Advice

I have been using high-low for about a year and playing once or twice a week with eight deck shoe, 75% or better penetration, stay on soft 17, late surrender and spreading 1 to 5.

I have found the following make it very difficult to be profitable:

• Variance

• Count goes very high but you have played through a lot of hands in which low cards came out favoring the dealer. Wins at end don’t make up for early losses.

• Insurance in play, more blackjacks and better advantage when doubling/splitting but the dealer can also get good hands as well (lot's of 20's)

• Need for large bankroll

• Can’t Wong in/out at will due to drawing too much attention or full tables

I often do the best when I am not raising my bet because the count is neutral or moving negative but Wong out before it moves too negative. Also, it seems that many counters who have had success in the past are no longer counting but have moved on to other pursuits such as authoring books. This makes we wonder if counting is all that profitable when grinding it out by yourself. I know others on the site have made a living out of counting but you may be spreading higher and playing under more favorable conditions. I would like advice about what it would take for me to be more successful. My goal is do this for a weekend hobby and not travel to seek out better games.

Patients and a larger spread. Counting is a slow grind with lots of ups and downs.

Quote: cardinal7

I have been using high-low for about a year and playing once or twice a week with eight deck shoe, 75% or better penetration, stay on soft 17, late surrender and spreading 1 to 5.

Once or twice a week, for a year? That's a statistically small sample. Are you playing at your one local casino? Aren't there any others near you? Can't you find some six deck games? Have you realistically given thought to what your overall edge is?

Quote: cardinal7

I have been using high-low for about a year and playing once or twice a week with eight deck shoe, 75% or better penetration, stay on soft 17, late surrender and spreading 1 to 5.

If you have the bankroll for higher variance, you can easily get away with a larger spread in an eight deck game. The count will go up gradually, so it will look as if you are pressing your bets or martingaling. With some cover-acting I think 1 - 20 is not out of the question.

tc 0 and below: 1 unit
tc 1 : 2 units
tc 2 : 5 units
tc 3 : 10 units
tc 4+: 20 units

Make it a natural progession if you can. Take opportunities like letting everything ride after a BJ at 10 units - give a little "hail mary" speech - boom, you got 25 units out there and no suspicion.

Quote: cardinal7

I have been using high-low for about a year ...
I have found the following make it very difficult to be profitable:

• Variance

• Count goes very high but you have played through a lot of hands in which low cards came out favoring the dealer. Wins at end don’t make up for early losses.

• Insurance in play, more blackjacks and better advantage when doubling/splitting but the dealer can also get good hands as well (lot's of 20's)

• Need for large bankroll

• Can’t Wong in/out at will due to drawing too much attention or full tables...
I would like advice about what it would take for me to be more successful. My goal is do this for a weekend hobby and not travel to seek out better games.

Hi Cardinal, Welcome to the forum.

It's not a bad hobby at all, and counting can give the game extra spice because you are being inwardly mischievous and 'sticking it to the man'. I commend you for doing that.
Before I got to entrenched in the IDEA of counting, I did a bit of 'modelling' with Excel on the assumption that I'd one day be good enough to get a long term 1% edge, 2% edge, etc. I plotted out some graphs with random but realistic data and those edges to visualise what outcomes I could expect over say 5,000 hands, 10,000 hands etc. For each simulation, I half kelly or full kelly wagered with my Bankroll ( I generally assumed a £50K bankroll ).
By firing off a macro, I could simulate each 5,000 or 10,000 hand lifetime and see what sort of variance I'd hit.
Though, over many 'lifetimes' I would be up in aggregate, it was shocking how non-linear it was likely to be. Sometimes I'd half my bankroll before clawing it back, sometimes I'd double or triple it before falling back to break even. Sometimes the chart would plummet, Sometimes it would soar like an eagle. It seldom looked like a comfortable ride to riches. Along the way, I played a little, either online or bricks and mortar. I figured that there was as much 'advantage' to be had by exploiting dealer weakness and bonus exploits as there was ever going to be from counting. I decided that counting was never going to be truly worth my effort except for that mischief value. Your mileage may vary.

