Threshold Resizing

Hello WOV friends,
So after racking up nearly 1,000 hours of play for the year and many many good trips, I've had some good luck and considering a resize. I have an idea on how I think I may go about this but I would like to get some input from a few pros here first.

So keeping risk around 1% or lower, my idea is to do somewhat of a "threshold resize". For example, my current spread is $25 - $250. Once my bankroll reaches over $50k I will resize my bets to a spread of $50 - $500. At any point my bankroll dips below $50k I will downsize (obviously not in the middle of a shoe).

What affect do you think this would have on my expectation? Obviously a resize would cost me a little EV, but I'm thinking this would be minimal and overall a superior way of resizing rather than waiting for the event that any significant amount is lost. Please let me know what you guys think, would love to hear from Romes and Kewlj on this one!

- Omega

Quote: theOmega623

Hello WOV friends,
So after racking up nearly 1,000 hours of play for the year and many many good trips, I've had some good luck and considering a resize. I have an idea on how I think I may go about this but I would like to get some input from a few pros here first.

So keeping risk around 1% or lower, my idea is to do somewhat of a "threshold resize". For example, my current spread is $25 - $250. Once my bankroll reaches over $50k I will resize my bets to a spread of $50 - $500. At any point my bankroll dips below $50k I will downsize (obviously not in the middle of a shoe).

What affect do you think this would have on my expectation? Obviously a resize would cost me a little EV, but I'm thinking this would be minimal and overall a superior way of resizing rather than waiting for the event that any significant amount is lost. Please let me know what you guys think, would love to hear from Romes and Kewlj on this one!

- Omega
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Congrats on the good variance!
I guess my main question is why do you have to make it so binary, 250 or 500? might want to smooth the transition a bit, start increasing slowly.
Also, I personally don't see why you have to keep a fixed spread. I play similar stakes, and my max bet ranges between 200$ by 2 hands to 400$ by 2 hands. With my bankroll, I should keep it around 300$ by 2, but I vary depending on what I think I can get away with. How good I am doing on my act, what excuse do I have for betting the amount, did the pit saw me lose a ton for the session and thinks I'm a ploppy chasing? All those I feel are more important when considering raising your max bet than what your total bankroll is.
This is not to say bankroll isn't important and you should definitely never go above full kelly.

Congrats on the success! There are a lot of factors that you need to decide for yourself, such as the variance that comes along with larger sizing/etc. Are you someone that can handle the bigger swings or would losing $10k in 1 day mentally hurt? Next, if you're someone that plays a few local casinos you might want to worry about thresholds and tolerance. Different shops have different tolerances, and "if" you've racked up 1k hours at just a few local shops (mostly) then perhaps upping your sizing will attract more attention, etc. That $500 top bet usually is about the time casinos reallllly start to pay attention to what you're doing. So if you're traveling, cool, but I'd imagine with a $500 top bet (after winning over 1k hours already) you'll soon start to get popped "if" you're mostly playing a few local shops. Lastly I'd consider your position. Are you full time? If you are playing locally would you stop playing or play a lot less if you get barred from your local shops? Have you had much heat at the $25-$250 level? All of these things are things you need to assess and answer unfortunately.

All that being said, higher bets = higher expectation... and in the end even if you stick to $25-$250 the hammer WILL FALL one day, it's just part of the game. If you're traveling, or seem to have a good in at your local shops, or want to see how far you can take this blackjack thing, then by all means slam away and good luck =).

Quote: Romes

Congrats on the success! There are a lot of factors that you need to decide for yourself, such as the variance that comes along with larger sizing/etc. Are you someone that can handle the bigger swings or would losing $10k in 1 day mentally hurt? Next, if you're someone that plays a few local casinos you might want to worry about thresholds and tolerance. Different shops have different tolerances, and "if" you've racked up 1k hours at just a few local shops (mostly) then perhaps upping your sizing will attract more attention, etc. That $500 top bet usually is about the time casinos reallllly start to pay attention to what you're doing. So if you're traveling, cool, but I'd imagine with a $500 top bet (after winning over 1k hours already) you'll soon start to get popped "if" you're mostly playing a few local shops. Lastly I'd consider your position. Are you full time? If you are playing locally would you stop playing or play a lot less if you get barred from your local shops? Have you had much heat at the $25-$250 level? All of these things are things you need to assess and answer unfortunately.

All that being said, higher bets = higher expectation... and in the end even if you stick to $25-$250 the hammer WILL FALL one day, it's just part of the game. If you're traveling, or seem to have a good in at your local shops, or want to see how far you can take this blackjack thing, then by all means slam away and good luck =).
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Romes, I must apologize as I am JUST NOW seeing your response to this thread, and tyler498. I don't know how I missed it, but I appreciate the response! Since I posted this I have upsized my bets to a $25 - $500 spread, I got very lucky and hit some positive variance and I am now just a little over EV (the best I can figure).

