Mad Dog

Zenwin, please don't bother with this. Just train on real cards and don't take this thread too seriously.

Sometimes Ed would say things like "sometimes a dealer break is followed by another dealer break" and he instructed me to look for that sort of thing. I don't know whether it was based on any sound mathematical principle, but Jesus, that guy was a good card player.

Far out! I will look into that. Sometimes I don't know how I know what I know. I just know. It's kinda creepy. BTW, I really like the new name "Bad Dog." Maybe I'll change over to it.

It is not a silly question. This whole business is the bane of blackjack players. If you stand on your stiffs during low clumps, roughly the same number of lows will be collected at the end of the round. This will continue to reinforce the card flow bias, which depends on the number of cards per round remaining roughly consistent vis a vis round type (high, mid, or low). The number of cards you consume is important here. Increasing it can move the bias off the dealer's position. Also, I have found that it can create a wonderful bias at third base.

Yeah the rule is this: if you are affected by the heat, don't play. Emotions have no place in NBJ. If you can shrug it off, play on. Let them wail.

Dealer biases generally suck, and are fed by people doing the same thing over and over. To break the bias we have to start doing something different. Better to just find a better table, but if you're determined to unbias a shoe, there's a number of approaches. Read this whole thread, and see if you still have questions.

When taking extra hits, my aim is usually not to do it for a few hands, but rather for a whole shoe or more than that. If you only do it for a few hands, you may succeed in knocking the bias off the dealer's position, but it will quickly return because of the other players not taking enough lows in a low card clump. These biases are diabolical in that they are self-correcting. By hammering on the whole shoe, we can dismantle the bias for a good long while. I would not try to do this at a full table, because our valiant efforts are diluted by so many other players. So how hard should we hit? I hit to twenty in this situation. WHAT?!?! You heard me. Twenty. BUT MAD DOG THAT'S NUTS! Yes it is. We are not trying to win these hands, but it's funny when we do, and we win more than you might think. The purpose is to plow the field so that it can again be productive. If people are not freaking out over your moves, you're not doing it right. You have to do something out of the ordinary to knock the dynamics of the shoe into a new more productive state. Obviously this kind of attack can cost money so beware.

I posted this thread here in the private NBJ Club area because of the PR sensitivities associated with angry players, but perhaps this discussion would be OK for the main blackjack board. Ellis?

Zenwin, do not worry about offending anyone, least of all Mad Dog. I draw heat from players like everyone else when I make NBJ non-standard plays. I win my share of these hands. ALSO, if there is a dealer bias, I will sometimes flat bet and HIT HIT HIT. After a while of doing this, I can sometimes turn the table around. Also I strangely do pretty well while I'm hitting like a mad dog, sometimes.

I guess if the stakes that the BS players are playing are about the same as the stakes the NBJ 3rd base player is playing, then they wouldn't use it as an excuse to throw the NBJ player out, even though the NBJ player is winning. If they are betting nickels and the NBJ player is raking in stacks of pink and yellow chips, and the casino thinks they can't win it back from the NBJ player, they might use the excuse.

Here's my advice: be there when people are getting tired and leaving. There is something wonderful that happens when people leave the table. It can create a player bias. It is very hard for the casino to keep the tables packed when people are leaving. Yes I know, you have to be there at 3AM or some shit like that. Take it like a man. Don't push a bad situation. The cards will kick your ass if you play in crowded conditions.

Yeah, but this one guy was complaining to the pit staff saying this guy's killing me, blah blah blah. The thing I worry the most about is getting asked to leave, and they could come and say, "look fella your style of play is upsetting people." It is a perfect excuse for them to ask one to leave. I would really really hate to be asked to leave. Also, I think I hit harder than you do. I sometimes flat bet and hit just to "plow the field" so that the next shoe is easier. I saw that Keith recommended this also.

Yes the best game is the one where the tens are nearly evenly distributed in the deck, and there is a gentle high-low back and forth swing in the tens ratio. This is when we use 1-4-6. I think really it is the only time to use 1-4-6. Why? Because there really is a greater chance of winning the second bet. The purpose of 1-4-6 is to locate the tens and exploit them. In other types of games we sometimes use advantage betting, and also sometimes combine it with a progression that is used only on the high bets. In this situation, 1-4-6 would not be appropriate because it places an inordinately high bet on the second bet when there really is not a higher chance for that bet to win, relative to our other high bets. It would be better to use a gentler progression in this situation. In fact, in this situation, the progression is strictly money management, and in no way does it help us find the tens. Money management in this situation is strictly a personal choice. One could discard the progression altogether and just have a high and a low bet. The progression simply helps to even out our return over time.

I must say that this is phenomenon is happening to me more. Does it ever happen to you guys? When it happens at a crowded table, I just keep doing it and it sometimes can help clear the table. I had some loud mouth guy complaining about it, and an elderly chinese lady at first joined in. Eventually the guy left with his more polite buddy, but the lady stayed to watch me kick some serious ass at third. She said I was just lucky. I eventually left this table, and later saw her sitting at third to try and catch some of my good cards. I can forsee that this kind of heat from players could be used as the basis for asking me to leave. So far so good though. I refuse to believe that none of you has ever gotten heat from players. This is a serious issue that deserves some discussion on the board.

