thanks renzey -- i see your point. i'm at a funny place in my game right now where i have been playing a progression game (which develops a mindset that relies on streaks and one's ability to "get out while ahead"). this mindset is (correctly, i believe) grounded in the unsettling fact that over time it is certain that a (progressionistic) player will hand his/her winnings back to the house if he/she doesn't stop at some favorable point. while, i recognize the hard logic of the counting approach, i haven't mastered any system well enough to bring it into casino play, and so am still caught up in the business of trying to exploit swings in my favor when they come.

i hear your argument and agree with it, renzey -- i'm just not ready to count in the casino environment yet -- working on it in the evenings as i can but i would say i'm not yet close. your book is on the way to my door and in the meantime i'm working on the hi-lo system with the help of some printouts i took off a linked website (really i'm still trying to develop lightning quick recognition skills). i'm a convert to counting -- just haven't taken the baptismal plunge just yet. while i completely recognize that i have not "engineered" anything when i have caught a streak (favorable or unfavorable), i have played with the expectation that such streaks (as well as chops) will take place. given the expectation of streaks, i have played a progression that has allowed me (quite likely out of blind, dumb luck) to win on choppy tables and positively streaky tables, while minimizing losses on negatively streaky tables by setting loss limits on percentage of bankroll and number of consecutive hands. you have convinced me of the error of my ways, but until your last post, i never thought about eliminating win goals and loss limits from my game plan once i begin to count. this is interesting to me but also a bit scary as i have relied on these prescribed limits (when i can discipline myself to follow them) to get me out of the casino when i'm getting clobbered, and to retain my winnings when i get on top.

Jedi - Good post, and.....Real quick, cause I'm on my way to Laughlin. Your fellow Floridian Walter Thomason and a fellow by the name of Bob Hubby (author of "BJT") are the strongest proponents of "quit points" I have ever met.

All of us probably have opinions on it, but I'm sure Walter has done more resarch than anyone.....Some of his reasoning is in his book, but I would like to hear him elaborate on it. That could get a good discussion going.

Desert Dog said:

[quote=Grifter]Jedi - Good post, and.....Real quick, cause I'm on my way to Laughlin...

:wink: :D Don't forget to record your mileage as a business expense, Grifter.[/quote]

And meals/hotel, of course, unless they're comped. :D

Dawg/Buffarino - Thanks a million for reminding me about the gas. Can I include the tips too? :wink: Those two things were the only ones I had to pay for, and I won a few units besides.

Grifter

Dawg - None at all, but I was extremely carefully because there was hardly anyone in any of the houses due to the heat. I ramped every bet for the entire 16 hours, and started after a shuffle with two units. Gave up a little EV, but felt I had to and it was worth it.

Grifter

Yeah, this is something that I really need to control myself... win limits and loss limits...

How about DOUBLING your buy-in or losing it all as a quit point? Does this sound okay? Of course, if you buy-in for $100 and quickly lose it it's hard to NOT play... I guess we'd have to follow the 30-40x rule of the minimum tables when doing this, right??

The article by Krigman is under the Risk of Ruin section and is titled "Why what you got ain't what you expected" . At the Casino times all his articles take the same theme of take the money and run. This issue of profit taking is really a matter of utility. For someone to say I'm going to go as high as the moon is not pratical. Everyone has a point were they say to themselves hey i better take this win. Whats your utility


Playmaker21

Grifter said:

With what's going on with gasoline prices around here, it's not such a joke after all. Of course you're declaring the winnings, right?

...Dawg - Forgot to respond to this last week. Yes, off course I will declare my winnings…..I already gave them to a charitable organization. Do you think this will be acceptable to the IRS? I gave to:

“The St. John’s Baptist Latter Day Synagogue of the Episcopal Church of Methodist Blackjack for the Poor, Homeless, Elderly, and Good, Bad, and Ugly” .

Thanks in advance for your (or anyone's) advice

You get a receipt for that, Grifter?

LOL :lol:

Buffarino - Yes sir, I certainly did get a receipt. Actually I can’t read it because it is in a foreign language but there is a big seal on top that says “Corleone”, and later in the receipt there is the word “grazie” which I know is “thank you” so they must have been pleased.

What I don’t understand is that almost to the end there is the word “arrivederci” and then some pictures of dead fish. It is signed by someone named “Guido”.

Any idea what this would mean?

