{"id":121718,"date":"2021-06-26T04:00:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=121718"},"modified":"2021-06-28T08:04:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T15:04:10","slug":"colin-jones-s1-e3-what-is-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/colin-jones-s1-e3-what-is-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Jones (S1 E3): What is \u201cReal\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I read gambling books, I usually dog-ear pages of\ninterest. With Colin Jones\u2019s book, The 21st<\/sup>-Century Card Counter<\/em>,\nI had to change my approach. It made no sense to dog-ear every page, so I just\nstarted circling passages and writing notes in the margins. In lieu of a\ntraditional book review evaluating the book, I decided to treat the book like a\ntextbook, and go through its talking points in an N-part series. Here we go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[p. 5] \u201cThis \u2018card counting\u2019 thing haunted me. Was it real?\u201d\nThat\u2019s the question I\u2019ve faced and debated publicly for two decades. CJ\u2019s\nperspective at the time was a bit different from mine. He was wondering if you\ncould really make money, or a living, doing it. I ask the logical follow-up:\nEven if you could, why would you want to? By the end of the book, the hero CJ\nanswers his own question (yes, card-counting is \u201creal\u201d), but evolves to answer\nmy follow-up (answer: \u201cI wouldn\u2019t\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that he has been a successful test case, CJ gets\ncriticism for making card counting sound too easy. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s fair.\nHis materials say, \u201cIf you do X and Y, you will make money.\u201d The fact that most\npeople won\u2019t do X and Y is hardly his fault. Does he misrepresent the\ndifficulty level of executing X and Y? I don\u2019t think he does, at least not in\nthe book. I think X and Y aren\u2019t that challenging, but I think professional\ngambling has been mis-portrayed throughout the media at large, and therefore\nattracts a lot of weak, delusional weirdos, who have unrealistic expectations,\nand would have had a hard time succeeding in many career paths, not just AP.\nI\u2019ve said many times: If the thing that attracts you to being a professional\ngambler is easy money and being able to sleep until noon every day (which you\ncould do), then you aren\u2019t going to be successful. (At least, not by my\ndefinition of success.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of my old teammates think I\u2019m just teasing when I describe card counting as a \u201cgambling habit.\u201d Do I look like I\u2019m joking? A lot of APs look at a game and say, \u201cIt\u2019s positive.\u201d Yeah, so? Who said our threshold is zero? An investor facing an array of choices doesn\u2019t pour time and money into things just because they are positive. If you marketed your start-up company to Wall Street, offering a $10 return for every $1 million invested (positive!), you\u2019d come home with an empty hat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When facing a menu of possible investments, we start by looking at the risk-adjusted returns of each. For a long-term AP, winning takes care of itself, and the only real risk in the casino landscape is heat. Counting cards has a high heat-to-profit ratio, compared to other targets that are usually available in the same casino, sometimes at the same table. To make matters worse, the heat might affect your entire portfolio. Imagine that you\u2019re a skilled stockpicker who can beat the S&P, and there\u2019s a marginally positive penny stock that might get your entire account frozen, because the company is on the Russia sanctions list. But it exhibits short-term volatility and trades on online exchanges 24 hours per day. Only an action junkie with a ten-foot pole would touch that! [word of the day: “junkie”]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve heard people say they enjoy the mental stimulation of counting cards. All the people who link being \u201cgood at math\u201d with card counting are a bit loose in their English. Executing a card-counting system involves very little math<\/em>; rather, it involves arithmetic<\/em>. There\u2019s a difference. I don\u2019t get much mental stimulation from counting the change in my pocket, which is the same arithmetic task. (When I see the silvery George Washington, I count +25. The tiny silvery Roosevelt is +10. The brown Abe Lincoln is +1. The medium silvery Jefferson is +5. The maple leaf is a 0. When my count exceeds +212, I buy a Power Bar at the gas station.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mechanical process of counting cards is a repetitive, rote process with no creativity or problem solving at all. I actually wonder if counting cards (or playing video poker at 1000 hands\/hour) for 30+ hours per week might somehow cement some pathways in the brain so that creative thinking is retarded. Over long hours, counting is mind-numbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the boring stretches of waiting bets while the count drones on are interrupted by the occasional frenzy of big bets. For those of you who took a psychology course, does this sound familiar? We know that the strongest way to addict an animal is periodic or random reinforcement: We give the animal an exciting stimulus from time to time, not every time. You all saw the video of the pathetic rat pressing the button repeatedly, hoping to get a shot of sugar or cocaine every twentieth time, dying of starvation when the reward was permanently removed, despite the availability of sure-thing food in the adjacent bowl. Tell me how that\u2019s different from a gambler on a slot machine, or a card counter at the tables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that the card counter\u2019s game might be positive doesn\u2019t change much. The way this system offers occasional big-betting opportunities interspersed throughout periods of boredom turns the player into a card-counting junkie (the plot of French Connection III<\/em>, set at the Aviation Club in Paris), always wanting to play one more shoe, and never feeling quite satisfied no matter how many max bets he wins, or how many new ATHs he reaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Describing the process as \u201cmentally stimulating\u201d is sad. Meth heads and heroin junkies describe their drug of choice as \u201cstimulating\u201d too. I\u2019m not saying that CJ is basically a junkie-cum-drug-dealer-kingpin. The negative connotations of that don\u2019t fit here, because the addictive product\u2014counting cards\u2014is beneficial to CJ\u2019s customers, if they do it right. I know an AP who is addicted to working out, running, and generally eating healthy foods. He just can\u2019t help himself. Pathetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So go ahead and count, and make money. It\u2019s real in that sense. But don\u2019t tell me it\u2019s mentally stimulating or intellectually challenging. Just admit that it feels good to you, and it\u2019s your little gambling habit that might be hard to kick. Rehab counselors like me will tell you that the best way to kick a habit is to replace it with a healthier habit. They’ll also tell you to start with an honest admission. [Here’s mine: I like watching kung-fu movies on Netflix; I don’t claim that it’s mentally stimulating.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CJ could only kick the habit by removing himself from casinos. But what would happen if he happened to come across a \u201cglorious true 1\u201d (or a more glorious true 4). I have a feeling he can\u2019t help himself. Who remembered the word of the day?<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I read gambling books, I usually dog-ear pages of interest. With Colin Jones\u2019s book, The 21st-Century Card Counter, I had to change my approach. It made no sense to dog-ear every page, so I just started circling passages and writing notes in the margins. In lieu of a traditional book review evaluating the book, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[1979,2049],"yoast_head":"\nColin Jones (S1 E3): What is \u201cReal\u201d? - Gambling With An Edge<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/colin-jones-s1-e3-what-is-real\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Colin Jones (S1 E3): What is \u201cReal\u201d? - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I read gambling books, I usually dog-ear pages of interest. With Colin Jones\u2019s book, The 21st-Century Card Counter, I had to change my approach. It made no sense to dog-ear every page, so I just started circling passages and writing notes in the margins. 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