Counting Hobbiests - First Year Results

My teammate and I just finished our first year of serious counting. I thought I'd offer up our anecdote to the hobbiest niche of the counting community.

Results:
Starting Bankroll: $15,000
Ending Bankroll: $19,700
Revenue: $4,700
EV: $9,000
Costs: $3,600 (flights, car rentals, etc.)
Profit: $1,100
Hours: 275

Spread: 25-250 (TC*Unit), two hands of 75% at TC 4+
ROR: 5%
EV/Hr: $25-$60 depending on the game. Averaged about $40.



We had a rough start losing almost half of our bankroll. We climbed our way back to even over the course of a few months, then proceeded to lose over half of our bankroll again putting us down to $8k. We had committed to staying at a $25 unit at this point despite the ROR increase since $10-$15 min tables were virtually unplayable at most casinos. Luckily, we finally had a major upswing in the last few months putting us well into the positive. Our first standard deviation should be in the black at this point given 275 hours of play.

Initially we focused on playing 6 deck. However, during our first trip to Vegas I had the revelation that DD games will see more high TC counts on average. Most of the player base agrees that DD games are incredibly risky as far as getting caught goes - they're not wrong. We were backed off four times in under 3 days during our first Vegas trip. This was primarily a function of showing our max bet and then continuing to play after winning like pigs. Greedy as hell but we were still clawing back from the depths of our $8k bankroll.

Since then we tend to keep our sessions short, but still stick to double deck. We don't play often enough to worry about getting caught. We've been backed off once in the last 8 months. Also, we wong in/out much more aggressively these days which greatly contributed to our success. Using ploppies to soak up negative counts is incredibly valuable.

In summary:
We made $4 an hour and it was fun as hell. The free rooms/food are incredibly satisfying, carrying around $10k in cash is thrilling, and its fun to tell the story to people who are interested.
Now that we're starting year two, we're going to be playing more hours and adding cash to the bankroll to increase our growth. Luckily we've both moved to the West Coast so we have way more play options now. We may take on a third team member if we find someone we trust.

Other learnings:
Trust the math - the swings were way larger than we ever expected. Losing half your bankroll in a few hours then gaining it back plus some the next day is scary, but that's just how the game works sometimes.

Practice - we've met probably 10 other counters in the last year at casinos. They're not hard to spot - skinny white guys in their mid twenties with frazzled hair sporting a fanny pack so they can keep track of their bankrolls. (Not that we're any different) While most of them were playing a positive game, almost all of them made a few mistakes of some sort. You know how you can drive your car but also talk on the phone, pick your nose, send an email and chew gum all at the same time? Counting cards needs to be like driving your car - second nature.

Get over the idea of building a big team like the MIT guys - This one was hard to swallow for us. Our inspiration for starting this hobby was knowing one of the original MIT team members and hearing his stories. In our first few months of practice we put together our own code/sims/training docs and flyered up the MIT/Harvard area in hopes of building our own powerhouse. 30 people showed up the first day. Only 1 got good enough to play at the casino and he wasn't even 21 yet. It's just not worth the time. This doesn't even factor in the trust component required to play with a team. If you have a tight group of friends already like the Church team did, maybe you can consider this route.

Wow. This is a great post, man. Thanks for sharing.

If I would've read this a couple years ago, I would've been very interested in becoming that third team member. But my counting days are over.

Enjoy yourselves. And keep building that bankroll.

Donut, congratulations on your first year of counting. There is no teacher quite like experience is there my friend. I applaud the professional way you went about doing things. You didn't ask for comments or suggestions, so I won't lay mine on you, but I do have some thoughts based on my own my own, now 12 year career of full-time blackjack play that you may find useful, that I would be happy to share either in public (this thread) or private (private message). Good luck going forward.

I'm impressed, love the chart, what a visual of reality. Keep up the good work.

Phenomenal post Donuts! You clearly have a winning game as you know your numbers quite well. It's really ironic. My best friend and I started playing a bit more seriously 'about' a year ago now too. We still have a couple months left, but I was planning on releasing the same kind of thread. Clearly you kept good track of your statistics to be able to graph it. Visuals make it easy =p.

I'll congratulate you on your preliminary success and wish you the best of luck on year two! I'm sure as we've done you guys have evolved throughout the year to minimize heat, maximize EV, etc. If you wouldn't mind sharing, what are some of the challenges and changes you guys faced in the past year? If you don't want to share no worries. We changed a LOT of things about half way through our year. We had a winning game, but now we have an even more winning game with less heat! I think experience is indeed the best teacher, so I'm curious if you guys saw any holes or potential opportunities during your year and you adjusted for them.

Again, great job, congrats, and look forward to year two's report in 2016! =)

Quote: Romes

Phenomenal post Donuts! You clearly have a winning game as you know your numbers quite well. It's really ironic. My best friend and I started playing a bit more seriously 'about' a year ago now too. We still have a couple months left, but I was planning on releasing the same kind of thread. Clearly you kept good track of your statistics to be able to graph it. Visuals make it easy =p.