I am on what I can only describe as an amazing hot streak of somehow not getting backed off! I don't know why but I have been hitting a small number of places over and over and over and no matter how hard I go in on them they don't seem to care at all. I've even been playing rated and asking for comps and getting them, I do my best to put on the best "gambler" act I can without making plays that give up EV. I'm always extremely friendly to the pit and dealers and have become very efficient at chatting while keeping an accurate count, I act like a regular, I celebrate winning my big bets and act a little pissed when I lose. But at this point I find it hard to believe they don't know what I'm doing, I'm starting to think they just don't care. I keep reassuring my brother, who has never experienced a back off, that it will come at some point and he doesn't believe me lol. We have been prepared for while now to venture out to different places but haven't had to yet, we are actually leaving out again tomorrow morning for another trip to a place we have already hit hard more than a dozen times, I'll let you know how it goes..

If you are at all interested, PM me and I will let you know exactly which places we have been playing and the exact rules, pen, etc. Hope you are doing well my friend!

- Omega

That's awesome to hear, and again congrats on the success! The game can be, as anyone who's played it knows, streaky, so by all means ride the highs as long as possible =).

You might have found a place that either A) has a 1 man security shop and he's busy doing other things so swing away, or B) if the pit likes you and never makes the call upstairs perhaps you've found a way to play a lot more as well, or C) they think you're not a winning player (perhaps you got lucky with some cover when they were skills checking you or they think you're over betting your bankroll). Either way, as long as you're prepared for it but it's not coming keep hammering away as long as possible! Even the places that seem too good to be true end at some point... like at the end of the year when an accounting auditor or program shows your card with all blackjack play, thousands of hours, and you're up on the casino.

Quote: Romes

That's awesome to hear, and again congrats on the success! The game can be, as anyone who's played it knows, streaky, so by all means ride the highs as long as possible =).

You might have found a place that either A) has a 1 man security shop and he's busy doing other things so swing away, or B) if the pit likes you and never makes the call upstairs perhaps you've found a way to play a lot more as well, or C) they think you're not a winning player (perhaps you got lucky with some cover when they were skills checking you or they think you're over betting your bankroll). Either way, as long as you're prepared for it but it's not coming keep hammering away as long as possible! Even the places that seem too good to be true end at some point... like at the end of the year when an accounting auditor or program shows your card with all blackjack play, thousands of hours, and you're up on the casino.
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Thank you Romes, I will definitely keep all those things in mind and I appreciate the feedback! Hope your career is going well and I'll keep you updated!

Can I comment on your bet spread? I don't want to come across as suggesting anyone do anything. I have retired from that. lol So just think of it as me sharing some thoughts....sort of thinking out loud. :)

I personally don't like a spread ending in $500. I think there are certain betting thresholds that when hit draw more attention. The first is $100. We all crash through that pretty early on. The next $500. The next $1000. I am sure there are more above that, but for the most part above my play.

So, I either stay just below these key threshold or crash through them. I don't land on them. For example, for most of my time playing Vegas I have used a spread maxxing out just below $500. Either $400 or $450. It just has a different look (to pit and surveillance) than $500. And the dealer won't try to pay my bet with a purple (also draws attention), like he would if I was betting 5 blacks. I will accept purple at color up, IF I color up, but would rather not have them paying me in purple.

Now in the past two years with covid and I have have been playing higher stakes, at least some of the time. So I am doing pretty much the same thing with $1000. I won't land on $1000 for my max bet. I prefer $800 or $900. Just something I believe in. But it sounds like what you are doing is working great for you, so I wouldn't suggest you change anything.

To Romes point C, this is why I like to book a loss occasionally. I have exit triggers for exiting a game. Things like at the shuffle after showing my max bet (rather than retreat back) among others. So sometimes, even if I have not hit an exit point and am down $500 to $1000, I will quit just to "book a loss" so that anyone looking at my results will see a number of losses. It may be that the losses are smaller than the wins, but at least they aren't looking at a page or screen of nearly all winning sessions.

I am enjoying these discussions and particularly the dynamics of your play with your brother, because I also have had that relationship with my younger brother., Even though we aren't currently playing partners. We still talk about our play and experiences daily and I still feel like I am mentoring him, but trying not to smother. It's a fine line. lol





Just a thought

Quote: theOmega623

Hello WOV friends,
So after racking up nearly 1,000 hours of play for the year and many many good trips, I've had some good luck and considering a resize. I have an idea on how I think I may go about this but I would like to get some input from a few pros here first.

