_
How rude!
But I guess when you choose to go public with ideas that challenge the conventional wisdom, you have to be ready to take a little unfriendly heat.
I have never claimed to be a traditional academic mathematician, and I suspect if I were, I would never have leaped into this project in the first place.
Mathematicians as a breed, and I have known one or two, have always seemed to me more interested in getting their heads around other people's ideas than coming up with anything new of their own.
Maybe they feel that this late in the game, there can be nothing new to come up with.
And I have to admit that my methodology, as target betting has evolved, has not been all that it could be.
I am too easily distracted by questions that occur to me in the middle of one aspect of the challenge of overcoming the house edge at games of chance, and as a result, my data is disorganized and hard to follow for people with tidier minds than mine.
I usually finish what I have started, but not in the methodical manner that a trained mathematician would insist upon.
So, here and now I am announcing a spring-cleaning project, which is especially appropriate today because just before dawn, I heard my first wren of the season staking his claim on this little piece of Northern Nevada.
Step one will be to take the blackjack outcomes and break out each separate component of target betting to see how it performs on its own.
That means starting with just the LTD+ rule (the one that makes it possible to win more when you win than you lose when you lose) and then carefully adding and subtracting elements such as the OL (opening loss), WP (win progression) and MSL (mid-series loss) rules.
Once I have the blackjack summary, I will post it here and then move on to the far larger baccarat data sets that together account for about 80% of the "real" outcomes in my database.
I should say once again that I flatly reject the notion that past outcomes from games of chance have nothing to tell us about what we can expect in the future.
There might be something to it if I were building a betting method from scratch using just the outcomes to hand, because there would be a real danger that I would end up with a strategy that works only for those outcomes.
It would be tough, I suspect, to devise a method that beats more than 400,000 outcomes from two very different casino table games, but that is not what I am about here.
Target betting, aka Turnaround, has been in the public domain for a dozen years now, and has existed in my head and in my spreadsheet files for almost two and a half times that long.
The basic idea, the deferral of a recovery bet until a single win ends (or at least interrupts) a losing pattern, owes nothing to the Jones and Rodriguez baccarat samples, or to the 80,000-plus rounds generated with the help of Ken Smith's Blackjack Strategy Trainer.
It's going to take me a while to get all of this done, but I will get there.
I can tell you right now that with all of the frills, feints and dodges stripped away, the LTD+ rule alone turns a 0.81% house edge into a 1.4% player edge, flipping an indicated LOSS of at least $263,000 into a WIN of $454,000.
That alone is impossible, according to those well-trained, tidy-minded, methodical mathematicians I mentioned earlier.
Adding my WP rule, which keeps re-doubling the bet after an opening win in a new series to a maximum of $200, adding $100 each round until the streak inevitably ends, pushes the overall win to $841,000 (+2.46%).
(An indicated loss, remember, is the product of the actual value of the house edge in a given sample, multiplied by the total action from the same sample).
Adding the MSL rule (repeating an EOS bet of LTD+ if the first attempt failed and the value of the lost bet was $500 or less) kicks the overall result up another notch to $1.05 million (+2.69%).
On its own, MSL bumped the final win from $454,000 (+1.4%) to $702,000 (+1.92%).
Adding OL=NBx2 to the bare-bones version of target betting reduced the final win by almost half to $222,000 (+0.79%), but when it was combined with WPx2, the outcome was a win of $886,000 (+3.12%).
And so it goes...
Of course, no betting rule is worth even a nickel if all it does is increase the final win by what could be a onetime fluke.
It has to be effective most of the time and that is something that can easily be tracked with a spreadsheet platform.
Runaway sims, the weapon of choice for self-styled systems debunkers, usually supply as little information as possible - the final result, total action, overall AV/HA and the invariably identical product of loss/action.
One of the purposes of target betting's "extra" rules is to provide a strategy player with a means to vary his tactics from time to time to camouflage what he is up to.
But many of them also serve to boost the overall profit from the betting method.
The numbers I get from existing data sets will not be precisely reflected in future play (assuming that games other than baccarat gave us the means to track every hand and conduct a post-win breakdown).
However, different samples from different games report strikingly similar results, enabling us to evaluate all those non-basic rules individually and collectively.
I can confidently predict that one of the good things that will come out of this spring-clean inquiry is confirmation that while individual "switches" can be turned on and off, together they make the strategy more profitable than it would be without them.
The rules are like a tasty stew, with each ingredient working together more effectively than if it were the only "flavor" in the mix.
