{"id":121722,"date":"2021-07-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/?p=121722"},"modified":"2021-11-07T17:08:04","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T01:08:04","slug":"colin-jones-s1-e5-dark-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/gambling-with-an-edge\/colin-jones-s1-e5-dark-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Jones (S1 E5): Dark Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As early as page 11 of The 21st<\/sup>-Century Card\nCounter<\/em>, Colin Jones mentions the monolithic truth of the universe: \u201cthe\nteam\u2019s performance was consistently lower than the math predicted.\u201d Such has\nbeen the experience of every team in the history of AP, and every solo card\ncounter, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When teams look at their spreadsheets and see the stark gap between AV (Actual Value) and EV (Expected Value), they have a puzzled look like this is some great mystery. The only mystery is why rookie teams ignore the answer that I\u2019m about to explain for the nth time. [PRO TIP FTW: use “nth” the next time you play Hangman.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are four answers given for \u201cunderperformance.\u201d The first\nis the scapegoat given by APs in denial (usually the first three years of a\ncareer, and extending to an entire career for the degen-cum-fake-AP): variance.\nI would like to make a word cloud of the online posts made by rookies, and\ncompare it to the word cloud of successful veterans. In the rookie\u2019s word\ncloud: \u201cEV\u201d, \u201cone spot or two\u201d, \u201cside count\u201d, \u201ccheating\u201d, \u201coptimal bet ramp\u201d, \u201c6:5\u201d,\n\u201cside bet\u201d, \u201cVARIANCE\u201d, \u201c3 s.d.\u201d, \u201cfacial recognition\u201d. In the veteran\u2019s word\ncloud: \u201cexposure\u201d, \u201cBP\u201d, \u201cchip inventory\u201d, \u201cCTR\u201d, \u201cphone call\u201d, \u201c6:5\u201d, \u201cverbals\u201d,\n\u201cNERSESIAN\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By aggregating the performance of many players, teams like CJ\u2019s\ncan get a big enough sample size to see that underperformance isn\u2019t just bad\nluck. The AV line on the graph is consistently below the EV line, and the gap\njust widens. I have an announcement, my readers: The time has come \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IT\u2019S TIME TO REJECT THE NULL! The \u201cunlucky\u201d players have an implicit null hypothesis (\u201cthe null\u201d) that their hourly EV is a certain amount, say, $100\/hour. When \u201cbad luck\u201d inevitably occurs (of course, they call this \u201cnegative variance\u201d), they calculate and re-calculate and re-calculate the EV of different scenarios and game conditions to answer the question \u201cHow unlucky was I?\u201d At this point I can\u2019t say they are mis-using software, because the software serves its purpose if the AP now draws the right conclusion from what the software is saying. The software says, \u201cIf your null hypothesis is true\u2014meaning you really are playing a $100\/hour game\u2014then you have apparently suffered a -3 s.d. event. You are 3 standard deviations below EV.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this moment, a data scientist with no ego in the game would say, \u201cHmm, I doubt that I happen to have observed a -3 s.d. event. More likely, my null hypothesis isn\u2019t true.\u201d The in-denial \u201cAP\u201d says, \u201cI\u2019m the unluckiest player who ever played this game. You guys have no idea what it\u2019s like to be this unlucky. The software won\u2019t tell me whether I was born unlucky or whether it\u2019s something I contracted by being around all these losers in the casino.\u201d Will it take a 4-s.d. event for these APs to reject the null? For most purposes, scientists reject the null at 3 s.d. (or 5 s.d. for some applications where life-and-death might be in play), and they look for a hypothesis that better explains the data, such as: \u201cMy EV is $50\/hour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you cut the EV in half, suddenly the graph looks\nperfect! Voila! Mystery solved! TML.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So our question evolves from \u201cWhy is our AV so far below EV?\u201d\nto \u201cWhy is our real-world EV so far below the on-paper\/computer EV?\u201d This question\nis also not a mystery. I promised four sources of underperformance, and we\ndispatched the first\u2014variance\u2014as bogus. But the next three are real, though\ngenerally unseen (hence \u201cdark matter\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A real issue facing every team is skimming. Its many forms\nare rampant in the AP community. I know you may not believe that, and I didn\u2019t\neither, but when your data sample grows as big as mine, you, too, will accept\nskimming as an inconvenient truth. (The response, \u201cThat\u2019s why I play solo,\u201d is an\noverreaction taken mainly by rationalizing, arrogant, social misfits.) I\u2019ll\nhave much more to say about skimming in later posts, but as far as CJ\u2019s book, I\nwish CJ had a chapter about it. Not only do I have a voyeuristic curiosity, but\nit might benefit all of us to see how a sophisticated AP team deals with the problem.