Beat? Brag? Variance? Story of TanShuiWen, by himself. WARNING - LONG

[obi---one]

good read. have had fun battling you at the tables.

[Humble Pie]

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A+ would read cliffsnotes again


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[jmxthievez]

this is a crazy story, some of the figures used were pretty insane.

one question andy, how can you prove that you are +EV in a blackjack game? through counting? i thought all casinos can tag you pretty quick as a counter and ban you.

how do you play +EV blackjack then?

[Hobb]

i liked it.

questions:

how good were you at economics, and where did you work upon graduation? Can i steal the research you abandoned for the American Economic Review and claim it for my own?

TY

[AndyatSD]

[ QUOTE ]
this is a crazy story, some of the figures used were pretty insane.

one question andy, how can you prove that you are +EV in a blackjack game? through counting? i thought all casinos can tag you pretty quick as a counter and ban you.

how do you play +EV blackjack then?

[/ QUOTE ]

Proving +EV in a blackjack game comes down to just mathematics. There's a variety of ways to do it - but I think judging by your 'through counting?' you're asking more how I do it rather than prove mathematically that I do it.

Counting is a necessary pre-requisite, but just keeping track of the count isn't enough. Knowing how to deviate away from basic strategy and spreading appropriately (betting bigger on higher count shoes) given the count is far more important. As an example, knowing when it's +EV for you to take insurance, splitting a natural 20 vs a 6, hitting a 12 on 4, 12 on 5, staying on 16 vs T, etc, all adds up (While all of this is frowned upon by basic strategy). Those two things together alone will most likely make a winning player assuming you have enough $ to battle with.

There is a third, higher level (and perhaps more) that will add even more to winnings - but I won't get into that here.

Regarding on how not to get tagged as a counter and ban you? That's where the acting like a donkey part comes in. You can't play textbook - because that'd get you banned within an hour. You have to purposely pull some less-than-optimally-desirable moves to remove some heat. And it's not just the pit boss that observes you, survelliance does as well. Don't think just because the pit boss isn't looking at you means you can shove table max on a +6 true count.

My biggest accomplishment this trip was to get un-banned at a place that previously banned me. That's getting the donkey image going to perfection, imho.

~andy

[AndyatSD]

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i liked it.

questions:

how good were you at economics, and where did you work upon graduation? Can i steal the research you abandoned for the American Economic Review and claim it for my own?

TY

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Thank you - glad you liked it.

It's difficult to quantify how 'good' someone is at Economics. My stronger points were both micro and macro economics, game theory (very useful in poker and life in general), and econometrics (also useful in poker).

I kind of 'clicked' with Economics intuitively, though. Economics is a senior course in the high school I went to so I never had any exposure to it until then. But starting as a Sophomore in High School I've placed 1st or 2nd in a competitive county Academic Decathelon in Economics. I've never studied the subject matter.

My research was a joint collaboration effort and therefore it was obviously left to my colleagues. : ) Good thinking though!

I rather not name specific employers unless there's a need.

~andy

[qdmcg]

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i liked it.

questions:

how good were you at economics, and where did you work upon graduation? Can i steal the research you abandoned for the American Economic Review and claim it for my own?

TY

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you - glad you liked it.

It's difficult to quantify how 'good' someone is at Economics. My stronger points were both micro and macro economics, game theory (very useful in poker and life in general), and econometrics (also useful in poker).

I kind of 'clicked' with Economics intuitively, though. Economics is a senior course in the high school I went to so I never had any exposure to it until then. But starting as a Sophomore in High School I've placed 1st or 2nd in a competitive county Academic Decathelon in Economics. I've never studied the subject matter.

My research was a joint collaboration effort and therefore it was obviously left to my colleagues. : ) Good thinking though!

I rather not name specific employers unless there's a need.

~andy

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Where did you learn so much about this blackjack stuff? This is fascinating, I had no idea that opportunities like this still existed.

[martijn]

read it and loved every piece of it, nice story sir.

[Oki-Oki]

wow great story.

[AndyatSD]

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i liked it.

questions:

how good were you at economics, and where did you work upon graduation? Can i steal the research you abandoned for the American Economic Review and claim it for my own?

TY

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you - glad you liked it.

It's difficult to quantify how 'good' someone is at Economics. My stronger points were both micro and macro economics, game theory (very useful in poker and life in general), and econometrics (also useful in poker).

I kind of 'clicked' with Economics intuitively, though. Economics is a senior course in the high school I went to so I never had any exposure to it until then. But starting as a Sophomore in High School I've placed 1st or 2nd in a competitive county Academic Decathelon in Economics. I've never studied the subject matter.

My research was a joint collaboration effort and therefore it was obviously left to my colleagues. : ) Good thinking though!

I rather not name specific employers unless there's a need.

~andy

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Where did you learn so much about this blackjack stuff? This is fascinating, I had no idea that opportunities like this still existed.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the age of teh Internets information is readily available. As I said in my original post - Wayne introduced me to the finer elements of Blackjack. Your best starting point is the Green Chip Membership at BJ21.com.

With that said, after getting our feets wet we did a lot of calculations on our own (actually David and Wayne did most of the math, I just sponge up the information afterwards). Like I said, Blackjack is a pure mathematics game and therefore the calculations are all do-able by anyone who understands and then willing to put in the effort.

Word to the tempted - give it a second thought before thinking about beating the house in Blackjack. For every 1 success story I know - I probably know at least 20 failures. Serious failures.

~andy

(sorry I haven't responded to all the PMs. Will probably get to it tonight~)