Enjoy the game, embrace the variance.

Quote: OnceDear

Hi Cardinal, Welcome to the forum.

It's not a bad hobby at all, and counting can give the game extra spice because you are being inwardly mischievous and 'sticking it to the man'. I commend you for doing that.
Before I got to entrenched in the IDEA of counting, I did a bit of 'modelling' with Excel on the assumption that I'd one day be good enough to get a long term 1% edge, 2% edge, etc. I plotted out some graphs with random but realistic data and those edges to visualise what outcomes I could expect over say 5,000 hands, 10,000 hands etc. For each simulation, I half kelly or full kelly wagered with my Bankroll ( I generally assumed a £50K bankroll ).
By firing off a macro, I could simulate each 5,000 or 10,000 hand lifetime and see what sort of variance I'd hit.
Though, over many 'lifetimes' I would be up in aggregate, it was shocking how non-linear it was likely to be. Sometimes I'd half my bankroll before clawing it back, sometimes I'd double or triple it before falling back to break even. Sometimes the chart would plummet, Sometimes it would soar like an eagle. It seldom looked like a comfortable ride to riches. Along the way, I played a little, either online or bricks and mortar. I figured that there was as much 'advantage' to be had by exploiting dealer weakness and bonus exploits as there was ever going to be from counting. I decided that counting was never going to be truly worth my effort except for that mischief value. Your mileage may vary.

Enjoy the game, embrace the variance.

Good post....even from a rat (-;

Quote: AxelWolf

Good post....even from a rat (-;

Cheers Foxy

$;o)

In my area, I would have to go up to $100 minimum for less than eight decks. According to CVCX I should be making $11.00 and hour but I am closer to break even. You raise a good point about the small sample size. I guess I really can’t complain given I have fee drinks, comps and a hobby basically for free.

Thank you Axel Wolf and everyone else for the advice and encouragement. “Enjoy the game, embrace the variance” is an awesome quote.

Quote: cardinal7

In my area, I would have to go up to $100 minimum for less than eight decks. According to CVCX I should be making $11.00 and hour but I am closer to break even. You raise a good point about the small sample size. I guess I really can’t complain given I have fee drinks, comps and a hobby basically for free.

I play video poker and I know Blackjack and Video Poker are two different animals. But I have video poker software that enables me to do high speed simulations, which I mess around with a lot. It really helps me keep things in perspective. I know there is good software out there for blackjack that would help you and do high speed sims too. You've played a year, at twice a week, so a little over a hundred sessions, at so many hours per session. With eight decks, how much of that time did you even have an edge? You've heard the saying "a hard way to make an easy living", that's an understatement. It doesn't sound like you live in an area where it is practical to try to make any money, as a beginner. But by all means, don't quit studying the game, your situation may change later. Just don't be disappointed.

Maybe you'd like live poker and/or video poker.

Just ran a sim on CVCX....let's see how good (or bad) it is.

With a $15 min, 1-5 spread, on a 75% pen 8D game....although I'm not entirely sure how your ramp is setup / your wong-in/out points are / full indices or ill-18 or what.....but what I got is----your SCORE is 7.72 and N0 is 129,571. At 100 rounds/hour, that means 1N0 = 1,295 hours....meaning, after 1,295 hours, being down 1 standard deviation, you should be breaking even (since N0 is the point at which EV = 1 SD). The advantage is 0.41%....to me, this is much closer to gambling than having a distinguishable edge/advantage over the casino.

In other words....the game is absolutely awful (IMO), and not worth playing. Although, if it's a hobby for you, and if you get extra stuff too, like free-bets, food, hotel, as well as drinks / comps etc. then it might be worth it.

If you wanna be play more seriously, I'd say play with at least a 1-10 spread (doing so, will increase winrate from $10.75/hour to $24.59...decrease N0 from 129K to 57K....and increase edge from 0.41% to 0.737%). If you go to a 1-15 spread or 1-20 spread, it gets even better and better.