And really, what is so complicated about the target betting rules? They become second nature very quickly, and eliminate the stress of trying to decide what to bet on the next round - a goal worth fighting for.
Perhaps their greatest gift (apart from steady profits) is that they tell you when you have won enough, and that it is time to quit the big-money arena and get back to square one.
Winners usually never know when to quit, a dilemma that more often than not makes them losers in the end.
Gamblers want a quick rush - money in a hurry.
Players with a plan know that a slow build with minimal risk is the only way to go.
One thing I should mention about the "new" tests (actually a repeat of work I have done before, with the results presented in a much more orderly manner!) is that I have streamlined bet values to fall in line with the demands of real-time play.
Given an LTD of -$875, for example, you would not fumble a pile of chips together to match that amount...you would push out $1,000 and be done with it, happy at the prospect of a $125 series profit if all goes well.
In all the past models, bets of clumsy amounts have been permitted, because this has always been as much a matter of proving the conventional wisdom wrong as of taking a bite out of the gambling industry's over-padded bottom line.
After all, how much can I do on my own?
That is why target betting is in front of you right now: I want as many people as possible to learn it, gain full confidence in it, and then use it to chip away at a business that has somehow managed to find respectability by exploiting the greed and ignorance of others.
Wall Street's bubble kept ballooning for years with excessive doses of disinformation and deception pumped into it day after day, and we all know what happened.
Target betting will not destroy (or even much discomfort) the gambling industry, because most punters are happier flying by the seat of their pants and losing than learning how to win consistently.
But as the old joke says about 10,000 lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean..."It's a pretty good start."
An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
_
Showing posts with label Ken Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ken Smith. Show all posts
Monday, May 11, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
More about Ken Smith's nifty skill-building app, the Blackjack Strategy Trainer.
_
One of the pitfalls of blackjack is that a player can make decisions that are so bad that he helps the house get its hands on his bankroll a little sooner. In most table games, when to bet on what and how much are the player's only choices, and that is more than enough pressure, thank you very much.
Something else that is unique about blackjack is that almost everyone who plays it thinks he or she is an expert, and feels qualified to tell other people what to do with their money.
My preference is to play one-on-one against the dealer whenever possible, or else to ignore what other players are doing and concentrate on the job at hand, which is to win a little money while attracting as little attention as possible.
In the end, while making smart hit or stand decisions is helpful, it all comes down to how you bet, not how you play.
And it isn't the piddling house edge (barely 1.0%) that will do you in at blackjack, it's having a bankroll that is too small to take you through occasional house spikes (prolonged negative trends) that may be offset by an opposite pattern too late to save your ass.
A good rule of thumb is never to bet less than 20% of your current loss to date (LTD), but that's a move that can be discussed at another time.
What I want to say here is that practice makes perfect, and in my opinion there's no more perfect way to practice online than with Ken Smith's Blackjack Strategy Trainer.
Eccentric as I am, I generally choose to play against a shoe rather than the single deck that the self-styled experts prefer. I like the streaks that can set in with a shoe and last for a dozen or more rounds (less likely with a single deck and all that shuffling!).
Lately, single-deck layouts in Nevada have tended to drop the natural pay-out rate from 3-2 to 6-5, an outrageous gouge that offends me to the roots of what little hair I have left (a 60% pay cut, aggghhhhh!) so I am even more likely to pick a shoe.
(Click on the image to enlarge it)
If your online connection is up to it, a useful way to imitate the multi-table environment of a casino is to load BST in several tabs and switch your LTD/NB numbers from one to the other as win-loss patterns dictate.
I turn off insurance (of course) in the BST options, and also the on-screen "coach" because there are several recommendations that I flat-out disagree with.
It is not necessary to play through each series from an opening minimum bet to EOS over and over again, as I do, because all the recorded outcomes will be plugged in to a spreadsheet eventually and the correct target bets will be processed there. All you really need is the outcomes in a chronological log.
My choice happens to be to bet as if the money was real, partly because I enjoy the practice, but also because there's a lot of satisfaction in repeatedly seeing a crappy set of outcomes being turned into a notional profit!
I would certainly welcome scanned pencil logs from anyone who cares to submit them! Mine look like this:
(Click on the image to enlarge it)
I may not be neat, but I get it all written down! Pushes matter because I double the bet, adding up to $100, after a push, not because I think I have a better chance of winning (of course I don't) but for the fun of it.