Grifter

Hey Griff, it sounds to me like you better pack a snorkel with your jammies. Guido may just want you to "sleep with the fishes"
:wink:

To PLAYMAKER 21: I wrote to Alan Krigman and questioned him about the win/loss goals you cite in your post. His reply was that gamblers tend to "read what they want to" into his writings. I read the article you mentioned, and as Krigman described to me -- he basically just quantifies your chances to win and lose at a game by calculating your probabilities of winning or losing "x" amount within a given period. Since he uses the standard house edge for his calculations, then of course your chances become worse and worse the longer you play. This is NOT to be construed as meaning that quitting at any particular point is productive -- UNLESS -- you never, ever play again. Then of course, quitting saves you money in the form of all future losses, which are unavoidable if you're playing with a disadvantage.
TRY TO RECOGNIZE THIS: If you don't have the overall edge in the game, then you're bound to finish behind over the fullness of time. During that process however, there will be several points at which you will be doing better than some recently previous point. This is the nature of a random walk along the way to its inevitable end. Interrupting the process at these favorable intervals merely gives you something good to stop and admire along the way. But your course has not changed since you're merely "pulling over on the side of the road while you're on a hill", then getting back on that same road again which is headed to that same place. There will be many more hills and valleys along the way, but the overall altitude of your journey will keep descending. The only way out of the valley is to gain the advantage! Then, it too will be a gradual uphill journey littered with many smaller hills and valleys.
Gotta' go now!

I liked your post, Playmaker21. But I'm sure Fred will say whether you come back the next day or the next month, to the cards and chips, it's just the next hand. :D I had a stretch of 12 winning sessions out of 14 because I hit my win limit (when I see I've got 20 units over my buy-in of 40) or, more frequently, ran out of time when I was up, in some cases by a small amount. I thought this might be the key to winning blackjack. Wrong. Five out of the next eight sessions were losers, yet I hadn't increased my "official" win limit or reduced my loss limit (40 units). I just had more time. In effect my time constraints earlier were giving me a lower win limit, where I'd walk away a winner but only by 6 or 8 units. Yeah, that's winning, but not exactly exhilarating.

Desert Dog- From your last post if you add up your wins you are still 17 for 22. In my book thats a damn good record for BJ. You had a losing streak but thats inevitable, its going to happen to everyone who plays over time, thats why its called gambling. Just like the stock market no different. I agree alot with what Playmaker said. He has a win limit and knows when to get out, (very important for survival) It sounds as though he plays alot like us and thats good to know that other players out there are doing well with this style of play. Although I don't always agree with Fred's theory that you have to be a card counter to win, I do believe in his knowledge in the game and wish I had 1/2 his Knowledge. I will buy your book Fred just like I did Walter's.

GUYS: The last thing I want to do here is develop a "debate" relationship. Just let me point out a few things and then I'll probably leave this topic alone.
First, I need to say that my lack of win/loss goals comes not only from theory -- but from real world application. Somebody here said that, "You know what happens when you stay too long -- you lose!". Well, that's true -- if -- you're playing a losing game. But if you stay too long when you're playing with the edge, do you know what happens? You win -- even when you started out losing. That should seem apparent since the longer you play at a disadvantage, the more inevitable losing becomes -- and vise/versa. Just use the house against most players as a case in point.
Now, suppose a typical disadvantaged blackjack player finds himself ahead after "x" hours and hits the door for the purpose of "survival". When he leaves, another typical player walks in and sits down in his spot. Is that new player any more likely to lose because the occupant before him won? If not, then what if the original player just stayed? Which of the two would be more likely to lose? What difference does it make to the cards and the chips which butt is in the seat if they're both playing the same way? The answer is that both players are likely to lose the same percentage of their betting action "from that point going forward". This liability is unavoidable and will still be true for the first player who left when he comes back the next time and plays again.
Because of the volatility of gambling, there will always be high points and low points. Many of those high points will exceed a disadvantaged player's negative liability. But quitting there only hand picks positive "observation points" along the way to where he must eventually end up. If not, the house would lose money while holding the advantage over players who quit winners, even though that house just keeps dealing hand after hand to those players cummulatively. How is this possible??
One last question: It's a fact that quitting winners can dramatically increase a player's percentage of session wins -- and many gamblers employ that utility. But how many of those players are ahead of the game after adding 200 or 300 such sessions together?