Not sure why you'd only play with a 1-5 spread. But if you're worried about them getting suspicious of you for having a big spread, I'd say -- get over it -- for the most part, they really don't care what someone is doing at a $5/$10/$15 table. If you're worried about showing a big spread, you can do some other stuff to disguise your spread/ramp. For instance, you can play 2 hands instead of 1. You can also have your "waiting bet" (TC=0) be more units (like $40), that way if the count goes up, you can do a "1-5 spread" and go from $40 to $200. If the count goes negative, you can spread down from $40 to $10. The pit / dealer will think your "spread" or whatever is 40-200, or something like that, and probably shouldn't care.....but you're really playing with a 1-20 spread (well...not exactly...but pretty much).

Thanks RS! Since I am fairly new to the game, I have been hesitant to spread much higher, but I see that I need to in order to play with a real advantage.

What is the calculation for the 0.41% advantage? Is the advantage the same as %W/L Results in CVCX?

Quote: cardinal7

In my area, I would have to go up to $100 minimum for less than eight decks. According to CVCX I should be making $11.00 and hour but I am closer to break even. You raise a good point about the small sample size. I guess I really can’t complain given I have fee drinks, comps and a hobby basically for free.

Eight deck game is not worth counting if you play solo with a small bankroll. Save up for a bigger bankroll and travel. If you seriously want to make money from counting, you need to find better playing conditions (fewer decks, good penetration & decent rules).

Sorry I'm late to the party, been a busy weekend =p.

I didn't read over all the other posts, so my apologies if I reiterate what others have said... Also, I'm not familiar with your level of play, so please excuse me if I say something that you consider "basic" counting knowledge. It's not my intent to talk down to you, just simply cover all the bases...

1) The variance in blackjack is some of the lowest variance you're going to find as far as casino games. Variance is 1.15, and even Jacks or Better on VP is ~20 (19.52). That being said, yes variance is always the kicker =P. Your EV for a session might only be about $200 +/- $1,000. Variance is just part of the game and something you can't avoid. The best way to deal with it is to be well funded, understand your advantage, and be 110% sure you have an actual winning game. Past that the losses or jolts in variance shouldn't bother you much, as you're not gonna go broke and you know you're going to win in the long run. It takes some emotional strength to deal with the wild swings sometimes.

2) The wins at the end aren't necessarily supposed to "make up" for the beginning of the shoe. Remember every single hand comes down to an EV. If the count at the beginning is 0 and you place a $10 min bet, then your EV at the game you stated (6D S17 LS DAS DA2) should be ~ 10*(-.0043) = -0.043... less than half a cent. Now, let's say the count hovers on 0 most the shoe and you get about 20 hands per shoe. The last TWO alone you get a TC +3 (~1.1% advantage) and you're now betting $60 let's say (which in my opinion is a smaller spread, but we'll get to that)... Then your EV of one of the last 2 hands is ~ 60*(.011) = $0.66.

So if you have 18 hands of -.0043, and 2 hands of +0.66, that results in a positive $1.24. Now, this is an SPECIFIC example showing you even if you only got 2 "decent" bets in per show these do "make up" for the negative bets.

You can't look at it on a shoe by show basis though. You'll have some shoes that are 100% negative, and some that are 100% positive. This is where knowing your FREQUENCIES comes in to play. Again, as counters we're not playing for the short run (I think we all know that)... So on a per shoe basis we don't really care if it's positive or negative. Sure, it would be nice to see positive shoes as maybe that's more "fun" for you, but a winning game isn't all about fun. It's about putting hand after hand and shoe after shoe in until you hit your N0, or your point in the long run where you mathematically can no longer be negative due to variance.

This again has more to do with a mind set than anything else. Understanding the frequencies/etc just helps that mindset because you have solid data to back up your convictions.

