (thus the only reason to do this), someone would eventually look into you to see if your bankroll could sustain a prolonged attack.
I said AT LEAST 10 units.
Also it isn't just one persons bankroll it is 7 people's rolls.
There is nothing mentally ill about compulsive gamblers looking for an edge....if that were the case then we would have had a resident shrink on call here :)
The casino didn't stop them from playing because they didn't know anything was wrong.......Not all casinos in the world are run the way the ones are in Vegas.
Quote: TomspurI said AT LEAST 10 units.
Also it isn't just one persons bankroll it is 7 people's rolls.
There is nothing mentally ill about compulsive gamblers looking for an edge....if that were the case then we would have had a resident shrink on call here :)
The casino didn't stop them from playing because they didn't know anything was wrong.......Not all casinos in the world are run the way the ones are in Vegas.
I'd have let them play. Even with a 100k bankroll their risk of ruin is something like 70%
Quote: geoffI'd have let them play. Even with a 100k bankroll their risk of ruin is something like 70%
Over a period of time yes but in the short run they killed us just because of their spread. I agree that they had the opportunity to go broke at that rate but our hold on that game was down to like 3%.....Not great.
Also we only banned the counter but everyone left. It was only one group and we have more than enough action to go around. We simply didn't want their collusion is all.
Quote: geoffI'd have let them play. Even with a 100k bankroll their risk of ruin is something like 70%
Casinos don't make money by making -EV bets with a high probability of winning... that's what the negative progression suckers do. It works really well until you lose.
Quote: anonimussI watched a 6 deck game where they dealt one hand, washed the cards, shuffled, dealt one hand, washed the cards, shuffled, dealt one hand and so on. An AP sat there and crushed the game.
Because he was either card steering or had first card knowledge.
Did this perhaps happen in AC?
Quote: TomspurBecause he was either card steering or had first card knowledge.
Did this perhaps happen in AC?
I know you knew, I was hoping others would speculate. The first, and yes, AC. I'm not going to go into too much detail even if most people already know some specifics, but we always felt this particular guy was the best of the group at all the methods, tracking, sequencing, you name it. We observed him quite a bit throughout the years. This time he had a short Asian with huge boobs with him (+ev in it's own right). When they stacked the two halves after the shuffle, he looked away, she didn't. He bet either $100, $1,000, or $2500. I happen to have been friendly with the guy who was tasked with putting an end to this. He said he was told to do it "Even if we lose every high rolling player we have." They ended up putting a "Reserved" sign on every single table in the high roller pit every day until they left. He told me how much these guy were up through this particular segment of play. It was a lot more than I would have guessed, and I would have guessed a lot
