From: hall@kronos.arc.nasa.gov (Michael Hall)
Subject: Re: Increasing Bets behind Wins Only
Organization: NASA/ARC Information Sciences Division
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 01:24:13 GMT

In article <Bt7D7q.5tI@news.udel.edu> jack@freezer.cns.udel.edu writes:
>Although they can't bar you in AC for counting, there are counter
>measures they can take to make playing fairly unpleasant.

True, critters are far more paranoid on the horrible shoes in AC than they
should be.

>So, while
>you optimize your wins if you bet strictly according to the count, the 
>jumps are a dead give away, as we all know.  For a some time now I've
>been following Revere's suggestion of increasing your bets after
>wins which is what typical gamblers do

It's not unreasonable.  It's recommended in Humble's book and others too.
So many counters do it that it has become a bit of a give-away, in my
opinion.  Conversely, how many counters jump from 1 unit to 100?  Betting
like a lunatic may serve as better cover than parlaying wins, though it
takes some cajones, and some caution with regards to the bankroll.  It
would also help to look like a Middle East type or at least an Asian
(no offense to these groups, it's just that foreigners of these
nationalities tend to go nuts at the tables.)

>and what I have found is that
>my winning sessions are following the pattern that Revere describes in his
>book.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean here, but general wisdom is to ignore
anything Revere has to say about win rates.

>Now, I've only been doing this for the last 13-15 sessions, but 
>thus far I've won about 4 out of 5 sessions and the loss sessions were
>small ones.

And of course your results don't mean doodly squat statistically.

>I limit my jumpt bets to 2 units only.  That is, I will increase my bet
>after a loss to a max of 2 units if the count calls for an increase of 2 or 
>more units.

On a shoe the true count is unlikely to change much (or at all, actually)
from round to round.  So you would do fine if you limited your change in
bets to 2 units, or better yet to doubling or halving.  But it sounds
like you often limit your total bet to 2 units.  This would be suicidal
on a shoe.

>In order for my bet to go beyond 2 units, I must have been betting
>2 and won. Also, if I have a bet greater than 2 unis up, and lose, I drop
>down, also, like many gamblers would do.

Yep, suicidal.  If you don't believe me, you'd better find yourself a
simulator and run this betting style.  The critters really aren't *that*
paranoid in AC, and in any case you simply can't afford to give away
much advantage on the shoes.

>I figure that I am reducing my winning rate by doing this, but the fact that 
>I am winning so often seems to conpensate the reduced winnings.

Many counters bet according to the count except that they only reduce the
bet after a loss and only increase the bet after a win - that will work,
though it will reduce the win rate.  You are suggesting a much more
radical frontal lobotification of the betting, and I don't think you
will be left with much of an advantage at all.

It sounds like you don't use a very big spread (just 1-4?), especially since
you drop your bet whenever you lose and can only increase your bet (by two
units?) when you win.  When the count is +8 or so, you need to get those 16
unit bets out there regardless of what happened on the previous round.
(You also need a bankroll >> 1000 units.)  Remember that you are fighting
a base (dis)advantage of close to -.5%, and since the count is so
nonvolatile in a shoe, you need to exploit the rare opportunities when
you actually have an advantage.

>It 
>especially feels good when the count is going thru the roof and I have been
>betting only 2 units per hand and losing hand after hand.  If I had been
>betting strictly according to the count, I would have lost a ton.  Playing this
>way, I have done better than I have ever done in the past.

What can I say?  You gave up a ton of expected value by betting suboptimally.
The supposed fact that you actually did better as a result of betting
suboptimally was just luck.

>I realize however,
>I have only done this for about 14 sessions, where each session I would say is
>an average of about 7-8 hours (I call a day trip a session as well as
>playing for a couple of days on an overnighter).

14 sessions * 8 hours/session * 100 hands/hour = 11200 hands.
Let's suppose your expected value per hand is 0 units, and your variance
is 4 units squared (I think these are actually pretty darn close to the
truth, sorry to say.)  Your standard deviation is then sqrt(4*11200) = 212
units. You are hence fairly likely to be ~200 units up or down.  If you won
more than 424 units, then you could tentatively conclude that you
have a positive expected value.

Every rec.gambler should remember that your own results are (usually)
meaningless statistically (unless they are very extreme).  And that at
some point in your life, the long run will finally catch up to you, for
better or worse.  My recommendation is that Jack should count his blessings
that he got lucky, while tightening up his game to win in the long run.

-- 
Michael Hall            \"...the physicist is often in the same position as the
NASA Ames Research Center\ gambler... Every time that he reasons by induction,
hall@ptolemy.arc.nasa.gov \he requires the calculus of probabilities"-Poincare'