Has anyone?

Has anyone ever had 1 or 2 places they just cant win at? Im sure many people have, but it would benefit me to hear some similar stories from other posters because right now im going through a spell where I literally win everywhere else but once I play at these 2 stores, I almost always get cleaned out. Im still close to EV for the year and doing well, but it's just funny how I cant crack them, especially when one of them has an amazing game.

It almost feels like all my hard work is going to waste and feel cheated in a way because im winning big everywhere else and then i go and give it back to these guys or ill go and lose to these guys and then go and win it back everywhere else. I'm sure it's just horrible variance, but would like to hear some of your thoughts. Oh and the store with the amazing game, it's my biggest loser at -2SD. The other store is only about -1.5 SD and i've had some big wins there, so that one im sure is just some horrible luck,, but the -2SD store, ever since they changed to 6 decks, i cant remember the last time i won a monster count; i lose big there every single time to the point I question the legitimacy there.

Yes you might ask, why do i keep going back if i keep losing there, and the answer is obvious in that there is just so many places i can keep playing at and logging hours, so i need to spread my play around and that means returning to these stores.

Zen,

Thank you for the very descriptive title to your message. While great, I wonder if it could have been possible to make it just a little bit more descriptive of your topic.

As for myself, I find I have a hard time winning at tribal casinos and other casinos where there is no reasonably close competition. When casinos compete for my play, they seem to offer games that are less one-sided in their favor.

When I got back into counting back in the mid 2000's, I started in the how and it took me over two months to get out of it. And that was with playing 7 days a week at one location for about 4-6 hours a day. Your results aren't extraordinary.

Are you a professional gambler? How can you find time to play that many hours a day?

Sort of...
I have this shirt that can do that when worn, at any casino.

bump up. This is eating at me. You cant help but feel casinos rig the shoe with a stacked deck of either a surplus of low cards or removal of big cards. I think it's time to bring out the regulations and place it on the felt and let me see every card at these 2 stores.

Quote: ZenKinG

Yes you might ask, why do i keep going back if i keep losing there, and the answer is obvious in that there is just so many places i can keep playing at and logging hours, so i need to spread my play around and that means returning to these stores.

It seems that you don't understand sample size. You won't be able to play nearly enough hands, even over the course of several years, to allow your actual results to approach your expected results everywhere you play. At any given casino, your results will be either better or worse than you expect. Since you have your consistent losses at those two stores but are where you expect to be in overall results, your results must be BETTER than expected at some other casinos. It's all just variance in action.

Unless, of course, you're saying that when you do worse they expect, they must be cheating you, but when you do better than you expect, they must be...what? Cheating in your favor?

To answer your question, if you ARE consistently losing at a given place and suspect cheating, why continue to play there if alternatives exist?

The thing is many others have played at the places Zenking is talking about and have winning results, so unless he thinks they are cheating him specifically, his results are meaningless.

Well losing with an edge is different. If i played blackjack soley at a disadvantage and lost more than i should have, i wouldnt really complain since im already playing at a disadvantage. Of course playing at an edge doesnt mean i have a right to win more than i should have, but if you catch my drift, you shouldnt be 'surprised' if you lose more since you're already playing at a disadvtg.

Yea, i guess you can say i've had bigger wins than I should have, but in terms of overall EV, no, im not where I should be and it's mostly because of those 2 stores. You take away those 2 stores and im at or close to EV, which starts to raise red flags. Unless I have been overestimating rounds per hour and my EV is much less, im not sure, but right now assuming 100 rds an hour and about 550 hours played my results are only +23,500 and down about -1.3 SD.

Quote: Hunterhill

The thing is many others have played at the places Zenking is talking about and have winning results, so unless he thinks they are cheating him specifically, his results are meaningless.

The thing that raises red flags with me at harrahs is i only started losing when they changed all of the games from 8 deckers on the main floor to 6 deckers. That adds to my suspicion.

Quote: ZenKinG

Well losing with an edge is different. If i played blackjack soley at a disadvantage and lost more than i should have, i wouldnt really complain since im already playing at a disadvantage. Yea, i guess you can say i've had bigger wins than I should have, but in terms of overall EV, no, im not where I should be and it's mostly because of those 2 stores. You take away those 2 stores and im at or close to EV, which starts to raise red flags. Unless I have been overestimating rounds per hour and my EV is much less, im not sure, but right now assuming 100 rds an hour and about 550 hours played my results are only +23,500 and down about -1.3 SD.

