'Counting for Comps'

COUNTING FOR COMPS

The purpose of this post, first & foremost, is not by any means an attempt to push some new breakthrough system or to sound like some kind of genius (I can assure you that im not), I would just like to share with all my fellow Blackjack enthusiasts an interesting system (or at least I think so) that I have devised, mostly just for fun. So I sincerely hope all of you here will enjoy the read!

In the past couple years, I have really been forced to think about card counting Blackjack in a totally different way than I did before. Before it seemed simple: Learn the Hi-Lo system - Find the Low miminums - Use a big spread - Win all the time. Needless to say, I learned very quickly that it is not nearly that easy, not even close. By doing this, you are forced to play (for the most part) terrible games with terrible penetration, usually along with a table full of rude gamblers critizing your every index play when them themselves wouldnt know basic strategy if the casino posted it on the wall for everyone to see. After dealing with such games/people, I decided to completely change my approach to the game or just quit. I am very intrigued with card counting, as well as the game itself, & so I developed a new strategy: Save up way more money - Master the strongest system my brain can possibly handle - Find the best games I can regardless of the minimum. It definitely wasnt easy, but I did it the best I could. Their is still one major problem though as most of you have already experienced, the Casinos will not hesitate to kick you off the game (or flat bet you in Atlantic City) if they determine you are indeed an advantage player. The way they typically determine this is by looking at our bet spreads, of course we have ways of attempting to throw them off (which usually cost us in EV) but nevertheless, we have to bet small at the low counts & bet big at the - well you know. Anyways, after getting into the double deck games, I learned something interesting. I learned that 'playing efficiency' & 'Insurance Correlation', something that I thought in the past was virtually useless, was much much more important when playing a game with only 1 or 2 decks. After doing a lot of studying
& simulating, I found that in a game with only 1 or 2 decks, good rules, good penetration, a counter can actually get the edge over the house through only card counting, not changing the bet size at all. This is done by using a very accurate counting system & using the information provided to make all your playing decisions (deviate from BS) & decide whether or not to take insurance (the most important one). So lately, I have been using 'card counting efficiency calculator' in combination with CVData to find a counting system that given the previous beneficial game, would create the largest player advantage possible. I could find no better system than the following:

A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 T
0 +1 +1 +1 +2 +1 +1 +1 0 -2
(1)

PE: 0.671
BC: 0.879
IC: 0.942

I call it 'The Advantage Count'. (Obviously I didnt come up with some cool name.) It is really just a cross between the AOII & HOII systems, changing the tag values to completely negate the betting correlation & get the PE & BC as high as possible all-the-while keeping it a Level 2 system. You will see that the PE is the same as AOII, while the IC is higher than any other system that I am aware of other than the Unbalanced Ten Count, which is perfect. The betting correlation is negligible because its only purpose is determining your true count for optimal betting amounts, & since this the betting part of the system is flat bet only, the BC is irrelevant. I am sure that I am not nearly the first person to find this count system, but it could be of the greatest use when playing high minimums for big comps. While I am aware that my entire system is irrelevant if you are able to find places that will let you get away with fair spreads, I also believe these places are becoming few & far between & the only players doing it now-a-days are hitting & running, keeping chip inventory & overall living in the dark trying as best to not be noticed at all. Please dont misunderstand me, hit & run play is a great art, a great way to make money & an extemely expert way to play that goes way beyond just counting. It is also not
the way I would want to do it. Quite frankly, I want to live in the light so to speak. To play one place, all night long if I want, comfortable & enjoying all the perks & comps they will offer & without fear of being backed off or 86d at any moment. I understand that playing this way will simply not make as much money as the way it is generally done, but I think it could be a good way to do it. For example, playing 2D S17 DAS RSA 65% penetration (among the finest Las Vegas has to offer) flat betting $100 per hand playing around 200 hands per hour, using 'The Advantage Count' you could expect your EV to be around +$25/hour & thats before considering the large amount of comps you would rack up. A bankroll of about $10-$15K would most likely keep you playing & the casino would go the way of treating you opposite of a suspected AP, they would most likely go out of their way to keep you happy & keep you playing. Anyways, I just wanted to share my thoughts & theories on the game I have come to love with the new friends I have made in this forum in the past couple months. My intentions were to contribute something positive to this forum & hopefully provide, if nothing more, a good read for all of you. Would love to hear what you guys think!

I know of a casino that instructs pit bosses to put the average bet of any player varying their bets as whatever your minimum bet is, not sure how widespread that is.

