Having trouble How would you play this?

[ztomsk]

I think it is safe to say that if a machine can put cards back into boxed card order, they can put the cards into any prescribed order by simply changing chips. So you are up against what I call Designer shoes. Some Bac expert sits there and designs supposedly impossible to beat shoes and then creates chips for the best 300 or so. This is nothing new.

I used to have a pile of 300 or so such shoes. I went on retreat with this pile and worked on them for days at a desk on a balcony overlooking a golf course green, totally undisturbed. No, I didn't play any golf that trip.

And I came up with something interesting:

What do we know about such shoes?

Well putting myself in the mind of the designer he's going to throw a little of everything at you. You will get straight runs on both sides with runs following runs, ZZ runs, TT runs, Opposites = to Repeats and P = to B plus sporadic 1's and 2s. The idea is to prevent you from getting a toe hold on anything consistent. The only consistency is inconsistency. I fear that all preshuffled are such shoes these days.

What I came up with is sort of an F 4 kind of thing: I bet on the dominant side of the last 5 plays. This puts me on all straight runs either early or late. It keeps me on the same side for ZZ and TT runs and sporadic 1's and 2s.

I bet U1D1 but down 2 on winning bets of 7 or more. I also went down 2 when I won every other bet. For instance if I lost a 5, won a 6, lost a 5 and won a 6, I went to 4. This was very effective in achieving my goal of getting down to 2. My stop win was any winning 2 bet in the 2nd half.

I used a buy in, stop loss and stop win of 20 units. You need to be prepared for a real roller coaster ride.

You guys might want to experiment on your own.

But this worked about 90% of the time. Sooner or later you hit a run on the side you are on that gets you back down to a 2 bet. Usually. I played to a goal of +20.

Hmm... I like this.

At my casino, the shoes come pre-shuffled. But they are put into the machine shuffler before they are played. Sometimes the shoes are extremely biased, and sometimes they are extremely inconsistent (perhaps random or designed). But I also practice at home with an 8 deck shoe just to get the plays down/money management etc... it is obviously random since its been played over and over again both Bac and BJ without casino shuffling. But even that produces pretty clean biases at times. I got a +45 playing OTB4L on a "random" shoe (more than I've ever won in the casino). And it was only U1D2... could only image what it would have been if I bumped it up to U1D1M2.

But back to my main point… what were your capture points with a 20 stop loss and stop win? Anything other than a getting back to a winning 2 bet in the second half? Like if you are close to +20, but don’t want to make a bet that would take you below a certain number of units? Or +15 or +10 for that matter...

[Guest]

Hmm... I like this.

Well if you try it you will eventually see there is one thing that can go wrong but it is easy to fix.

What can happen is when the last play in the above last 5 is an opposite and that single opposite makes that the strong side it will make you wrong footed if that opposite is the start of a ZZ run because every play of the ZZ changes the SS making you miss every play of the ZZ. Bad! So what you do to fix it is when that last play is an opposite deciding the strong side, you simply ignore it and go by the last 4 plays not counting the last play. That puts you ON all ZZs because you are staying on the same side and winning every other bet.

At my casino, the shoes come pre-shuffled. But they are put into the machine shuffler before they are played. Sometimes the shoes are extremely biased, and sometimes they are extremely inconsistent (perhaps random or designed). But I also practice at home with an 8 deck shoe just to get the plays down/money management etc... it is obviously random since its been played over and over again both Bac and BJ without casino shuffling. But even that produces pretty clean biases at times. I got a +45 playing OTB4L on a "random" shoe (more than I've ever won in the casino). And it was only U1D2... could only image what it would have been if I bumped it up to U1D1M2.

I learned about biases produced by the game itself back in my college days - ha - more than a half century ago.

I would play BJ, casino pick up rules with 2 shuffles, and noted that eventually - after about 7 shoes, the deck would become totally unbeatable. I would come to learn years later that the exact same thing happens in a casino. BJ play itself, except head to head, makes Basic Strategy unwinnable. Hence the NBJ First Base system.

So at college what I would do is play Solitaire for about 7 shoes. The SAME thing happens - the deck becomes unbeatable - for Solitaire. BUT if you now go back to BJ, you win every shoe - for about 7 shoes. What is happening is repeated Solitaire shoes makes the deck favorable for BJ but unfavorable for Solitaire. The reverse is also true: repeated BJ shoes makes BJ unwinnable but makes the deck favorable for Solitaire.

I also tried going to 7 shuffles because suppossedly that makes the cards random. No good! I still lost every shoe. That Canadian Scientist was right - it takes about 25 shuffles to make a single deck truly random. I don't care WHAT computer scientists say - they lose, I win!