That's what we're trying to tell you. Any result within 1.3 SD is well within the normal range. It isn't even worth mentioning, in fact. If it bothers you to be doing a little worse than you expect, then you're in the wrong racket. I think I can safely say that everyone here has experienced periods--some of them quite prolonged--when their results were four or five SDs worse than expectation. You're still making about $40 an hour. There are people who have lost twice that much per hour over hundreds of hours. Get rid of the mindset of what you "SHOULD" be making. That doesn't matter one bit, and if you lose $3000 when your calculations say that you "should" have won $3000, no angel is going to descend from the sky and give you a rack of black chips to make up for the injustice you suffered.

There's a huge difference between having an advantage and actually winning. Based on what you're telling us, though, you ARE winning--just not as much as you think you're entitled to. You're also overweighting the fact that your bad results have tended to cluster in two casinos. You should EXPECT such clustering. It's unlikely that your bad sessions will evenly distribute themselves.

Another thing, by the way--are you playing perfectly? Your stated EV assumes that you are. But one mistake an hour can cripple your EV, and two mistakes an hour can completely negate it.

Quote: Joeshlabotnik

That's what we're trying to tell you. Any result within 1.3 SD is well within the normal range. It isn't even worth mentioning, in fact. If it bothers you to be doing a little worse than you expect, then you're in the wrong racket. I think I can safely say that everyone here has experienced periods--some of them quite prolonged--when their results were four or five SDs worse than expectation. You're still making about $40 an hour. There are people who have lost twice that much per hour over hundreds of hours. Get rid of the mindset of what you "SHOULD" be making. That doesn't matter one bit, and if you lose $3000 when your calculations say that you "should" have won $3000, no angel is going to descend from the sky and give you a rack of black chips to make up for the injustice you suffered.

There's a huge difference between having an advantage and actually winning. Based on what you're telling us, though, you ARE winning--just not as much as you think you're entitled to. You're also overweighting the fact that your bad results have tended to cluster in two casinos. You should EXPECT such clustering. It's unlikely that your bad sessions will evenly distribute themselves.

Another thing, by the way--are you playing perfectly? Your stated EV assumes that you are. But one mistake an hour can cripple your EV, and two mistakes an hour can completely negate it.

Appreciate the tough love. I hear where you're coming from. But in regards to perfect play, im pretty close to it. There's no way in hell i make a mistake or two an hour. Maybe 1 mistakes every 100 or 200 hours when im just in autopilot and a fast dealer catches me off guard and im already in the hit me stance so i take another card for example at 15v10 at +4 when i should have stood, but even those mistakes like i said are maybe once every 100-200 hours and are not even huge -EV mistakes.

The thing is tho im almost close to 600 hours and even you mentioned "there are others here who have lost twice that much over HUNDREDS of hours'. Well i've played more than 'hundreds of hours' so isn't it time i start approaching EV with almost 600 hours played? That's why im frustrated. I've had a decent sample size, so either im overestimating my rounds per hour and in fact it's not 100 but rather maybe 60-80, then i dont kno what, other than the creeping thought in my head of those 2 stores stacking the decks

Actually, i mistakenly been using my most recent bet size in CVCX which only probably accounted for about 400 hours of play from earlier in the year to now and have switched up my spreads overall during losing streaks so i put in an 'average' spread bet size of all the bet sizes that i have used and also put in a more realistic rounds per hour and it looks like im pretty close to expectation now. I think my main problem has me not accurately tracking my EV and overestimating it in the simulator. Thanks.

No way in hell you make 1-2 mistakes every 100-200 hours or whatever you're claiming. Actually, there's no way in hell ANY COUNTER makes that few mistakes.

I'm sure you play the game well. I also know people tend to think they play better than they really do. The only mistakes you know about are the ones you realize.

Quote: ZenKinG

But in regards to perfect play, im pretty close to it. There's no way in hell i make a mistake or two an hour.

How would you even know? Let's say that you get tired or distracted and a round results in a +4 addition to the count. However, you accidentally SUBTRACT this from the running count. You mistakenly evaluate the running count as 0 when it should be +4 (in my scenario, there are two decks left and the running count was +2). So you bet your minimum when you really should be betting four or eight units. On top of that, you might hit hard 16 vs. 10 when you really should stand, or some other similar strategy error. And you will repeat the betting and playing mistakes until the deck is shuffled. So a single miscalculation could result in as many as eight or ten betting and playing mistakes, especially if you make it early in the shoe. You're not immune to it. None of us are.

