Hi Hero:

I think what you're referring to is what I called "consolidation betting." See page 125 of Blackjack Essays. This technique became known in the blackjack world as "Grifter Gambit." And here's a little more information on it: https://www.blackjackinfo.com/commun...6d-shoes.6086/.

By the way, speaking of Wong, he wasn't real fond of my book since it was critical of some of his ideas.

Best wishes,
Mason

were you a full time blackjack player back when these strategies were written about?

I wish someone would write a book about these ideas. They sound amazing!

Hi Fubster:

No I was not. When During the time that most of Blackjack Essays was written I was still working for the Northrop (now Northrop Grumman) Corporation in Los Angeles.

However, I would make trips to Las Vegas to play blackjack, and after these trips I would spend some time thinking about what happened on my trips and ways to improve my play.

Best wishes,
Mason

Here's a good follow up homework problem. If The Economist has Joe Biden at 80% (I didn't make this up) to win Florida and Bookmaker has "Biden wins FL" at +138, what's your edge?

Ive always used this to determine my edge

http://www.aussportsbetting.com/tool...on-calculator/

538 has Biden at 89% as of this morning. I guess some people don't learn from their [obvious] mistakes.

Right, I was referring to the single deck example where you basically burn off more cards with a small bet ($20 each), then make a larger bet ($120) on one hand when the deck becomes rich. Although the larger bet does not appear significantly larger because you had 3 bets prior. Similar to wonging in that you get to the +EV situations quickly, but you obviously can't skip hands. So it is the next best thing.

I thought you originated this idea, perhaps I was mistaken. I was aware you had written about shuffle tracking early on, and you wrote it simple enough that I was able to understand it.

LOL

Thank you for all your help! Wow that calculator is a great resource!

I used to own a copy of Beyond Counting: Exhibit CAA by James Grosjean. This is considered the bible of blackjack advantage play and it can sell for thousands of dollars on ebay. I skimmed it and kept it around for a few years thinking I'd find it useful at some point. I eventually just sold it. No idea why it's so valuable/expensive. Disclaimer: I am not a blackjack guy.

How's the road treating you, sigs?

I came home after one month because of an explosion in COVID cases so not good. Can't go to the casino in Vegas because of COVID

It's the silent killer.

So I went to Sams Club and just bought enough food to not leave my house until next June.

Do you want to solve any sports together in the mean time while we are trapped? I'm thinking Darts. I don't know much about it but the line moves in it are crazy. It seems a lot of people are chasing hot hands

What's the snooker line movement look like?

some movement. there's a lot of dart matches tho. sometimes there's 50+ a day and multiple leagues, etc.

it's not as crazy as table tennis but up there

How much of that darts expansion is because of COVID though? Table tennis was a COVID special for sure.

i have Darts lines from ~2006 and there's less matches now than usual. A couple leagues aren't running and one did some weird at home tour where it was blurry pictures of two dart boards in I'm assuming the peoples houses and a commentator.

Darts must be sustained by in-person events at bars, etc. so they're struggling now. Might be a good idea to not invest due to the uncertainty.

Not sure what else is left to solve. Soccer is stupid. Hockey is unbeatable. Not messing with eSports. CBB is gonna be a disaster with covid so it's not worth it.

Maybe regular Tennis?

I miss the process of modeling. Nascar was fun. Started horrible and we improved and crushed. Want to feel alive like that again

Just clicking buttons and running at usual ROI is boring

Never bet on Darts but it's crazy popular in Europe.
Some of those Dart pros achieved legend status.

Sigs are Indy/MotoGP/F1 a serious endeavor for you or just something you're testing off using knowledge from Nascar? From what I've seen the limits are low and in the case of F1 a lot fewer matchups available than Nascar.

F1 has a hell of a lot less crashing than Nascar, but I guess you have guys quit because of mechanical issues more often I would suppose.

Not messing with esports because of match fixing?

Anyone have experience counting Spanish 21? Edges can be bigger but games harder to find. Sometimes less heat because pit bosses don't expect counting at Spanish 21.

spanish has alot less heat but its a bit harder to learn from what i temember bcuz there are alot more index plays. Also yeah someyimes tables will have 3-4 players making it worthless.

All of the motor sports have small limits (nascar at least has profitable dfs) but it's more of a I find these sports fun to watch so try to understand it more vs. make money.

F1 has the highest limits at least but yea limited matches and most of them are like -300 or more. Skill/car quality gap is huge there.

MotoGP/Indy is just to see if it's possible. The lines are so bad but it's because only 5D has it and BO copies it.

sigs you avoid esports because of match mixing or...? I used to bet csgo just based on knowledge of the players and teams, lines were so bad you didn't need much else. This was back when ESEA was still the main league and you could bet random ESEA matches. Oh god there must've been so much match fixing. Research consisted of looking up unknown players' pug and league ADR and that was it.

$100 limit on BM, but a healthy amount of PPH. Sign me up, let's go.

If you have historical darts lines, this could be relevant