@Omega -- I'm actually interested in knowing a little more. I've often been tempted by higher-limit tables but shied away for fear of (a) 86 threat (b) too much physical cash to carry around, plus many many CTRs, plus enormously higher RoR (c) I've been successful enough (what's enough??) with my baseline. How deep do you delve into deviations? Do you consider ALL deviations for TC between -3 to +3? or do you just consider the top x (30 or so?) most valuable deviations, regardless of the index?

arcticfun: I know exactly how you feel, when I first started out I only played the low limit 8 Deck tables in AC for some of the same reasons & it was a miserable grind to say the least. As for basic strategy deviations, I currently use all of them from true counts of -5 to +10 (over 50) & have considered furthering my deviations from -10 to +10 (as it would make more sense for a system that is only flat betting).

First, Omega, fine post. I know you've been thinking about this and putting a lot of research in to it for a little while; I was actually looking forward to this post =). With that being said, I hope you don't mind if I ask a few questions...

Where left off last (that I saw) you were referring to high limit room games where the House Edge was around .18%. Your theory was that with enough proper deviations from counting (without having to spread) that you could barely overcome such a small house edge. Am I correct so far?

Now, I WANT you to be right, but I do also want to check the math =p. Essentially you're saying deviations account for ever so slightly over .18% HE (I'm assuming this is in the line of how frequent these deviations occur). My guess would be one could pull these out from the True Count frequencies. I.E. If TC +3 occurs roughly 4% of the time, then all of the deviations for TC +3 and under 'could' be applied as potentially having an affect on the game, and subsequently the house edge. The theory and potential are there, but that's far too many possibilities/calculations to be proven by hand... So to the SIM's we go!

Given that you have your exact count, spread, and playing conditions, I believe the CVCX software allows you to set up your deviations. Couldn't you program it for any deviation play -10 to +10 (or more) and run this SIM to view the results? I actually believe you're on to something, but the claim that one could make $25/hour flat betting is exactly that, quite a claim =p. I would love to see screenshots of this SIM'd in the software and the associated results. Like I said, I WANT you to be correct, so I hope you don't think I'm taking any other approach (one would think to have others peer review your work shows there is some merit up front to your work for it to not be automatically discredited lol).

Side note: Whenever I've run any numbers on the forums for any threads, I usually give the EV's considering the player Wong's out at TC <= -2. Does your simulation/math/theory stand for a "play through" methodology, or would Wonging still be necessary. If Wonging isn't necessary, I would think Wonging out at TC <= -2 would ever so slightly up your theory's expectation that much more. How did you approach this? Play through entirely, or Wong?

Again, good read and theory indeed. It shows a real AP mind to try to think of new (or how to capitalize on less used) ways to beat the game. No matter what you've given me something else to think about =).

Thank you Romes, im glad you were looking forward to my post as I was certainly looking forward to your response! You are correct, in a single or double deck game where the house edge is already very small (-0.18%) & has good penetration (about 65%), a counter should be able to overcome this when using a very accurate system (such as AOII, HOII or the count I have provided) along with nearly all the basic strategy deviations. As far as wonging out goes you are right, I wong out if the true count drops below -5 (I have mentioned this before but forgot to mention that in this thread) therefore I use all the deviations from -5 to +10. A player could learn deviations to -10 or more if they did not want to leave the table but not leaving at such a negative true count would certainly make the game less profitable. The simulation I ran was using the Advantage Count (I created it in CVData) 2D S17 DAS Re-split aces allowed 65% penetration, 200 hands per hour flat-betting $100 per hand, leave the table if the true count drops below -5 (full indices). The result was a profit of +$24.17 / hr. I believe that comes out to be roughly $0.12 profit per hand, would that mean since the flat bet is $100, the advantage has now shifted in favor of the player of about +0.12%?

Btw Romes, as you suggested leaving the table when the true count drops to -2, while that may be slightly more inconvenient it should certainly boost the EV (most likely by a lot). In any case, im glad you enjoyed the post & thanks for the response! It seems everytime I think I have a strategy you chime in with suggestions & make it better, ive come to enjoy that quite a bit!

Interesting post Omega. Thanks.

HowMany: Thank you!

If you're making $24.17 per hour, and you're betting $100 at 200 hands per hour... That means you're putting through a total of $20,000 in action in that hour, and making $24.17 profit... Meaning you'd have a player advantage of .0012, or yes, .12%. x = (24.17/20,000)...

I still wish I could see the value of each situation... Example:

TC +1, on that game would result in a player edge of approximately .32%. Resulting in $3.68 gain per hand (adv*freq*bet). Now take that $3.68 and add on your indexes... On the I18 means there are 2 'index' playing decisions: 11 vs A, and 9 vs 2. I would like to know how much profit each of these add to that gain per hand.

TC +2, same thing...

Then, for each true count, you can know how much more the indexes are helping, and thus either confirm or deny the theory. If the theory is confirmed, I don't see why someone wouldn't flat bet $400 per hand, and thus make $100/hour + comps... or $800 per hand and make $200/hour + comps, etc, etc.