I'll congratulate you on your preliminary success and wish you the best of luck on year two! I'm sure as we've done you guys have evolved throughout the year to minimize heat, maximize EV, etc. If you wouldn't mind sharing, what are some of the challenges and changes you guys faced in the past year? If you don't want to share no worries. We changed a LOT of things about half way through our year. We had a winning game, but now we have an even more winning game with less heat! I think experience is indeed the best teacher, so I'm curious if you guys saw any holes or potential opportunities during your year and you adjusted for them.

Again, great job, congrats, and look forward to year two's report in 2016! =)

We changed quite a few things along the way. Most of the mistakes we made initially were us trying to maximize value and play time without analyzing the risks.

We used to play rated, now we play almost exclusively unrated.
We overvalued the food comps we were getting from playing rated and realized you don't even have to play that much to get free rooms. Our strategy now is to maintain our comp status by playing rated for a few hours total over the course of a multiday trip at casinos we know we're safe at - this tends to keep the room offers flowing.

We keep our sessions much shorter, under an hour.
It's kind of frustrating only playing 30-60 minutes then having to walk down the strip in 110 Vegas heat to find another game, but its the only way you're going to see any longevity. You really don't get much attention at the green chip level we've found, but that doesn't mean you can sit there for 3 hours at a time and grind like we did when we first started.

We Wong a lot more
When we first started playing seriously we were backcounting, wonging, and calling each other in quite a bit, but we had terrible variance and it was boring compared to blasting through hands heads up. We kind of abandoned the idea for a while until about 6 months ago. We revisited the math and really couldn't deny the significant EV increase and ROR decrease. Since then, we hop out of shoes at negative counts if other players are there to soak up cards. If no one else is there we just leave if the count gets too negative. We still back count a bit but we've actually gotten quite a bit of heat doing that surprisingly.

Team play
My teammate and I have known each other for 6 years now and we're great friends. Luckily, we both have a similar way of thinking, so we haven't had any conflict, but I can imagine there would be if the wrong people paired up. If you can't agree on RoR, Units, sessions duration, playing rated/unrated, what cover plays you're going to employ, etc. things fall apart quickly. My partner and I psuedo-delegated decision making rights. He manages session duration, cover plays, etc. I manage our costs, margins, and reporting mostly.

Reds to Greens
In our first few sessions we were playing with a $10k bankroll with a $15 unit. We quickly realized most casinos are packed below the $25 level so we opted to add $5k to the bankroll and up our unit to $25. We've played on the East Coast, Vegas, San Diego, and Seattle and the $25 min threshold really makes a big difference in the quality and quantity of games you can play.

I wish everyone who's trying to start counting (and some whom have even been counting) could read this. It's a true mark that not only do you have a winning game, but you're clearly constantly re-evaluating your play/games/EV to evolve ever better. I'll go through all the same (in a few months) when my partner and I hit our year mark.

I can't say it enough, congrats on the success thus far, and with your knowledge/approach I can't see anything but future success for you guys. Best of luck and can't wait for next years results =D.

Nice post and the graph adds greatly to it.
Might I ask.... Being in the US, were you not liable to pay a chunk of Tax? I won't ask whether you paid or not. Just curious, as a Brit, not liable to betting taxes at BlackJack.

Quote: OnceDear

Nice post and the graph adds greatly to it.
Might I ask.... Being in the US, were you not liable to pay a chunk of Tax? I won't ask whether you paid or not. Just curious, as a Brit, not liable to betting taxes at BlackJack.

We're still figuring out what to do as far as taxes go. We're not technically an LLC, but we may still be able to remove our "costs" from the taxable amount.

In the US you are liable to pay taxes on gambling income at the federal level, and possibly the state level depending on where you live. It's also important to note that if you're a professional gambler and gambling is your primary source of income, the tax structure changes significantly and you'll need to pay additional taxes.

Can you tell me where the EV number came from(9,000)? Seems to me that the only number that would matter is the EV per hour. Is this an added number of all the +EV plays multiplied by hours of play compared to your bankroll? I know that it's all about EV I just don't understand the importance of the total EV.

Did you count your comps as profit? Because you should.

Quote: gav

Can you tell me where the EV number came from(9,000)? Seems to me that the only number that would matter is the EV per hour. Is this an added number of all the +EV plays multiplied by hours of play compared to your bankroll? I know that it's all about EV I just don't understand the importance of the total EV.

We played 275 hours, assumed 100 hands per hour, and around $35-40 per hour in EV. Comes out to about $9k.


Total EV is important because you need to benchmark your results. Over a long enough period of time your standard deviations will converge on your expected value. If you're significantly outside of the SD brackets you know there's something wrong with your play or with your reporting.

Quote: Mosca

Did you count your comps as profit? Because you should.

Only comps that generated EV in a game. Any winnings from match plays or slots coupons were added to the total. Comps for room and food we don't consider profit, just cost reduction.