NYB said:When the math tells you so,in advance.
Grifter said:That is true, but only to a certain extent. The math will tell you the hypothetical advantage you have under a set of conditions such as rules, spread, etc. played exactly under that set of conditions......BUT, no one can play to that "optimal".
I get such a kick out of our resident "jammie boy" who likes to think he is an advantage player even though he is still a newbie and only plays 20-30 hours a year, but he posts about scouting the casino, then going to his room and checking CVBX (or whatever it is) for spread, risk or ruin, etc., etc......Totally ludicrous. As if anyone could play to those specific parameters......That guy probably plays "even" with the house, at best. Certainly not to any advantage.......And he knows the "math".
See what I mean? The math will tell you one thing, but only a rare few will ever even come close to it..........And there are dozens of reasons that are so obvious I won't even state them.......But I can state this: I played for over 40 years and counted for over 30 and I figure I played to only about 1% edge over that period .......Sure, I had the "knowledge/math" to play higher than that, but conditions didn't allow it.
Regards.....Grifter
stainless steel rat said:The program is CVCX. And I absolutely _can_ play to those rules, and I absolutely can sit at the table and not make a mistake for a couple of hours..............
Grifter said:SSR - Exacly when was it you fell off the turnip truck?
So you play absolutely perfect and follow the exact betting ramp that CVCX told you to, raising and lowering your bets in exact lockstep with the count to get the "optimal"?.....Sure you do, and the Pope is a Baptist.
Or if you do actually that, then you are incredibly naive or incredibly misinformed about advantage play blackjack.
Regards.....Grifter
Casino Royale said:uh o.. battle of the titans lmao
Grifter said:To Get This Thread Back On Track........The original question was about playing to a certain "edge" (EV, Expected Value).
The EV published for any method is the "optimal" for that method at a given ramp, spread, rules, indices, etc., etc. To obtain that optimal one would have to play absolutely perfect....Never making a counting mistake, never making a playing mistake including indices, and ramping the bets in exact lockstep with the count.
My original statement, and I say it again..... Nobody can play a method to the "optimal" (in real casino play).
Ray, you are exactly right. I am trying to describe the "real world" of playing blackjack. Sure, you could physically play to the optimal, but how long would you last before you were 86'd?.....So physically possible, yes; but "real world" possible, definitely no.
Regards.....Grifter
Grifter said:To Get This Thread Back On Track........The original question was about playing to a certain "edge" (EV, Expected Value).
The EV published for any method is the "optimal" for that method at a given ramp, spread, rules, indices, etc., etc. To obtain that optimal one would have to play absolutely perfect....Never making a counting mistake, never making a playing mistake including indices, and ramping the bets in exact lockstep with the count.
My original statement, and I say it again..... Nobody can play a method to the "optimal" (in real casino play).
Ray, you are exactly right. I am trying to describe the "real world" of playing blackjack. Sure, you could physically play to the optimal, but how long would you last before you were 86'd?.....So physically possible, yes; but "real world" possible, definitely no.
Regards.....Grifter
Bojack1 said:Although I agree that optimal play as described by computer sims is not quite the same as optimal casino play, I do think with team play you can be very close to what is computer optimal. Such as with .......... Nothing is perfect, but I like this as a way to get close.
Grifter said:Bojack - Good point......and I agree that with team play you could get very, very close to optimal....Grifter
sage01 said:It has been interesting reading the various computer (and non computer) comments.
What was driving my question was:
I have a copy of Blackjack Tracker by Bob Hubby. It is out of print, having been written some years ago. Bob was a Casino blackjack dealer. He and some friends played about 55,000 hands of BJ and recorded the results. The book shows the Wins, Loss, DD, BJ, -DD, P, etc. It does not show you the cards, just the results of the hands. Thus you have columns of data with the results of playing each hand. He also included the Knock-Out count at each hand.
I have written a program in Microsoft “Excel” to use the data. I enter the hand results and the computer program varies the bet (per my selected instructions) and tracks the $$ results. What I was interested in was a goal for the various “playing techniques” I was trying. (I have entered about 10,000 hands and bet about $130,000, at a $10 table, with an average bet of $15)
When do I gain confidence, at what %% advantage, that I have the correct “techniques”?
sage01 said:Thanks for the input! Do you question the results of Blackjack Tracker??
This past summer I was nowhere near a Casino. However, I wanted to sharpen my game for the winter season. I have Casino Verite, BJ 4.2.3 and played the game most nights from June to October. The goal was to sharpen my BS skills. It worked; I can play BS on a hand without consciously thinking about it.