Xs with a ring around them indicate a dealer natural, which also prompts a doubled bet, and I even bump the bet after a dealer 21 with 3+ cards, using the push rule (NB=PBx2 to a max of PB+$100).
A line under an outcome signifies EOS. And a quick glance at any log confirms the clumping or streaking patterns that make target betting so effective.
Remember that the LTD+ bet in response to a mid-series win is the key to target betting's consistent success, and while quirky bumps push bet values higher, they also fatten the bottom line.
You can make the bet-by-bet strategy as simple or as complicated as you want, either just for the fun of it or to confound anyone who's watching too closely, just as long as you don't mess with the LTD+ "engine" at the heart of it all.
One thing to watch out for with the BST app is an annoying little flaw that doesn't mess you up often but is infuriating when it does. If when the screen prompt offers you the option to add another $1,000 to your depleted bankroll, you click ever so slightly to the right of the $ button, you will accidentally quit the session instead, wiping out all of the stats. It's too easy to do, if you have left your cursor where it was when you last opted to stand, and you click before moving it to the "money button". The glitch needs a fix, but I am too grateful to Mr. Smith for his neat little game to bug him with a complaint!
An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
_
One of the pitfalls of blackjack is that a player can make decisions that are so bad that he helps the house get its hands on his bankroll a little sooner. In most table games, when to bet on what and how much are the player's only choices, and that is more than enough pressure, thank you very much.
Something else that is unique about blackjack is that almost everyone who plays it thinks he or she is an expert, and feels qualified to tell other people what to do with their money.
My preference is to play one-on-one against the dealer whenever possible, or else to ignore what other players are doing and concentrate on the job at hand, which is to win a little money while attracting as little attention as possible.
In the end, while making smart hit or stand decisions is helpful, it all comes down to how you bet, not how you play.
And it isn't the piddling house edge (barely 1.0%) that will do you in at blackjack, it's having a bankroll that is too small to take you through occasional house spikes (prolonged negative trends) that may be offset by an opposite pattern too late to save your ass.
A good rule of thumb is never to bet less than 20% of your current loss to date (LTD), but that's a move that can be discussed at another time.
What I want to say here is that practice makes perfect, and in my opinion there's no more perfect way to practice online than with Ken Smith's Blackjack Strategy Trainer.
Eccentric as I am, I generally choose to play against a shoe rather than the single deck that the self-styled experts prefer. I like the streaks that can set in with a shoe and last for a dozen or more rounds (less likely with a single deck and all that shuffling!).
Lately, single-deck layouts in Nevada have tended to drop the natural pay-out rate from 3-2 to 6-5, an outrageous gouge that offends me to the roots of what little hair I have left (a 60% pay cut, aggghhhhh!) so I am even more likely to pick a shoe.
If your online connection is up to it, a useful way to imitate the multi-table environment of a casino is to load BST in several tabs and switch your LTD/NB numbers from one to the other as win-loss patterns dictate.
I turn off insurance (of course) in the BST options, and also the on-screen "coach" because there are several recommendations that I flat-out disagree with.
It is not necessary to play through each series from an opening minimum bet to EOS over and over again, as I do, because all the recorded outcomes will be plugged in to a spreadsheet eventually and the correct target bets will be processed there. All you really need is the outcomes in a chronological log.
My choice happens to be to bet as if the money was real, partly because I enjoy the practice, but also because there's a lot of satisfaction in repeatedly seeing a crappy set of outcomes being turned into a notional profit!
I would certainly welcome scanned pencil logs from anyone who cares to submit them! Mine look like this:
I may not be neat, but I get it all written down! Pushes matter because I double the bet, adding up to $100, after a push, not because I think I have a better chance of winning (of course I don't) but for the fun of it.
Xs with a ring around them indicate a dealer natural, which also prompts a doubled bet, and I even bump the bet after a dealer 21 with 3+ cards, using the push rule (NB=PBx2 to a max of PB+$100).
A line under an outcome signifies EOS. And a quick glance at any log confirms the clumping or streaking patterns that make target betting so effective.
Remember that the LTD+ bet in response to a mid-series win is the key to target betting's consistent success, and while quirky bumps push bet values higher, they also fatten the bottom line.
You can make the bet-by-bet strategy as simple or as complicated as you want, either just for the fun of it or to confound anyone who's watching too closely, just as long as you don't mess with the LTD+ "engine" at the heart of it all.