So, by the time I was old enough to play casinos I already had a HUGE leg up. I already knew to only play BJ against new cards because those are the best, most random cards you'll see all day. Ha, yet EVERY BJ book tells you to never play new cards for the first 2 hours. WRONG! They've got it precisely BACKWARDS! It is incredible how BJ book writers get EVERYTHING wrong. It quickly became totally obvious to me that these book writers NEVER actually played real BJ in a real casino. That's why I finally decided to write my own book. What I was doing won. What they were writing lost. Pissed me off!

But back to my main point… what were your capture points with a 20 stop loss and stop win? Anything other than a getting back to a winning 2 bet in the second half? Like if you are close to +20, but don’t want to make a bet that would take you below a certain number of units? Or +15 or +10 for that matter...

Right! +20 is a lose goal. It pays to know when to defy it and when not to. Just as it also pays to know when to upgrade to U1D1 and when not to. While you eventually develop a feel for this, your score for your first col of 20 is a VERY good indicator:

If you are at + 6 or less, You usually don't want to be trying anything fancy. +7 or more, you think about it. +10 or more, go for it!

[moneybac]

didn't know were to put this,talking about shoes,was at the casino last night ,and saw 18 p,in a row with 2 ties,then went back to normal,at the table the dealer lets you turn over the cards,it was a $25 table

[ztomsk]

Well if you try it you will eventually see there is one thing that can go wrong but it is easy to fix.

What can happen is when the last play in the above last 5 is an opposite and that single opposite makes that the strong side it will make you wrong footed if that opposite is the start of a ZZ run because every play of the ZZ changes the SS making you miss every play of the ZZ. Bad! So what you do to fix it is when that last play is an opposite deciding the strong side, you simply ignore it and go by the last 4 plays not counting the last play. That puts you ON all ZZs because you are staying on the same side and winning every other bet.

If you are at + 6 or less, You usually don't want to be trying anything fancy. +7 or more, you think about it. +10 or more, go for it!

Awesome - thanks for the tips. I tried this with a practice shoe and got +19. But you sure weren't kidding about a roller coaster ride! OTB4L is my bread and butter, but I really like a F/SS type system. Even though with your help I can handle runs/chop, it's just so much less stressful not having to worry about them and actually preferring them for a change.

I have a question about the +10 (any system). Say you get back to a 1 bet and lose 3 bets in a row. The 4th bet would take you below +1... but making those 4+ bets is why it's NOR+ and the reason I got to +10 in the first place. So do we make that 4 bet and risk doping below 0 units?

It's sort of like once you hit +10, then you have 3 chances to move forward.

I've been playing this way and sometimes I get into the +20 range and sometimes I get down to a +3 or +4 and have to quit because I refuse to go below 0 units but am itching to make that 4 bet. Makes me sort of want to use a +10 stop win sometimes. What do you think?

[Sakana]

Ellis,

I have been using a 1-2-3 progression, but have NOT gone to the 4 bet as

I am still uncertain as how to use it. It say in the manuals that you would ONLY use it

if it would have won earlier in the shoe. Could your please provide an example (from an actual

shoe, if possible)? Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sakana

[Guest]

Ellis,

I have been using a 1-2-3 progression, but have NOT gone to the 4 bet as

I am still uncertain as how to use it. It say in the manuals that you would ONLY use it

if it would have won earlier in the shoe. Could your please provide an example (from an actual

shoe, if possible)? Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sakana

Well, that is more of a recommendation for basic NOR rather than a hard rule. Note that we don't bother with that rule in NOR+ because NOR+ can get by with a losing 4 with U1D2 betting while basic NOR's 123 4 prog usually can't.

All it means is this: With basic NOR, the first time you lose a 3 it is more conservative to go to 1 rather than 4. But if that 1 bet wins, next time a 4 comes up, bet it.

But also we still pay attention to our -8 stop loss. If we lose a 123 and that takes our score down to -5 or more, we quit the shoe. We don't bet 1 or 4 or anything. We quit! Because we don't make a bet that COULD take us below -8.

Now some, who are playing it, are saying that when betting U1D1 instead of U1D2 we should make our stop loss -10 rather than -8 because U1D1 needs more room to maneuver. This is fine but only when you are betting U1D1. And you only bet that prog when you find yourself at a really good table.

That seems pretty clear cut. I don't see how an example could make it more clear cut. But, suppose you start a shoe OTB4L M3 at play 2 and the shoe starts PP BBBBBB. OK, your score at play 7 is -4 so you can afford to make a 4 bet within your stop loss but you don't. You bet 1 instead. But you win the 1 demonstrating that this shoe can produce a 6. So next time you lose a 3 you go ahead with your 4 bet as long as you can make it within your stop loss. You DON'T reduce the bet so you can afford to make it. That's a no no.

But I caution you that if 4 bets keep coming up, you need to get out of the shoe with a small win if poaaible.