However, I noticed that I would get long runs of losses. Maybe 7 or 8 or more hands without a win. When I got home this fall I reviewed BJ Tracker & did not see either the very long runs of losses or the frequency of the losses. Got to thinking, maybe the random number generator had a hitch in it, or the order of the cards in the 6-deck Casino game was not the same as a computer random number generator.
I can count a little bit using the KISS II system. However, I do not have the bankroll or the fortitude to vary the bet from 1 to 10 units in my local 6-deck game. I am trying to vary the play of the hands using the count. But want a simpler betting system(less $$ swing). Thus the work on Blackjack Tracker. And Im making progress!
sage01 said:Hi SSR, Thanks for the input......I was surprised by your comment that It would be quite easy to define a progression to beat that (55K hands) string of results, even though it would not work in real games .......
Grifter said:Sage01.....Ignore that statement, he can NOT do it......He is just blowin' smoke again.
SSR....... Last warning! This forum is sick and tired of you pretending to be a blackjack expert. If you do not know what you are talking about, the don't post about it. Until two days ago, you had never heard of Bob Hubby and Blackjack Tracker, and now you are can define a progression to beat those 55K hands because it would be "quite easy".......Well, put your money where your mouth is, because I KNOW two of the players cannot be beat even with a count............
Here's the deal:
- I will bet you $1,000.00 you cannot define a progression that can beat those 55K hands......You have five days to do it (just send your progression to me and I will run it....I have all 55K hands from BJ Tracker on Excel).
- If you cannot back up your statement, then post an apology to Sage01!!
Pretty simple isn't it........So as Nike says, "Just Do It". (one or the other).
Regards......Grifter
Ray said:SSR- The only way to beat those 55K hands with a progression is to have it change in relation to a predetermined sequence of cards. In that case, we are talking about many progressions rather than a single defined sequence and that amounts to many strategies rather than one.
Suggest you give up the denial and admit you mis-spoke just a tad................
Grifter said:just send your progression to me and I will run it....I have all 55K hands from BJ Tracker on Excel.
Sonny said:Can you make the spreadsheet available online? I wouldn't mind taking a crack at it. :).....-Sonny-
sage01 said:Grifter: Which of the two hands of the four can't be beat with card counting?
stainless steel rat said:There _is_ a pre-determined sequence of cards already. Did you overlook/miss that _key_ point here???.........In a worst case, the progression required to beat that set of hands is a sequence of 55,000 unique bets.......I don't see why this is so hard to understand, at least for a computer scientist familiar with searching enormous tree search spaces,.......
Sonny said:
I agree completely, but its worth $1,000 to anyone who agrees with you. That alone makes this thread very valuable! *lol*
Exactly. It would be much more exciting if there was a limit on the number of steps in the progression system. For example, if the progression system was limited to 10 steps (or less) before repeating itself it would be pretty darn tricky to make it last for very long. Unfortunately, that would still be a complete waste of time unless ZG wants to go double or nothing.
-Sonny-
Sonny said:
I understand. Is there anything special about the BJ Tracker hands or would any string of 55k hands suffice? I wrote a BJ simulator that can give the results of every hand, so a list of 55k hands (or any number for that matter) would be very simple to compile as a text file. Would any random* string of 55k hands be acceptable for your challenge?
-Sonny-
* - Technically the hands wouldn't be random since they would be dealt from a shoe with a predetermined shuffle point. However, that would make the results of the hands more realistic.
Grifter said:Ray.....Jeez, are you a dense Kentucky hillbilly or something? Don't you know that 55,000 hand progressions are used everyday by real players in real casinos with real chips at a real table?.....Hell, I thought you were a lot smarter than that.
But I sure bet you realize it now, because a "computer scientist familiar with searching enormous tree search spaces" just enlightened you.
ROFLMAO.......Grifter
Ray said:From my point of view I don't believe that the approach being proposed here has any intelligence whatsoever. A damn fool can develop a progression to beat a billion hands if he knows the outcome of each and every hand. That is not real world nor does it require an analytical program to arrive at the solution. Why do the experiment if you already know the solution?
For example:
Here is a very simple pregression that will do the trick and I only need to know the outcome of the first hand. Lets say it is a win.....three step progression with the other 54,999 hands in any sequence. Be my guest and shuffle after each hand if you like.
$55,ooo-$1.00-$1.00....... (Win 55K first step and go to step two, step two if lose stay at step two, if win go to step three and win or lose go back to step two and repeat.) I will not double or split. If I lose 54,999 hands I will still win one dollar.
Ridiculous, like in laughable, yes it is , but this discussion is totally childish to begin with.
Ray said:Sonny- Don't you agree that we have better things to talk about? What I'm trying to say here is that sometimes the end does not justify the means. Like who gives a big rats "A".
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