BlackJack Negative EV Question

squiffy · #1 12-15-2003, 05:00 PM

I know, I know. This question is poorly defined. But if you're so smart, please help me define it.

I know BlackJack is typically slightly negative EV. So I suppose the simple answer is, unless you can count cards effectively or unless you start with a sizable bonus, you should not play even a single hand.

But here is my question. Typically, when I play online BlackJack, my bankroll will cycle up and down, it seems like several times.

I presume this curve would be some type of modified sine curve.

I presume this curve would go above my starting bankroll and below my starting bankroll multiple times.

I have several questions. First, is there some way to define a typical curve of bankroll versus time? Second, will the number of times I go above breakeven vary depending on the size of the starting bankroll? Third, is there a typical expected short-term profit?

In other words. If I start with $1000 or $10,000 or $1 million dollars. I know I should not play 50 million hands of blackjack because I will tend to lose money.

But can I say with a sufficient degree of certainty that over the first 10,000 hands, I have say 95% probability of having a 20 bet profit, assuming I have a large enough bankroll to avoid going bust?

I guess my question is Even though BlackJack is a negative EV game as the number of hands played tends toward infinity, can you say that it is profitable to take a $1 million dollar bankroll and play 10,000 hands at $500 a bet because there is a 99% chance that at 100 points during that time you will be ahead by 20 bets????

And if the numbers I chose at random don't work, is there some bankroll size and bet size that are optimal and would give you a 90% chance of making a very small profit of a few hundred dollars?

I hope this makes sense. I guess the question is, can a game be long-term negative EV, yet short-term positive EV if you are willing to quit with a small profit and never play again as long as you live?

If so, what is the optimal number of hands, what is the optimal profit, what is the optimal bankroll?

I suspect that I just don't understand what EV really is.

Bozeman · #2 12-15-2003, 05:57 PM

Nope. Past history has no bearing on future events (in BJ). The curve only seems to have predictable structure. You lose money on every bet made with -EV. With "money management" schemes you can have a very large probability on finishing up, but a small prob of finishing way, way down.

Craig

squiffy · #3 12-15-2003, 06:18 PM

Oh, Pish-Posh and Hum-Bug. Guess I am doomed to sit around bored at the Chukchansi casino unless I can figure out a cheap way to access the internet from the hotel phoneline, so that I can play online poker from the casino hotel. Maybe I will try DavidRoss's suggesstion about accessing it through his cellphone.

I wish I could find something else for my dad to do besides playing slots. It's painful to watch him and all the rest play these negative EV games.

Mano · #4 12-16-2003, 04:19 AM

Perhaps you could get him into video poker. Much better EV wise for typical player, and I believe there are even some machines with a +EV if you play perfect strategy.

Webster · #5 12-16-2003, 08:19 AM

I have a nifty excel spread sheet for Bonus Whoring in Blackjack that will tell you the Standard Deviation 67% of the time and 95% of the time along with so other things ($$ per hour and so forth).

SD for Blackjack is 1.1

Give me a hollor. grinder2@charter.net

Cyrus · #6 12-17-2003, 02:59 PM

"Past history has no bearing on future events (in BJ)."

OK, you know that this is not true when we are keeping track of the cards that have already been dealt. In such a case, "future events" are not independent of "past events".

But even when strictly playing Basic Strategy, an inverse correlation between the previous round's result and the current round's win probability had been (famously) identified by Peter Griffin. The effect in single-deck is miniscule as it is and drops even further in multideckers. In practical terms, it's not exploitable.

--Cyrus

Ed Miller · #7 12-20-2003, 03:22 AM

Perhaps you could get him into video poker. Much better EV wise for typical player, and I believe there are even some machines with a +EV if you play perfect strategy.

Chance that you will stumble across a video poker machine that will afford you a positive expectation at Chukchansi Indian casino?

0.000% ± 0.0000%

I would be very surprised if you could find such a beast at any Indian casino. Having said that, I would (and already have in a previous thread) recommend video poker for your father as well.

bernie · #8 12-29-2003, 02:45 PM

live BJ is highly beatable. rules depending. the odds change per card coming out that you see.

online BJ i dont believe is beatable longrunwise at all. no way in hell.

learn standard deviation in regards to basic strategy for your best answer

b

bernie · #9 12-29-2003, 02:48 PM

there are some video poker machines, with certain payouts, that are +EV. s. wong did a nice study on them. they are however, very tough to find and dont last long when they are available.

b

Ed Miller · #10 12-29-2003, 04:53 PM

there are some video poker machines, with certain payouts, that are +EV. s. wong did a nice study on them. they are however, very tough to find and dont last long when they are available.

There are quarters machines all over Vegas that payback up to 101% and sometimes more. But no Indian casino in their right mind would stock such machines. They have a captive audience; why offer such a generous payscale?