3) Your spread is clearly too low. Now, it depends on what your goal here is... but from the sounds of your post it seems like your goal is to actually make some money. By my simulation, with the game you've provided, a 1-5 spread (let's say $10-$50) will yield an hourly value of $6.67 per hour. This doesn't account for any mistakes and also assumes you're wonging out at anything worse than TC -1 (we'll get to wonging next). This is less than minimum wage, so perhaps not the best value of ones time. If you're trying to make something like $15/hour, you'd need a spread of $10-$100 where your biggest jump is at TC +3 and your $100 bet is out at TC +4. This would yield just barely under $15/hour.

Of course pending the tolerance of your local casino(s) and the availability of your local casino(s) you may or may not be able to bet even more... Think of it this way. You have a clone. He always spreads 1-5. You always spread 1-10. You play exactly the same way on every single decision. You're going to make 200% of the profits compared to him SIMPLY because of the amount bet. For this reason, it's quite important to bet what you can afford with your bankroll, and to get your bankroll as high as possible to support this (bankroll will be #5 =p). Otherwise you're literally losing money by not betting more, as shown above. Now let's say you had a 1:15 spread, and so on!

4) Wonging. There are endless reasons to wong out of a shoe. Granted, especially on the nights where you see only negative counts it might be hard to find a reason to KEEP getting up from the table, but even then you should be wonging out the mass majority of the shoes that drop off that negative.

- I've loss too many in a row I'm gonna sit a few out.
- I've gotta run to the bathroom.
- I'm gonna grab a quick snack.
- My gf/wife had some big hit on slots, I'm gonna make sure she doesn't give it all back!
- Deal me out, as you pull out your phone and make/accept a call.
- This is a dealer shoe (best if used after also losing several hands) I'm sittin this one out.

There are soooooo many more... but there alone is 6 excuses to wong out of 6 shoes that go past TC -1. After that you really need to just not care about leaving the table. It's your money. You can bet it when you want... and you can also NOT bet it whenever you want. If they have some glaring problem with you sitting out then they'll let you know and you might have to up your requirement (that night) to TC -2 and understand how little/much that affects your hourly EV and make the decision to leave or stay.

At the end of the day you MUST wong out. Wonging out is literally making you more money. If you play $10 on a TC -2, then you're going to lose $1.12 per hour. If you play $10 on TC -3 then you're going to lose an additional $0.84 per hour. Simply by NOT playing these hands your EV will go up over $2/hour. So by taking some time for a phone call, bathroom break, walk to check ultimate X machines, whatever... you're making yourself money. There are some that use a "play all" technique, but in my experience these are the guys that also have a massive spread of like 1:20 or 1:30, so they're overcoming that negative EV. If this is a local shop, you probably can't do that though due to heat and tolerance issues.

5) Bankroll management. This is probably the number one reason players that can count perfect and play perfect do not have a winning game. They're either under betting, under bankrolled / over betting, or a combination of all of the above. What is your bankroll and what is your level of play? i.e. $5,000 bankroll and $10-$50...

Your bankroll pretty much determines your big bet, which pretty much determines your spread. If you've done the math and the best you can do is play a 1:5 spread, then you have a few options.
A) Find a way in your budget to save more money and/or allow for more money to be in your bankroll.
B) Stop playing until you have a proper bankroll. Whether that means just practicing while you save or even putting those hours to use at another part time job to save more money, etc. Personally I would use this time to learn more and more about the game... Such as frequencies, etc, so you can refine your betting ramp to help maximize your EV when you are ready to play.
B) Play on a "replenish-able bankroll." This is a popular choice, but it will bite you in the ass if you don't contribute the proper amount over time. This is a way of only having $5k on your right now, but setting your spread and playing the game as though you had a $25k bankroll. Baring poor variance you might never need to actually have a $25k brankoll. However, if you do have poor variance you WILL need to contribute more money to your bankroll to continue playing should you lose your initial $5k investment. This is honestly how I started out with my teammate, and we did have to pull more money out a time or two before we finally went the right direction.

