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#1
08-07-2005, 11:08 PM
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I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
A few days ago a guy posted, saying that he was up a bit of cash in BJ, and would like to know if he should reduce bet size in order to cash out a win (he was close to clearing a bonus)...
Now, if a guy asked this in the poker forums, he'd be lauged all the way home. They'd tell him that it's all just one big game. So... is there any real reason that one would adjust their play in blackjack while clearing a bonus? Is there something that I'm not understanding here? --Dave. 
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#2
08-07-2005, 11:27 PM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
Risk of ruin and bankroll size.
If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus? Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV...
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#3
08-08-2005, 12:22 AM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
[ QUOTE ]
Risk of ruin and bankroll size. If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus? Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV... [/ QUOTE ] I think you're misunderstanding the question. He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway.
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#4
08-08-2005, 12:27 AM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Risk of ruin and bankroll size. If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus? Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV... [/ QUOTE ] I think you're misunderstanding the question. He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway. [/ QUOTE ] Thanks, bud. That IS what I'm getting at, and I've outlined the reason I think it's silly in my response to the first guy. However, is what I'm saying right? Like, it looks really weird to me to reduce the wager, but I could be wrong (I don't know a ton about BJ and the bonus agreement structures).
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#5
08-08-2005, 12:29 AM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Risk of ruin and bankroll size. If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus? Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV... [/ QUOTE ] I think you're misunderstanding the question. He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway. [/ QUOTE ] Thanks, bud. That IS what I'm getting at, and I've outlined the reason I think it's silly in my response to the first guy. However, is what I'm saying right? Like, it looks really weird to me to reduce the wager, but I could be wrong (I don't know a ton about BJ and the bonus agreement structures). [/ QUOTE ] No, you're right. There's no reason to reduce your betsize to lock in a profit.
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#6
08-08-2005, 02:02 AM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Risk of ruin and bankroll size. If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus? Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV... [/ QUOTE ] I think you're misunderstanding the question. He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway. [/ QUOTE ] Thanks, bud. That IS what I'm getting at, and I've outlined the reason I think it's silly in my response to the first guy. However, is what I'm saying right? Like, it looks really weird to me to reduce the wager, but I could be wrong (I don't know a ton about BJ and the bonus agreement structures). [/ QUOTE ] No, you're right. There's no reason to reduce your betsize to lock in a profit. [/ QUOTE ] Specifically, what I was thinking was that it didn't make a difference to your EV over the course of the bonus but that it significantly impacted your hourly EV (negatively).
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#7
10-01-2005, 07:45 AM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
Homer:
[ QUOTE ] No, you're right. There's no reason to reduce your betsize to lock in a profit. [/ QUOTE ] Hmm... how about stopping playing a bonus before completing the WR because your balance is at exactly your deposit? I.E. You lose your bonus but get your deposit back? This seems to me to have two flaws: 1) You get labelled a whore 2) You wouldn't be realistically able to increase your bet size much. I mean, let's say that you wanted to clear a $100 bonus with $25 bets at a 20x WR... your chances would be pretty high of busting before hitting the 80 hands, right? I guess the counter to this is that if you kept hopping from bonus to bonus, it would effectively be just one big bonus, but I still don't understand all the hopping. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] --Dave.
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#8
08-08-2005, 03:07 PM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Risk of ruin and bankroll size. If you had a $1000 bankroll, think it would be a good idea to play with $500 bet size to clear a BJ bonus? Same can be said for poker. Would you put your entire bankroll on 88 vs your opponent's AK? It is +$EV... [/ QUOTE ] I think you're misunderstanding the question. He's asking if it's silly to reduce your bet size if you find yourself way up on a bonus. For example, say you're clearing a 100/100/4000 with a betsize of $5 and find yourself $200 up halfway through the WR. Should you reduce your bet size to lock in your winnings? No, but a lot of people do it for some reason. If someone suggested dropping down in limits in poker to lock in a win while clearing a bonus, they'd be laughed at. There really is no difference, though. I think that's what the OP was getting at, anyway. [/ QUOTE ] My impression was that a smaller bet size will decrease variance, so you have a better chance at staying close to the number you're at (so if you're up you have a better shot at staying up). You've swung up, now you reduce the chance that you will swing down. Wrong? I wouldn't do this in poker if I considered the level I was at to be beatble by me (+ev); on the other hand, bj is -ev.
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#9
08-08-2005, 05:54 PM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
[ QUOTE ]
My impression was that a smaller bet size will decrease variance, so you have a better chance at staying close to the number you're at (so if you're up you have a better shot at staying up). You've swung up, now you reduce the chance that you will swing down. Wrong? [/ QUOTE ] Correct, but irrelevant. If you have to make $500 more in bets to clear the bonus, then you have to make $500 more in bets. Your -EV on those $500 in bets is the same whether you bet $1 or $10 at a time. It's time that matters. A smaller bet takes more time to clear bonus, and your hourly rate is bonus divided by hours. As long as there is little risk of bankrupting, you should not reduce your profit rate! Your variance down is reduced with smaller bets, and so is your variance up -- but the combination of them does not affect your profit, so long as you are not at risk of losing the bankroll. The profit is the bonus. The variance will balance out; the bonus does not. Think of this: let's say you go in betting $10 against a bankroll of $200. You're wildly ahead, say $400; bankroll is now $600. Should you reduce the bet size to $5 to protect your win? If you're so concerned about protectin $400 extra dollars, why were you not concerned about protecting the first $200? After all, the risk of that first $200 getting crushed by the $10 bet was FAR greater. But let's say you clear the bonus, and have $700 now. You deposit at the next site, and have another $100 of bonus to clear, but your total bankroll is now $700. Are you still going to bet $5? By your logic, you can not move up to $10. After all, you still have all those winnings to "protect." In fact, by the "protect the win" logic, you can never, ever increase your bets. The logic is correct within context of the game itself, which is a loser -- you SHOULD reduce your bets to $0.00. The profit is in the bonus. You must apply your logic to the bonus. If you are very averse to the risk, you can figure out the minimum hourly rate you will accept to play for the bonus. Pick a dollar bet size that will clear your bonus fast enough to make that rate, and no more than that. If you come up with a small enough bet size, you can make more money per hour with less risk by working at McDonald's, and you'll get free fries, to boot.
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#10
08-08-2005, 06:16 PM
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Re: I\'m confused about blackjack bonuses
[ QUOTE ]
If you are very averse to the risk, you can figure out the minimum hourly rate you will accept to play for the bonus. Pick a dollar bet size that will clear your bonus fast enough to make that rate, and no more than that. [/ QUOTE ] I think this is pretty much the way to go, then you can see if your roll supports that, given the expected risk of ruin, and see if you want to play. If the risk of ruin is super-low, and you're willing to accept more risk, then you can run the calculation again at a higher hourly rate. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [ QUOTE ] If you come up with a small enough bet size, you can make more money per hour with less risk by working at McDonald's, and you'll get free fries, to boot. [/ QUOTE ] Been there, done that (Wendy's). Not going to do it again. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] --Dave.
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