One thing to watch out for with the BST app is an annoying little flaw that doesn't mess you up often but is infuriating when it does. If when the screen prompt offers you the option to add another $1,000 to your depleted bankroll, you click ever so slightly to the right of the $ button, you will accidentally quit the session instead, wiping out all of the stats. It's too easy to do, if you have left your cursor where it was when you last opted to stand, and you click before moving it to the "money button". The glitch needs a fix, but I am too grateful to Mr. Smith for his neat little game to bug him with a complaint!
An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
_
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Take the time to learn the strategy rules, playing against "funny money" games until you are an expert. Then, you will be ready to be a real winner!
_
Target betting simply means knowing at all times how much you are "in the hole" in a given series, a series being a string of bets that starts with a minimum wager and continues until a profit has been achieved.
Your objective is to make a steady profit, and because you know ahead of time that in the end you will lose more bets than you win, you also know that the only way you can make money is by winning more when you win than you lose when you lose.
Psychic ability is not required.
What's needed is a set of responses tailored to circumstances and requiring a different reaction to a win than to a loss. In this way, the damage done by a string of consecutive losses will be less than the benefit derived from a similar string of consecutive wins, and over time, the value of your average winning bet will be greater than that of your average losing bet.
For example, 49 wins at $11 will offset 51 losses at $10 and overcome a house advantage of 2% (negative expectation being a loss of $21, replaced by a win of $29 or 2.8% of overall action).
It is not my purpose here to explain in detail why the method works, but to challenge skeptics to try it themselves and discover its merits from their own experience rather than mine.
Step one is to learn the rules below. Step two is to put them into action without risk until confidence (and competence) has been gained. Step three is to take what you have learned into a casino and kick ass.
As long as you are behind in a series, carefully track your loss to date (LTD) until a win comes along, then respond to that win by pushing out a next bet (NB) that covers the sum total of the LTD plus a target profit ($5 or 1 unit is good, $25 or 5u is better).
If the mid-series win is followed by a loss (as it will be slightly more often than not) the loss becomes the new NB value, and the series continues until the next win, when the process is repeated. Eventually, a second consecutive mid-series win will bring an end to the series (EOS), and the bet falls back to the minimum 1u.
Target betting will prevail in the long run with just the LTD+TGT rule in place, but I recommend rules variations that will not only boost profitability but will serve to camouflage what you are doing and confuse the enemy (you know who they are).
After an opening loss, bet 5x the previous bet (PB).
After a second loss, bet PB/2 and do the same after a third loss.
If losses continue, repeat the bet (NB=PB) until a win, then apply the LTD+ rule.
After an opening win, bet 2x (NB=PBx2), and keep doing that after each successive win until the bet hits $200.
When the win progression (WP) x2 limit is reached, NB=PB+$100 until a loss ends the winning streak.
When an opening winning streak ends with a loss, NB= the lesser of PBx2 or PB+$100 and LTD=PB.
If losses continue, freeze the bet (NB=PB) and continue doing so until a win calls for the LTD+TGT rule.
Doubled wins (meaning any wins greater than the value of the original bet) do not affect the NB value, but doubled losses change the NB value to match the prior loss (-1, -1, -1, -1x2, -2, -2, -2x3, -6 and so on).
After a push (about 9.0% of all bets at blackjack), double the bet (NB=PBx2) to a maximum added value of $100, and do the same after a dealer natural except if a 2x bet would be due anyway (see above), in which case, add $100 (NB=PB+$100) on top of the doubled value. Treat any dealer 21 as a push, and respond accordingly.
With this method, bets can increase very rapidly, sometimes to amounts that are prohibited by the table limit at the layout where the series began. Whenever that happens, move to a higher-rent layout, and continue the series as before.
(If you are playing against Ken Smith's BST app, you will have to deal with a $1,000 table limit, which is also a 1-200 spread limit, assuming a $5 opening bet for each new series. Freeze the bet at NB=PB until you recover, and as you record each outcome in a log, console yourself with the knowledge that with a less house-biased table limit, each twin-win pattern would rocket you out of the hole and into profit! And please, send me scanned copies of your logs if they're legible - I will be happy to process them at the correct betting levels).
Higher bets mean greater risk, at least in your first few hours of target betting play, but they also mean recovery of past losses in fewer bets than it took you to get into trouble and in the end, bigger profits.
Always add at least half of every session's profit to your bankroll, enabling you to grow stronger and tougher to beat.
Whenever you feel uncomfortable or threatened in a given location, move and take your NB/LTD numbers to a new layout ("the math" will be unaffected). Never break the strategy rules, never touch alcohol during play, and never take losses personally, because they are always temporary.