6) Your insurance, blackjacks, etc does also work for the dealer, but you get the better end of that deal... Insurance is a proven mathematical profitable bet to make after TC +3. This is why we make it. This also is HALF the value of the Illustrious 18 (which I assume you already know 100%). The difference here is you get paid 150% (3:2) for your blackjacks, the dealer does not. The biggest things that make blackjack favorable to the player are:
- You can double, putting more money out in a positive expectation situation, the dealer can not.
- You can split, putting more money out in a positive expectation situation, the dealer can not.
- You can choose to stand on poor hands or against dealer bust cards, the dealer must hit up through 16.
- You get paid 3:2 for your blackjacks, the dealer can not. This is the biggest one. Say the count is so big that ONLY aces and faces remain. You and the dealer will get blackjack non-stop. When he has an ace up you'll take even money on your blackjack, and insure when you don't. Also, when he wins he wins 1x your bet. When you win you win 1.5x your bet. This is basically a game you can't lose in! Of course this is an extreme example, but it's just amplifying the point of our advantage.

EDIT
Not sure how I forgot to link these lol... 3 Articles on A-Z counting cards. YES you probably know most/all of this, but undoubtedly there's a thing or two you could pick up from reading them. Perhaps (hopefully) you already have even =P. There's links to spreadsheets/etc to calculate every single number I've give you here in my response so you can do it as well and play with the numbers to find the best possible EV for your situation.

https://wizardofvegas.com/articles/A-to-Z-Counting-Cards-in-Blackjack/
https://wizardofvegas.com/articles/A-to-Z-Counting-Cards-In-Blackjack-2/
https://wizardofvegas.com/articles/A-to-Z-Counting-Cards-in-Blackjack-3/

How many indexes do you know? Do you know what your hourly EV is for the different game variations you play (H17, S17, LS, No Surrender, etc)? What is your bankroll? What is your actual spread? How many hours have you put in thus far? How many hands do you estimate, on average, you get per hour?

Romes and others I appreciate the advice. I can’t thank you enough! This has been very eye opening to me. I thought I had a good understanding of card counting but I really didn’t. I see that I need to find the best games, increase my bankroll and spread if I am going to be successful. Also, I need to focus on the math (EV, NO, etc.) and put behind me superstitions and self limiting thoughts. It now makes better sense to me why card counters are unwanted at casinos and why I have not received any real heat. Even though I have been counting, I have been zero threat to the casino.

Quote: cardinal7

Romes and others I appreciate the advice. I can’t thank you enough! This has been very eye opening to me. I thought I had a good understanding of card counting but I really didn’t. I see that I need to find the best games, increase my bankroll and spread if I am going to be successful. Also, I need to focus on the math (EV, NO, etc.) and put behind me superstitions and self limiting thoughts. It now makes better sense to me why card counters are unwanted at casinos and why I have not received any real heat. Even though I have been counting, I have been zero threat to the casino.

I'm not a counter. But I don't think you've been wasting your time from the standpoint of learning the mechanics and getting in the hours needed to secure your basics. And at break even, too, instead of paying "tuition". Good value there; you're much readier to step up your game and add some refinements.

So, enjoy yourself and keep working at it. GL!

Quote: cardinal7

Romes and others I appreciate the advice. I can’t thank you enough! This has been very eye opening to me. I thought I had a good understanding of card counting but I really didn’t. I see that I need to find the best games, increase my bankroll and spread if I am going to be successful. Also, I need to focus on the math (EV, NO, etc.) and put behind me superstitions and self limiting thoughts. It now makes better sense to me why card counters are unwanted at casinos and why I have not received any real heat. Even though I have been counting, I have been zero threat to the casino.

This post to me shows the light bulb turning on, and it's a welcomed sight to see. It shows you're a rather intelligent person and that you have the ability to accept the things you didn't understand prior (i.e. grow and learn). Most people just plug their ears and don't wanna hear it. Please feel free to PM me with any follow up questions.

I still also agree with Babs to an extent. You haven't been all in vein as you've set up a great foundation for you to now take your new understanding and run with.