The M.I.T. team mostly used a spotters/big player (gorilla) approach. So the big player could walk around with a drink in his hand tossing down $1,000 here or there on what seemed like a whim. I believe they were mostly of Asian descent, which helped also because they didn't look like the 'typical' counters.

Prog – Many players (including me) who count use some kind of progression for cover, but IMHO the 1,2,3,5 is a little too volatile. For your six deck I would suggest something softer like a 2,3,4,5 played in two or three levels coinciding with the count. This will get you a spread of 1-7/8.

Grifter

Thanks for the tip... I read up. Interesting that the ones that cause the least suspicion increase N0 the most. The A+D+E choices are close to the recommendations for A5. (no 1-4 jump, no increase after loss or tie, BUT reduce by score...)

CV version 4 looks quite interesting. Might have to upgrade/exchange the V.3.

Further down the list is the "I wanna reduce variance" message thread which is worth a read. I hesitate to add that playing only Basic Strategy decisions that DO decrease as score increases wasn't brought up. Most AP use additional indicies that increase PA, but maintain variance.

Yep, I don't know how anyone can say that a multi-level soft progression is not good cover; and the five level one you have one your site for the A5 is even better than what I was referring to above. Your average bet increases less than .5 unit, you still obtain a spread of 1-7, and the risk of heat is minimal.

Grif'

Grifter:

Hope you weren't talking to me there. I didn't say a "progression is a lousy form of cover."

I did say "a progression lowers your spread if you are not careful, and if you are playing the table min. If you are playing above table min, you can use a progression to perhaps increase your spread since the pit will have a hard time figuring out your minimum bet.

Progressions are a lousy way to play the game in general. But if you factor in counting, then most every counter I know uses some sort of "gambler's look" or "progression". If I am being watched, I parlay wins if the count goes up, I try to act like a gambler would act and not give up the detail that I am counting cards...

I will say that in most casinos I visit, spreading $5-$40/$50 at DD, I don't use any cover at all and don't have problems. I've spread $100-$1000 at the Beau on the MS coast in a DD game and also didn't attract any notice, although there was another player spreading $100-$2500 and losing his shirt so that might have been my "unplanned cover" for that session. I also spread $5-$40 (DD) and $5/$20 (SD)in Laughlin, and also got no notice. Which leads me to believe that a red-chipper can ignore cover totally. When I play green rather than red (less often) I use the same spread, but am a bit more careful, but even there I don't use what many APs call "heavy cover" (never raise on a loss, never reduce bet on a win, never change bet on a push, parlay wins when the count indicates, etc...).

So yes, a progression "look" is not bad at all. But the progression itself is completely irrelevant to winning, as it is just introducing noise in your bet amount during negative segments of the shoe.

So more power to those that use 'em for the right reasons. But don't use 'em to win...

Basically chuckn, one would sit-down and play the progression and ease into the score or vise-versa, or perhaps if the score goes negative just progression for a bit. One generally augments the real reason for play with the game.

I'd prefer not to tip my skills too much...

Chuckn - I'll defer to Nickel's decision about 'not tipping skills', but if you have more questions I would try to answer them via PM.

Grifter