I have sometimes gotten heat from players about non-standard play at third. It is inevitable that a play that one makes will be the difference between winning and losing for some basic strategy player. Usually they catch on that what I'm doing helps them, but sometimes they don't. Also, what's good for me is sometimes not what's good for them. The main complaint is about taking the dealer's bust card. I probably get this more than most, because I hit like a mad dog. It sucks when players are pissed off. Once I had the players and the dealer ganging up on me. I just kept doing my thing.

We emphasize looking at the cards the cards before the hole. Why? Because there are always cards before the hole, and sometimes there are no cards after to help us make our card play decisions. I like to see cards after the hole. If tens are following tens, then it follows that tens are preceding tens in equal proportion, so the cards after the hole (if there are any) are just as important for our hole card read. When there are cards before the hole that read one way, and cards after the hole that read another way, it's a problem. That's when I think to myself about how often the dealer has been breaking and hit accordingly.

practice. .

Yes indeed. I was at Ed's house in Tucson. We were practicing with real cards and on one hand there was some question about whether tens were running. He said, very clearly, "Tens running is one card." I said that this was not what Ellis taught, and he said that Vegas is different than AC. Actually Ed was probably using more information than that one card. He had seen the previous rounds of play and knew that tens were about to start shooting out of the shoe. Anyway, my card play skills are derived from home practice. I don't apply anything Ed said blindly. Only with home practice can you know how to apply any of these rules of thumb. The main thing Ed taught me was to practice, and when I lose a hand, study the table to see if there is something that would have made me play the hand differently. Home practice is what taught me how to play.

Well I use Fibonacci as an up as you win kind of thing, not an up as you lose. I use 1-4-6 negative with my pile of twelve in play, until my pile doubles. Then I use Fibonacci to raise the stakes, and return to 1-4-6 to try to double the in-play amount again. Fibonacci is really ideal for taking profit in a situation where you don't know when the thing will end. I have had people remark at how I am able to stay at a table for so long. I really think the 1-4-6 combined with Fibonacci is the right combo to match my card play skill level. Money management in general is not a hard and fast thing. There is a lot of room for personal style. BUT, the 1-4-6 is not just money management. It is used to exploit a back and forth win loss cycle that is present in some games. We use it when we are not losing 3 in a row. We use it to find the tens in the deck. It is NOT just money management. The Fibonacci at the higher level IS just money management. If you want to just grind out piles of 12 and not raise the stakes, be my guest. You'll probably live longer. Come to think of it, you'll live longer if you take up gardening. Up as you win Fibonacci will stand your hair on end. This thing really takes off in a good game. The thing that's cool about it is that when you are making the big bets you know you've already made a profit, and the money you are pushing out is the casino's money. This style of play is not for gardeners. Mad Dog

Ellis you said your guess was that the seventh bet is 34. Are we talking martingale fibonacci here? I have never tried that.

I like the idea of playing the progression only in the "cream of the crop" hands. I think almost any neg prog will do well under those circumstances. I do like the 1-4-6. If it is a quarter game, then you need to have some torque. You could bet $25 for the regular hands, and then $100-$400-$600 negative progression for the "cream of the crop" hands. I use the Fibonacci also to increase the stakes each time I have doubled my in-play chips. I have written about this at length on the board. Don't forget to hit on those low bets. It'll help you break even on the low bets while you make out on the high bets.

Oh by the way, there are some other statistics that Ellis talks about in his "In Search Of" book that are very useful for determining if the game is over clumped. It is a really interesting idea actually, but I can't give it to you. Maybe Ellis will. He's been dishing out secrets lately, so maybe if you ask him real nicely...

Well, I do not play at Indian casinos. I have heard that there is sometimes blantant cheating, such as having extra 5s in the deck and that there is no gaming commission to keep them honest. Who knows. As for table entry conditions, I just look for a decent dealer break ratio, and an even distribution of dealer made hands.

I too bet the over/under during the 90s. Back then I was using a no rent technique where I would memorize a clump of tens and the cards on top of it (including suit) in the discard tray. I generally did this at $100 tables where there was a single player. I required four tens in a row. After the shuffle I would watch for my key-cards and then jump in to catch my tens. I also bet an equal amount on over 13. The advantage was devastating. I did great. I showed this trick to Ed Goldstein. He enjoyed the fact that once the clump was memorized you could walk away for a while, and go outside until the shoe was finished, and the cards were shuffled. He taught it to one of his students who just couldn't play consistently. He said that guy ended up using my trick with $500 chips, and was very successful. This technique still works in hand shuffled games, but sadly, the over 13 bet is history.

Lately I've been monitoring dealer hands pretty rigorously. Before I enter a game, I watch the dealer's hand and keep track of the outcome. How many 17s, 18s, 19s, 20s, 21s, and breaking hands. Before table entry, you pretty much need to do this in your head, but once you sit down, you can use chips to keep track of each outcome. The result is a kind of bar-chart that mathematicians call a "histogram". If you pay attention to this, it will keep you out of bad games. I find that the rigors of doing this also keep me from getting bored during the table selection phase, which is more important than betting or card play.