This might literally take me a month (since I'm quite busy with work and usually pretty active), but I might have to run these numbers to confirm. While I always excelled in math, I would love to have an actual mathematician, or actuary ;), confirm the numbers too =P.

That is exactly what I would like too Romes! Simulations are great, but I have always wanted to learn to do the math behind the simulation to make the 2 'line-up' so to speak. It is really hard to do a simulation & just blindly trust it, it would be much better to take frequency distributions of each count, calculate the extra expected EV that each deviation would give you at each true count, & then add them up to figure the expected outcome based on math instead of simulation. As you put it though, it may take like a month & unlike you, I have never excelled at math lol. I struggle with it actually. Another point you made, if a player could in fact get the edge with a system so strong as to give a player advantage while flat-betting then there would be no reason not to bet as much as possible (or as much as your bankroll can handle). Not to get off the subject, but it seemed in my other simulations that a 1-2 spread in this same game, in most cases, nearly doubled the +EV (but in this case betting correlation would again be a factor as well as heat, which may be little or none). I think, if nothing else, we may be finding new capabilities of beating the game that maybe have not been used before. Hopefully there is someone, perhaps you or someone else, that is capable & willing to do the math behind this system.

How do things change if you add the 1-2 spread but play a shoe game at a HE of 0.3%?

Oh and a second question -- what changes if, instead of learning all indices for a range of TCs, you only apply the top 20-30 most valuable ones?

arcticfun: It would depend on a few things, such as: At what true count would you increase your bet amount? Which counting system are you using & are you using an ace side count to increase betting correlation (ace-neutral)? How many decks are being used? Any of these factors would certainly change the result drastically.

For your second question, I am not quite sure. Using less proper deviations would certainly lower your +EV, but I am not quite sure by how much. I am still learning to use CVData but I will definitely try to figure it.

Quote: arcticfun

How do things change if you add the 1-2 spread but play a shoe game at a HE of 0.3%?

Quote: arcticfun

Oh and a second question -- what changes if, instead of learning all indices for a range of TCs, you only apply the top 20-30 most valuable ones?

lol these 2 questions are literally how someone started with a player edge game, the casino's made the games worse, and a our player "spread's" and "Illustrious 18" came to be.

1) If you up the HE, then the deviations (if that theory is correct) would not be enough to overcome it, in my opinion. There's a break even point that is apparently just slightly higher than .18%, which is what Omega ran his simulations for. Maybe it's .22%, or .25%, I'm not really sure, but what I do know is .3% or higher you're getting in to 'regular' games that fall outside the realm of Omega's theory (because his theory involved finding the best games with the lowest house edges). Once you're outside of that, you would need a spread to overcome the house edge, much like regular counting.

2) This is literally how the I18 were formed =p. Someone found all of the values each index added to the player (my goodness I wish I had these numbers - perhaps I'll start by googling for them). Then, they took the top 18 most valuable index plays for a player, and this became the I18. This became the standard so that players didn't have to memorize hundreds of indexes as they would only be losing pennies an hour to just stick with the I18.

Romes is 100% correct.

Quote: Romes

2) This is literally how the I18 were formed =p. Someone found all of the values each index added to the player (my goodness I wish I had these numbers - perhaps I'll start by googling for them). Then, they took the top 18 most valuable index plays for a player, and this became the I18. This became the standard so that players didn't have to memorize hundreds of indexes as they would only be losing pennies an hour to just stick with the I18.

I'm well aware of the I18 -- my question really just is, are 18 deviations enough for Omega's theory?

Here is a ranking that I trust enough to share: http://www.bjrnet.com/faq21_12.htm

(delete repeated post)

arcticfun: I just ran the same sim (same game, using the advantage count) but I changed the 'full indices' setting to the I18, the result was that it decreased the +EV by over 1/3 & it increased the standard deviation. So my guess is that it can still beat the game (given the exact same rules & penetration) but just barely. I am thinking that learning the full 'hit/stand' deviations and/or learning the negative double down/split deviations will decrease the standard deviation but most likely keep the +EV about same or a little better. Obviously, there are a lot of variables lol. As for me personally, I took the time to learn nearly all of them some time ago & now when I play they all seem very easy to use (probably from being burned into my brain), but everyone has their own prefered way of playing. I hope this helps!

Btw, if at anytime you decide you would like to learn more BS deviations I would be happy to provide them for you (for any counting system) if you dont have them already. I know they can be difficult to find sometimes.

Quote: arcticfun

I'm well aware of the I18 -- my question really just is, are 18 deviations enough for Omega's theory?

Here is a ranking that I trust enough to share: http://www.bjrnet.com/faq21_12.htm

Great link articfun. I knew the info was probably out there, just hadn't gotten around to Googling for it just yet =p.