So keeping risk around 1% or lower, my idea is to do somewhat of a "threshold resize". For example, my current spread is $25 - $250. Once my bankroll reaches over $50k I will resize my bets to a spread of $50 - $500. At any point my bankroll dips below $50k I will downsize (obviously not in the middle of a shoe).

What affect do you think this would have on my expectation? Obviously a resize would cost me a little EV, but I'm thinking this would be minimal and overall a superior way of resizing rather than waiting for the event that any significant amount is lost. Please let me know what you guys think, would love to hear from Romes and Kewlj on this one!

- Omega
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For a session, I would raise the spread if I was up $1250 or $2500, but only to a $40-$400 spread. Then if I win another $2000 or $4000, bump it up to a $60-$600 spread. If I win another $3000 or $6000, bump up the spread to $80-$800. If I finish for the day, I'll check my total BR and decide where to start my next session. I'd have to lower my bets & spreads if I fall below predetermined BR's or session balances.

Quote: kewlj

Can I comment on your bet spread? I don't want to come across as suggesting anyone do anything. I have retired from that. lol So just think of it as me sharing some thoughts....sort of thinking out loud. :)

I personally don't like a spread ending in $500. I think there are certain betting thresholds that when hit draw more attention. The first is $100. We all crash through that pretty early on. The next $500. The next $1000. I am sure there are more above that, but for the most part above my play.

So, I either stay just below these key threshold or crash through them. I don't land on them. For example, for most of my time playing Vegas I have used a spread maxxing out just below $500. Either $400 or $450. It just has a different look (to pit and surveillance) than $500. And the dealer won't try to pay my bet with a purple (also draws attention), like he would if I was betting 5 blacks. I will accept purple at color up, IF I color up, but would rather not have them paying me in purple.

Now in the past two years with covid and I have have been playing higher stakes, at least some of the time. So I am doing pretty much the same thing with $1000. I won't land on $1000 for my max bet. I prefer $800 or $900. Just something I believe in. But it sounds like what you are doing is working great for you, so I wouldn't suggest you change anything.

To Romes point C, this is why I like to book a loss occasionally. I have exit triggers for exiting a game. Things like at the shuffle after showing my max bet (rather than retreat back) among others. So sometimes, even if I have not hit an exit point and am down $500 to $1000, I will quit just to "book a loss" so that anyone looking at my results will see a number of losses. It may be that the losses are smaller than the wins, but at least they aren't looking at a page or screen of nearly all winning sessions.

I am enjoying these discussions and particularly the dynamics of your play with your brother, because I also have had that relationship with my younger brother., Even though we aren't currently playing partners. We still talk about our play and experiences daily and I still feel like I am mentoring him, but trying not to smother. It's a fine line. lol

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Thanks for the advice Kewlj, I will definitely keep that in mind! I am very much enjoying these discussions as well, it's great to have other players that have been in similar situations to talk with. Right now, I am loving the $500 max bet, mostly just due to the fact that I'm very proud to have built my bankroll to handle it and I'm not going to lie, it feels good to know I am getting to that "pro-level". If it becomes a problem in the future I will definitely consider backing that down a bit, thanks for that tip!

Quote: ChumpChange

For a session, I would raise the spread if I was up $1250 or $2500, but only to a $40-$400 spread. Then if I win another $2000 or $4000, bump it up to a $60-$600 spread. If I win another $3000 or $6000, bump up the spread to $80-$800. If I finish for the day, I'll check my total BR and decide where to start my next session. I'd have to lower my bets & spreads if I fall below predetermined BR's or session balances.

Sorry, but I can't let this go. This is terrible, TERRIBLE advice for a serious card counter advantage player. You are mixing in progressive wagering into serious advantage play.

So let's say with in a session, you win (6) max bets @ $400. You now advocate jumping to a max bet of $600. So let's say you win 5 more max bets at this $600 amount. You know advocate jumping to $800 max bet. So now you lose 7 max bets @ $800.

You have won a total 11 max bets and lost a total of 7 max bets and are in the red. Most serious card counters play with a conservative RoR and that kind of play, almost guarantees RUIN.

A card counter may need to occasionally resize, following like a 25-30% increase or loss of his TOTAL bankroll in order to maintain an acceptable RoR, but it should following a substantial increase or decrease in BR and never on the fly in the middle of a session.

Same goes for decreasing. There is absolutely nothing worse than having a nasty run, losing 25-30% of your bankroll over weeks or months and then re-sizing to a smaller max bet and trying to win that money back using a smaller spread and max bet. It may be necessary, but you want to avoid it as much as possible.