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, I understand that CJ wouldn\u2019t want to inflame\ntensions within the AP community (we all know each other here) by publicly\nouting ex-teammates who are suspected of skimming. Every author has a vision of\nwhat the book should be. If the author\u2019s vision is \u201cuplifting, inspiring docudrama\u201d\n(is that what the Bible is supposed to be?), then we can forgive the omission\nof dirty laundry. (But maybe a paragraph or two in the next edition discussing\nskimming in the abstract? Just throwin\u2019 that out there.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, spanning all AP teams, maybe skimming accounts for 10% of real-world underperformance, maybe none if you have a solid crew, maybe more if you\u2019re the West Coast Grinders (who knows? No one talks about WCG.) Let\u2019s get to the bigger causes of underperformance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many card counters obsess over bet spreads, finding\nfavorable rules, and playing with cover. And those are all worthwhile. But very\nfew card counters I\u2019ve met consider the massive impact of rounds per hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I should have put quotation marks around that last\nparagraph. It\u2019s from p. 124 of CJ\u2019s book, but he nailed it so hard there, that\nI thought plagiarizing it was the move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

APs run sims assuming 100 rounds\/hour for blackjack, and perhaps\n50 rounds\/hour for carnival games. Where did those numbers come from? They make\nthe arithmetic simpler. That\u2019s like saying, \u201clet\u2019s just use 3 for the value of\npi, because it makes the arithmetic simpler. Actually, the value 2 is easier\nstill.\u201d But those benchmark figures could be way off for the game at hand. For\ncarnival games, sometimes only 20 rounds\/hour is realistic, with sustained 50-60\nrounds per hour possible only under the juiciest conditions\u2014a heads-up game\nwhere the dealer is maxing out the machine (the hand is over and the dealer has\nto wait for the machine to finish shuffling the other deck), with no fills,\ncard changes, or repeated buy-ins from losing. For recurring targets, I like to\ncount the number of hands in an hour, and use that to inform game selection on\nfuture trips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CJ spent the time to do an experiment tallying blackjack\ngame speed under different conditions. The results appear in a chart on page 129\nin the section \u201cThe Most Overlooked Way to Increase EV as a Card Counter.\u201d\nSpeed is so important that a spotter in a high-edge game might forgo a marginal\nsplit if the extra time (dealers can be very slow to re-arrange all the cards\nand bets on a cramped layout) would sacrifice another round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the underperformance is 10% skim and 40% speed, but what\nabout the other 50%? I\u2019ve got bad news for you. Your game needs work, kid. Oh,\nyou\u2019re in the Blackjack Hall of Fame already? Yeah, well, your game needs work,\nold man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s possible that I\u2019ve seen more APs on a table than\nanyone, because every time I play there\u2019s another AP at the table! From\nobserving my own teammates over the years, including numerous Hall of Famers, I\nknow how common errors are. Errors are rampant. I\u2019d estimate that a rookie\nmakes some mistake every five minutes, and simple failure of the Raindrop Test\nwould mean a mistake on every hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On page 15, CJ notes: \u201cWhen we re-tested the entire team, more than half the players couldn\u2019t pass the test they\u2019d previously aced.\u201d And that\u2019s on top of the fact that in the wild, there are many ways to screw up that the at-home test won\u2019t pick up. When there\u2019s actual money on the line, a grumpy suit sweating blood, a toke-hustling dealer, and a vigilante \u201cwe-don\u2019t-touch-soft-18-or-split-Tens\u201d degen lynch mob, does the counter make the EV-maximizing move?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 3-s.d. guys online would say they aren\u2019t making\nmistakes, and sometimes even say that they had a friend check them out. That\u2019s\nall nonsense, of course. There\u2019s a big difference between a test that someone\nprepares for, and a pop-quiz. I do pop quizzes. I sneak up on my teammates and\nwatch them from behind. I count down the card counters who sit at my table. I play\nwhile other players at the table are trying to HC. I\u2019ve even been at a table\nplaying my game while two card counters (who were wonging out of negatives),\noblivious to who I am, were standing behind me discussing the book Beyond\nCounting<\/em> (a very amusing conversation!