And...keep reminding yourself that if you win more when you win than you lose when you lose, then losing more often than you win won't hurt you. It's sound logic, and irrefutable arithmetic. Now get out there and win.
An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
_
Target betting simply means knowing at all times how much you are "in the hole" in a given series, a series being a string of bets that starts with a minimum wager and continues until a profit has been achieved.
Your objective is to make a steady profit, and because you know ahead of time that in the end you will lose more bets than you win, you also know that the only way you can make money is by winning more when you win than you lose when you lose.
Psychic ability is not required.
What's needed is a set of responses tailored to circumstances and requiring a different reaction to a win than to a loss. In this way, the damage done by a string of consecutive losses will be less than the benefit derived from a similar string of consecutive wins, and over time, the value of your average winning bet will be greater than that of your average losing bet.
For example, 49 wins at $11 will offset 51 losses at $10 and overcome a house advantage of 2% (negative expectation being a loss of $21, replaced by a win of $29 or 2.8% of overall action).
It is not my purpose here to explain in detail why the method works, but to challenge skeptics to try it themselves and discover its merits from their own experience rather than mine.
Step one is to learn the rules below. Step two is to put them into action without risk until confidence (and competence) has been gained. Step three is to take what you have learned into a casino and kick ass.
As long as you are behind in a series, carefully track your loss to date (LTD) until a win comes along, then respond to that win by pushing out a next bet (NB) that covers the sum total of the LTD plus a target profit ($5 or 1 unit is good, $25 or 5u is better).
If the mid-series win is followed by a loss (as it will be slightly more often than not) the loss becomes the new NB value, and the series continues until the next win, when the process is repeated. Eventually, a second consecutive mid-series win will bring an end to the series (EOS), and the bet falls back to the minimum 1u.
Target betting will prevail in the long run with just the LTD+TGT rule in place, but I recommend rules variations that will not only boost profitability but will serve to camouflage what you are doing and confuse the enemy (you know who they are).
After an opening loss, bet 5x the previous bet (PB).
After a second loss, bet PB/2 and do the same after a third loss.
If losses continue, repeat the bet (NB=PB) until a win, then apply the LTD+ rule.
After an opening win, bet 2x (NB=PBx2), and keep doing that after each successive win until the bet hits $200.
When the win progression (WP) x2 limit is reached, NB=PB+$100 until a loss ends the winning streak.
When an opening winning streak ends with a loss, NB= the lesser of PBx2 or PB+$100 and LTD=PB.
If losses continue, freeze the bet (NB=PB) and continue doing so until a win calls for the LTD+TGT rule.
Doubled wins (meaning any wins greater than the value of the original bet) do not affect the NB value, but doubled losses change the NB value to match the prior loss (-1, -1, -1, -1x2, -2, -2, -2x3, -6 and so on).
After a push (about 9.0% of all bets at blackjack), double the bet (NB=PBx2) to a maximum added value of $100, and do the same after a dealer natural except if a 2x bet would be due anyway (see above), in which case, add $100 (NB=PB+$100) on top of the doubled value. Treat any dealer 21 as a push, and respond accordingly.
With this method, bets can increase very rapidly, sometimes to amounts that are prohibited by the table limit at the layout where the series began. Whenever that happens, move to a higher-rent layout, and continue the series as before.
(If you are playing against Ken Smith's BST app, you will have to deal with a $1,000 table limit, which is also a 1-200 spread limit, assuming a $5 opening bet for each new series. Freeze the bet at NB=PB until you recover, and as you record each outcome in a log, console yourself with the knowledge that with a less house-biased table limit, each twin-win pattern would rocket you out of the hole and into profit! And please, send me scanned copies of your logs if they're legible - I will be happy to process them at the correct betting levels).
Higher bets mean greater risk, at least in your first few hours of target betting play, but they also mean recovery of past losses in fewer bets than it took you to get into trouble and in the end, bigger profits.
Always add at least half of every session's profit to your bankroll, enabling you to grow stronger and tougher to beat.
Whenever you feel uncomfortable or threatened in a given location, move and take your NB/LTD numbers to a new layout ("the math" will be unaffected). Never break the strategy rules, never touch alcohol during play, and never take losses personally, because they are always temporary.
And...keep reminding yourself that if you win more when you win than you lose when you lose, then losing more often than you win won't hurt you. It's sound logic, and irrefutable arithmetic. Now get out there and win.
An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
_
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