I gave an option to increase bets at 5X max bets ahead, or 10X max bets, if you worry about getting two 8 bet hands in a row, you could make that 15X max bets ahead. Winning streaks are fewer and running up the score during one is what I'm after here. I wouldn't count on getting 50 max bets ahead in one session, so I'd try to limit the upswing to 30-40 max bets ahead.
I don't use a spread, so I'd just bump up my base bet. YMMV

Quote: Romes

That's awesome to hear, and again congrats on the success! The game can be, as anyone who's played it knows, streaky, so by all means ride the highs as long as possible =).

You might have found a place that either A) has a 1 man security shop and he's busy doing other things so swing away, or B) if the pit likes you and never makes the call upstairs perhaps you've found a way to play a lot more as well, or C) they think you're not a winning player (perhaps you got lucky with some cover when they were skills checking you or they think you're over betting your bankroll). Either way, as long as you're prepared for it but it's not coming keep hammering away as long as possible! Even the places that seem too good to be true end at some point... like at the end of the year when an accounting auditor or program shows your card with all blackjack play, thousands of hours, and you're up on the casino.
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Welp, I spoke too soon guys as the hot streak is officially over! I just had my first back off in years at the Big M Casino boat in Little River, SC. And I came so close to making it til the end of the year! lol. I expect many factors contributed to this back off, but here's what happened..

So we get on the boat and as soon as the tables open I start playing, my brother decides to eat first so just me playing. I'm spreading big $25 - $500 and after the first shoe I'm quickly up around $1,300, lots of $300 - $400 bets coming out. My brother walks up and let's me know that the pit boss is on the phone and watching me a lot. I shrug and say okay, it is what it is and I continue playing. Over the next couple hours she continues watching me like a hawk, my brother starts playing as well. I don't want to stop because there is limited playing time on the boat and I am a firm believer in the Colin Jones method of never backing yourself off, so I keep going hard and unfortunately I lose it back plus another $2,100. So finally after another hour or so I'm still down and the pit boss comes over and whispers to the dealer that is returning from break, that dealer takes over and on the next shoe he cuts it right down the middle. I immediately push in to color up and go get my brother who has just finished playing. We go outside on deck and chat waiting for the boat to dock, then we go down and wait to get off. While we are waiting to get off the boat, a fancy dressed Security guy walks up to us and says "here's the deal guys, we have your ID's..don't come back on my boat". We look at eachother and just immediately burst out laughing! I don't know why, I think just because this guy looked like such a complete dork and it obviously was not "his boat" lol. So on the drive home I calculate that after this loss, I have taken a little over $11k from this boat for the year over the course of 14 trips, frankly I'm surprised this didn't happen a lot sooner!

Anyways, on to the next place! Don't get me wrong, this place was somewhat close by and had a decent 6D game with good rules, but I really need to try and stick with 2D games as I had planned. Not only is the variance less, but I can generate a hell of a lot more EV per hour using AO2. So it's time to venture out and continue the quest for good 2D games!

Quote: theOmega623

[
Welp, I spoke too soon guys as the hot streak is officially over!

I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me, Omega623. As someone who has shared my blackjack journey on a number of forums for 10 years now, and shared results, because I don't believe you can sufficiently convey the swings and variance without sharing some results, there have been so many times I would mention that I was doing well, or was having a very good run or something and the very next day, Boom!

I think it is what I call Lady Variance, and she has a way of giving you a little rap on the knuckles now and then saying "don't get to full of yourself" and reminding us who REALLY is in charge. LOL.

Quote: kewlj

Quote: theOmega623

[
Welp, I spoke too soon guys as the hot streak is officially over!

I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me, Omega623. As someone who has shared my blackjack journey on a number of forums for 10 years now, and shared results, because I don't believe you can sufficiently convey the swings and variance without sharing some results, there have been so many times I would mention that I was doing well, or was having a very good run or something and the very next day, Boom!

I think it is what I call Lady Variance, and she has a way of giving you a little rap on the knuckles now and then saying "don't get to full of yourself" and reminding us who REALLY is in charge. LOL.
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Absolutely! LOL that's why I always suggest to other players to keep risk at 1% or lower, taking them $3-4K hits is tough! As far as the back off, honestly I feel like it's for the best. I know that sounds weird but for awhile I was getting way too comfortable playing a lot of 6D games just because they are closer to me when I know it makes more sense financially for me to make longer trips to play 2D. The EV is nearly double as it allows me to use AO2 with the ace side count that I literally spent years mastering. Going back to Hi-Lo for me just feels lazy (that's definitely not a knock on any Hi-Lo players). There are a number of places that deal good 2D S17 games for $50 min, I have one more trip booked for December and then going to start booking for January!