Posts Tagged ‘online casino’
Years ago, a mathematician determined that it was possible to figure out the likelihood of a gambler either doubling his bankroll or going broke trying to do so. The formula is just a simple algebraic equation that takes into account the size of the gambler's bankroll in units, the size of his bets, and the advantage or disadvantage in the specific game being played. This concept has traditionally been called the Gambler's Ruin Formula.
Professional card counters more commonly call a variation of this formula specifically devised for blackjack games the "risk of ruin" (or RoR); it was discussed by Ed Thorp in Beat the Dealer, Allan Wilson wrote about it in his 1965 Casino Gambler's Guide, and it was further described by Ken Uston in Million Dollar Blackjack. Since then, the concept of risk has been analyzed to the nth degree by many of the major authors.
Personally, I'm not crazy about the idea of individual players determining their bet sizes solely based on Risk of Ruin. Uston discussed how some of the teams he was involved in based their bets on a 5% element of ruin. This sounds pretty good to most players; if you double your bank 95% of the time (19 out of 20 banks double) that's a huge win-expectation in the long run.
But Uston was involved in big teams of players, with multiple investors, and if the team went broke on a play, the investors could simply put together another bank and do it again. That's not an option easily available to a solo player. If you have a bank of $10,000, and you lose the whole bank on your first play, can you simply put together another $10,000 and do it again? You might argue that it's unlikely that you'll lose your bank on your first attempt to double it, but consider it from my perspective as an author whose advice is being followed by thousands of individual players: For every ten thousand players who go out and plays to a 5% RoR, 500 of them will go broke! How many of these players can quickly put together another bank? How many have lost their life savings? How many will write nasty letters to me blaming me for their new poverty?
Basing your bet sizes on a 5% (or any!) risk of ruin should be left to those who can afford to put together another bank easily if the first one fails. This is for big teams supported by investors, and solo players who have the capability of forming another playing bank through easily accessible outside sources of funding. A better method for bet-sizing for most players is…
Beat Video Poker Games oalacecasino.comClassic Video Poker & Bonuses Multi Video Poker
Tags: blackjack, card counters, online casino
Comments Closed
High rollers rate casinos according to the action tolerated. Sawdust joints. Carpet joints. Most amateurs, on the other hand, are rule freaks. They see everything in terms of being able to split up to four hands, re-split aces, double after splits, double any two and surrender. (Sounds okay to me…) But the point is that after you analyze the table conditions, you've got to analyze the casino itself.
The rarest type of casino is one where you hardly feel the current at all. The games are just so delectable you forget you're even in the river. You look around—good rules, deep penetration. There's a lot of money on the felt, but nobody in the pit seems to be guzzling Maalox. It's not a river; it's fish heaven. All the worms you can eat, and no hooks! Or, at least, you don't see them—provided you don't try to take the entire can of worms back home with you on any one visit, you can nibble away at the feast indefinitely. Places like this pop up now and then, but they don't often last long.
More commonly, when you think you're in fish heaven, there are unseen hooks, nets, and harpoons aimed right at you. You walk in, you see these unbelievable table conditions, you notice that the dealer has dealt out almost the entire two decks, and he's still not starting the shuffle. You decide to make small talk with the dealer, test his friendliness. "So, how long have you been offering this two-deck game with double after splits and surrender? Whoops! You ran out of cards!"
Unfortunately, if you sit down at the table, you'll often get that ominous tap on the shoulder just after you make that first black chip bet on a high count, or maybe a few minutes later, after they've got a good close-up photo of your mug. By the time you hit the street, your picture is already being faxed to casinos you've never heard of.
Of course, it's possible that you misjudged this casino in the first place. It only looked like fish heaven. In actuality, it was, first and foremost, a fish bowl. Some salmon may be a bit large for your average fish bowl, and big fish won't last in a small bowl.
Many casinos in Las Vegas, even big casinos that can take table limit action, offer one or two hand-held games that really are nothing more than counter bait. These juicy tables are always under extra surveillance from the sky, and the casinos use these games simply to identify and weed out counters. So, if you see that a casino has 25 six-deck shoe games with mediocre penetration, and one hand-held two-decker with great rules and good penetration, you're probably best off to leave that two-decker alone.
To further confuse matters, even if the conditions look great on every table, you may have to leave the casino entirely if your bet level attracts too much attention. Look around—how much are the other players in this joint betting? Many casino table-limit signs are mislabeled; the signs may say $1,000 or even $5000, but that's just what the signs say. Nobody in the pit takes those things seriously. Ignore the signs. If all you see are tourists betting a red chip or two, and if a couple of black chip bets lead to a suit convention in the pit, then those limit signs are just for show.
How To Play Video Poker Try Video PokerTags: blackjack, high rollers, online casino
Comments Closed