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can guarantee that every AP out there is making mistakes\nthey\u2019re not even aware of. We could start with strategy. Does an AP really know\nthe strategy for the game at hand? I recently developed some practice software\nfor my crew, for the very games that we play every day. Without extensive\npractice on the software, none of us could get a perfect test of merely 33\nhands. And I\u2019m quite confident that anyone who doesn\u2019t have access to such software\nwould be a disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a HC player, we could talk about the weak information. I\u2019ve\nranted about Paint blindness for years, but when put to the test, everyone is\nhorrible. A few teammates of mine did better than the average for attendees of\nthe Blackjack Ball, but they\u2019re nowhere close to computer-optimal, and they don\u2019t\neven know their Paint charts. (I worked hard to make those charts!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even for a simple move like counting cards, there are all\nkinds of possible mistakes, and CJ could talk about it better than I can. I\nwish his book would go into detail on HOW the players failed the test. I\u2019m sure\nthat misremembering an index is a common mistake. Dropping the count is a\nreal-world mistake no one admits to. Then there\u2019s chickening out. It goes like\nthis: There are two tables. The card counter plops down at the first one he\nsees, because it\u2019s a new shoe ready to deal. That\u2019s a mistake right there,\nbecause the table offers 65-70% pen, while the dealer two tables down offers\n75-80% pen, and the sims assume a game-selection standard of 75%. Real-world EV\nhas already taken a hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then it turns out that the dealer is semi-sharp, or at least\nmakes toke-hustling comments when a bunch of small cards come out. So now the\ncounter is afraid to jump his bet from $5 to 2 x $150 (you simmed 1:2×30,\nright?). So he jumps his bet from $5 to 2x$65 (with the classic rookie badge\u2014red\non top of the green!), makes a futile comment about having to change it up (you\nwon the last hand, bozo). Then the dealer makes a snarky comment, at which\npoint the player tosses him a nickel. Now you have an extortionist on the\npayroll. Sure, you\u2019re not making any mistakes at all, kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, we can hear the rookie\u2019s\nexcuse for parking where he played, the excuse for trying to cash out $3400 (shocked\nthat that would trigger any trouble), the reason for using a player\u2019s card (the\n\u201cfree\u201d buffet!). So, we are to believe that in EVERY aspect where we can audit\nthe decision-making, we see mistakes, but that in every aspect that we are\nunable to audit (the actual counting, betting, and hand-playing at the table),\nthe execution is flawless? That\u2019s just untenable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And sometimes we ARE able to audit those other areas. I’ve seen counters making their bets and playing their hands. They\u2019re betting Lucky Ladies too soon. They\u2019re playing too far into negatives. They\u2019re too slow. (When an apathetic dealer is on auto-pilot, there\u2019s no reason to hem-and-haw on an index play. That doesn\u2019t make you look like a gambler; rather, it just wastes time and draws more attention to the deviation. Your default should be: swift, silent.) They\u2019re over-acting. They\u2019re over-tipping. They\u2019re dropping the count after a big multi-way split and double. They\u2019re physically turning their head to see the discard rack. They\u2019re ignoring the phone call. They\u2019re giving ID for no reason. They\u2019re getting age-checked by going to the more dangerous checkpoint. They\u2019re playing in front of the wrong boss. They\u2019re not picking the best table. They\u2019re not picking the best casino. They\u2019re not fully utilizing free online resources. They\u2019re not driving a car that can go up hills (we didn\u2019t think to put that one on the list, but here we are: 2020 was an eye opener! That one\u2019s for you, John Smith!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t believe me, start auditing. You can tally\nresults to check skimming, count hands to check game speed, and monitor game\nexecution to check skills. I\u2019d enjoy fine-tuning the 10%\/40%\/50% breakdown with\nsomeone with additional data, like CJ, but I think we\u2019re on the same page. We have\nthe explanations for underperformance. All that talk about God working in\nmysterious ways? Fake news.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As early as page 11 of The 21st-Century Card Counter, Colin Jones mentions the monolithic truth of the universe: \u201cthe team\u2019s performance was consistently lower than the math predicted.\u201d Such has been the experience of every team in the history of AP, and every solo card counter, too. When teams look at their spreadsheets and […]<\/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":[1979,2054,2049],"yoast_head":"\nColin Jones (S1 E5): Dark Matter - 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-e5-dark-matter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Colin Jones (S1 E5): Dark Matter - Gambling With An Edge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As early as page 11 of The 21st-Century Card Counter, Colin Jones mentions the monolithic truth of the universe: \u201cthe team\u2019s performance was consistently lower than the math predicted.\u201d Such has been the experience of every team in the history of AP, and every solo card counter, too. 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