It's NEVER "time to start approaching EV." Look up the Law of Large Numbers. It's a bit paradoxical--yes, as your sample size increases, your results will approach expectation, BUT THE ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RESULTS AND EXPECTATION WILL INCREASE. This means that you do NOT stand to get even, or ahead, in the long run. To use your figures, you might double your total play and now you're within 0.8 standard deviations of expectation--but you'd be even further behind! (1.3x < (0.8)2x)

I would advise, then, that you lower your expectations and not put too much weight on what's happened so far.

Quote: RS

No way in hell you make 1-2 mistakes every 100-200 hours or whatever you're claiming. Actually, there's no way in hell ANY COUNTER makes that few mistakes.

I'm sure you play the game well. I also know people tend to think they play better than they really do. The only mistakes you know about are the ones you realize.

I agree with RS. For a long time I thought I was perfect, but when I brought my current partner on and trained him, we'd be practicing together and compare counts and be off by 1 (rarely) and I'd tell him it should be "this" (all confidently) but when we recounted the discards he was right. Was eye opening to me that I was off by one because counting is like breathing to me.

In general too, most people always overestimate (hands per hour, average bets, number of mistakes, etc, etc). My approach and for my team has ALWAYS been to UNDER estimate. We always round down, think we made a couple more mistakes than we remember, etc, etc... and in doing this, we've always been pretty spot on with our estimations, and in some cases of course above expectation, which feels nice =).

As far as your 2 casinos... It wouldn't be that hard to prove. Simply go back count (don't even play) like 2 tables at a time. If both tables CONTINUE to go to positive counts time and time again and you don't see the big cards you should see, well then it's pretty easy to tell they're pulling big cards from the deck. In the end, if you're not sure then 99% sure they're not cheating. You would know... If they removed 2 cards from 8 decks, then that would impact you in the long run, but very minimally so you would still win at the casino too. If they removed enough to actually impact you nearly every time you go, then it would be VERY EASY to notice and figure out in even one night.

Do they show you all the cards/decks when they change the cards for the BJ games? Can you ensure they're all there at that point and then play, or ?

One of these two stores, i've seen them fan the cards face up when changing it, the other store i never seen them do it. They also dont show me the cards after I requested they show me the cards face up. They put the cards face down and refuse to show me at these two stores. This was until I found out that Pennsylvania regulations say a player may request to see the cards face up if he asks the pit boss to show him, so right then and there these casinos violated regulations and im gonna hit them hard with it next time i go there. I dont care if it brings attention to myself, do these casinos even know the law or just make it up as they go because they think the patrons are too stupid to even ask questions? Im gonna print out the regulations and lay it on the felt.

Let me just go ahead and name these two stores. It's Sands and Harrahs. Harrahs, ever since they changed to 6 decks, i havent won 1 big count there out of maybe 10 big count shoes. Red flag anyone? I think so. Im up +23,500 after 580 hours(550 was just an estimate before) even after being pulverized for 10k at sands and 15k at harrahs in such a short amount of time. But after lowering my rounds per hour to 80 in CVCX and put in an average bet size that i been using over all these hours after resizing up and down, it comes to about 35k in EV so im not that far off i guess. I think i've been overestimating my hours with 100, but who knows.

I also noticed you mentioned in another thread of mine that about 50k-100k hands are really needed to be somewhat sure to be at EV. I think you're right as i remember KJ said around 60k-80k rounds played is when he always approached EV every time.

Instead of hitting them yourself with a printed regulation, why not file a complaint with Gaming? Or go request to see the cards and have a friend secretly video you doing so, and when they deny you then you can point out it's a law they must follow. Then when they don't (on video) you will have proof of a gaming violation to go along with your claim. Hopefully then gaming will take you seriously enough to launch their own investigation in which they could "potentially" catch them red handed, so to say.

Good of you to rethink your hours/hands... Overestimation is a big problem that will lead you down a tough path of thought sometimes (such as cheating casinos). That's not to say you have or haven't found one, but it doesn't help when you overestimate and you think your EV is 100k and you're at 20k thinking you're X SD's out when in reality you're only off maybe 1SD (which is possible and does happen at the point you're at). You "usually" start to really see your EV around 50k hands, but you will see your EV by around 100k hands =).

I wonder if you realize just how tiny a 1% advantage is. Craps players are facing at least that much, yet they walk away winners all the time. You could easily lose every single session in which you had such an advantage and there would be nothing unusual about it. Nothing AT ALL.

I think before you waste your time getting all worked up and filing complaints, you should ask yourself if your suspicions of cheating are well founded. Based on your play so far, they're not. I think you don't understand that losing heavily at some casinos is NORMAL. As is not realizing the win that you think you "should."