Quote: theOmega623

arcticfun: I just ran the same sim (same game, using the advantage count) but I changed the 'full indices' setting to the I18, the result was that it decreased the +EV by over 1/3 & it increased the standard deviation. So my guess is that it can still beat the game (given the exact same rules & penetration) but just barely. I am thinking that learning the full 'hit/stand' deviations and/or learning the negative double down/split deviations will decrease the standard deviation but most likely keep the +EV about same or a little better. Obviously, there are a lot of variables lol. As for me personally, I took the time to learn nearly all of them some time ago & now when I play they all seem very easy to use (probably from being burned into my brain), but everyone has their own prefered way of playing. I hope this helps!

Btw, if at anytime you decide you would like to learn more BS deviations I would be happy to provide them for you (for any counting system) if you dont have them already. I know they can be difficult to find sometimes.

Hmmm, this tells me with just I18, using the "advantage count", and your -5 to +10 flat betting great games (.18% HE), that you'd still be looking to make approximately $16 and change per hour... Flat betting $100.

I'm not all that surprised to see I18 is still positive, if in fact "full indices" was $24 and change positive; the I18 covers the most profitable plays. Personally I'd wonder if it was worth learning hundreds of index plays, or just learning 18 of them to keep your player error down.

I think I would ultimately opt to stick with just the I18, and maybe only add a few more once I've 'beyond' mastered/memorized the I18. As you can see, you're not getting much gain for a lot more indices and a lot more chance for player error. If you want to make up for the EV you're missing out on, just flat bet up 1 unit higher to double the resulting EV. OR, you could just wong out earlier, at like TC < -2. I think Wonging would be the best option, as if you're flat betting, I wouldn't really care much about cover/etc, and playing through to -2, -2.5 should cover a good portion of your playing scenarios. Omega, since you have the SIMs saved, would you mind running it again to find the EV of I18, wong out at -2?

Think smarter, not harder. =)

That is correct Romes, using only the I18 & leaving the table at true count -5 still showed a profit of +$17.03 EV so I believe the player still has an advantage of about +0.08%. I just ran the exact same simulation (the advantage count, I18) leaving the table at true count -2 as you requested (instead of -5) & the result was +$26.83 EV. So Romes is correct again, as apparently simply leaving the table at a true count of -2 (which will happen a lot more often) instead of learning more deviations will bring your +EV back up to slightly even better than before.

However, I ran the simulation yet again using the advantage count with all the BS deviations from -2 to +10 also leaving the table when the true drops to -2, & the result was +$33.26 EV bringing your advantage up to a staggering +0.16%. I will say, learning all the deviations between these counts seems like it is certainly not necessary as there are much easier ways to raise +EV (such as simply betting more or leaving the table earlier).

Honestly, the main reason I use over 50 BS deviations is because I enjoy using them. For some reason using them is fun for me, something about making a play that appears wrong but is actually correct (especially the double down's!). As far as error goes, to me that is just a matter of getting enough practice. I have practiced a lot, both with real cards & with Casino Verite' (I have used a lot lately) which is awesome because it will make an error sound & warning if you attempt to make a wrong play or bet amount. Personally, I would rather leave the table less often & use more BS deviations but that is just my opinion, simply because it makes the game more enjoyable for me. In any case, if you prefer just sticking with the I18 (or however many you would want to use) I think the sim's show us that its really no big deal because there are other ways of boosting your +EV to a level that is acceptable to you!

That's some interesting findings Omega, thanks for running a couple more SIMs. If nothing else this certainly shows that the player has a lot of options on the way to attack these games. More indexes, more play, fewer indexes and wonging, etc. I agree index plays are some of my 'favorite' plays as well. Especially when you get the crazy looks like a typical ploppy and yet you know you're doing the right thing.

The .08% and .16% are razors edge advantages. Anyone recapping this thread I'd want to again point out, your play must be perfect. I figure one or two playing mistakes an hour basically turns the positive edge game negative. There's nothing worse for a player than thinking you have a winning game and not; it can be a quite costly mistake.

Overall, I again want to say well done Omega. Even if someone has done this, or is doing this, I can pretty much say I believe this is the first time I've seen it done this way (specialized count, focusing on indexes to attack very narrow HE games). So thank you for something new to think about, investigate, and help take an edge in play!

You're welcome Romes! Im glad you have found this as interesting as I have & I would like to thank you for being extremely helpful & open-minded! You are absolutely right in saying that these are razor thin edges, but I figured that the casino's make money with such a thin edge that the player could as well. I would also like to add for others reading this that the specifics of the game I have simulated are extremely important, change any of the rules or decrease the penetration & this razor thin edge will disappear. I will continue to study the game & experiment with different system's & hopefully find something even better!

Quote: theOmega623

I figured that the casino's make money with such a thin edge that the player could as well.

Absolutely. It just may take a comparable bankroll.