Thanks Doc, for your understanding on this elusive concept: And now to further embellish my point on win/loss goals, I've dreamed up the following riddle. I'd be interested in how many ways it can be answered -- logically.
WIN/LOSS GOAL RIDDLE
10,000 perfect basic strategy players (-0.5%) take turns sitting down in the same seat at a 24/7 casino. All 10,000 rigorously follow the same win/loss goal strategy. Each one plays until he reaches that pre-specified win/loss limit, then gets up and the next clone sits down. Nobody ever tips a dealer. Let's just say it takes 20,000 or 30,000 hours before everybody's had their turn. It's a fact that the majority of players will leave the table a winner (since small leads are easy to achieve most of the time). But the real question is -- will the house be up or down at the conclusion?
If the house is up, then the players as a consortium must be down.
If the house is down, how is that possible since it had a consistent advantage in the game over the course of tens of thousands of hours?

Hey, check out www.vptruth.com. Rob uses short term win goal as his strategy. He is a professional video poker player!! The same concept can be used in blackjack.

Peace
PlayMaker21

Several posters have said that they apply a "win limit" to their play -- often an increase of 50% of their bankroll. Personally, I've never seen the value of a win limit. I prefer a "ladder" system... Let's say that my initial goal was to win "X" amount. Upon reaching that goal, I'll continue playing until I lose "X-50%" of that amount. In other words, be willing to give up part of the profits on the assumption that the win streak will continue, but set a quit point that still allows for a reasonable profit. I'
ve had win streaks that produced profits equal to many times the amount of my original bankroll -- profits that would not have happened in that session if I'd quit play with a 50% win goal.
While it's true that a session is just a continuation of a previous session, I draw great pleasure from big wins in a short period of time -- wins that help offset a string of small losses.

JC wrote: "In order for the house to get their (0.5%) as it is stated, this is how it would have to play out. If my math is right which I believe is close enough , Me and my clones would win Approx. 65% of the time and lose approx. 35% of the time. This will give the house their slight edge".

My 2 questions for JC are:
1. Just how long is a "longhaul"? Is it 50 hours of play? 500 hours of play? 5 years of play. 20 years of play. Can you be much more specific?

2. If you win 65% of the time and lose 35% of the time, how in the name of Salma Hayek does the "house" get an edge? :?: :?: :idea:

5 unit difference devided by total units involved (135) x 100 = 3.7% house take.

Sorry Ted I'll try again. You set a win/loss limit for each session you play. In this case your win limit goal is half your buy in. If your buy in is 2 red chips, your goal is to win 1 chip and the session is over. Your loss limit is your total buy in, 2 red chips, you lose those the session is over. If you play 100 sessions and win 65 of them you should have 65 extra chips from that, each winning session will garner 1 chip. BUT you have lost 35 sessions of the 100, unfortunatly in each of those sessions your loss limit has been two chips, a total of 70. You risked a total of 200 chips, 2 per session, and with this win/loss limit the house comes out ahead 5 chips, 2.5% of the total chips you put at risk, or the house takes in 3.7% more chips then it paid out.

Nothing like trudging up old threads. Anyway, I've just perused this entire thread and would like to add my two cents. Here's why I agree with Renzey and don't understand the whole win/loss limit idea: You set your goals and play your session, you reach either your win or your loss limit. Then you do it again the next day or week or month. But why not just stay at the table and do it again. That's not "staying too long", it's just using your system again except instead of waiting, you do it immediately. It makes absolutely no difference.

I know others have basically said the same thing and I'm a few months late but, hey, I'm pretty new to this forum and didn't get a chance to participate.

Wanting to beleive is a strong human trait. If a reason to believe isn't
there, many will invent one. "HITLER" knew that and took advantage.

I too, missed this thread when it first came out. My opinion of risk management is to have a plan. When a certain win-rate or loss-rate is matched or exceeded, leave the table and find a new one.

Heres one I like... If I win 6 chips (usually green) in 1 shoe, I leave. Sometimes I get 8 in one shoe, and leave, and at 5, I'm thinking about it.
Should I be ahead 8 chips in 2 shoes, I leave.

On losing: lose 5 chips and I'm gone. Lose 10 total I'm history.

JMHO

I was following the logic Renzey used and he is wrong in his analysis, "WIN / LOSS LIMITS: When I play blackjack or poker, I have absolutely no win or loss limits other than the money in my pocket and the time I've given myself. I do this because I realize that aborting a session due to win/loss status only postpones eventuality."


He is comparing blackjack to an independent system like flipping coins. When you flip a coin is has no memory, every subsequent flip is completely independent of the previous flip. Blackjack on the other hand is a dependent system. The hands dealt before influence the outcome of subsequent hands. That is why card counting works because it tells the players when the odds are in his favor. For example, there's a chance that if your loosing a lot you might be in what is considered the "negative" count of many card counting techniques and thus have a lower chance to win if you stay. ON the hand, if your winning a lot you might be "positive" count of the shoe and thus have a higher chance of winning a hand.