Article from NY Times about James Grosjean, Richard Munchkin, Cheung Yin Sun, and other famous APs

[Dan Druff]

It's a pretty interesting read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/ma...e-casinos.html

I'm sure Rob Singer will love it.

[RS__]

That was a great read. Thanks for sharing.

[Alan Mendelson]

Very good article. It appears some plays work while others don't. And it costs a lot to discover that.

[Bill Yung]

I think that most of this stuff is "treading water", and people trying to sell themselves and their books. Never really breaking through. Grosjean wrote of the Wizard being a great AP, etc, as was mentioned at WoV. You have to wonder, then, about Grosjean's own greatness in even the theoretical sense. True AP's have zero interest in games, books, and the like?

System players go on about their choice of game, bet selection/amount, when to come/go, etc. The so-called AP's, about becoming better. But preparation is the only thing the player can truly control. The stuff you do totally away from the "sirens" of reels and felt.

Another thing. Would people go to the casinos if they could "tread water"? The reason that people surprise me when they lose, and continue down the same path, but still call it entertainment.

[Dan Druff]

The downfall of many APs comes from a lack of bankroll or opportunity to smooth out variance.

So let's say you find a game which you an AP for a 51-49 edge on the house. Great! If you could play this all day, every day, with a deep bankroll, you would clobber it.

However, if you either lack the funds to deal with the variance, or if the casino will ban you as soon as you start to run up a nice win, your edge can actually become a liability. You have little upside to what you're doing.

Some casinos in the 1990s and early 2000s took the "below even" approach when it came to card counters and other APs.

The thinking was that APs will sometimes lose, and when they lose, they will either bust their bankroll or go "on tilt" and deviate from proper winning strategy.

Therefore, if an AP was identified but started off losing, they would let him keep playing as long as he was losing. If he starts to win again, they wait until he makes a run substantially back towards even before kicking him out. But if he starts losing again before getting there, they let him keep playing.

On the flip side, if the AP starts off ahead, they get rid of him quickly.

This put the casino in a low-risk, high-reward situations with APs, where they wouldn't allow them to win much, but would let them lose indefinitely.

[redietz]

That's a really apt description -- if you look at overall context, it gives casinos control in the sense that they (the casinos) have -- in Alan's terminology -- no win limit but a loss limit. The "open playing field" is illusory.

I have used the "open playing field is illusory line" before, but nobody knows what the hell I mean. Dan's description is succinct and clear; literally everybody can understand it. So, with Dan's permission and giving him proper credit, I will adopt it as the best way to summarize this.

The heyday of blackjack was 30 years ago. The heyday of video poker was 20 years ago. I don't see how anybody can do anything with the current scenarios. If KJ is indeed pulling this off, I'm not sure he knows how historically hard this is.

[Bill Yung]

The heyday of blackjack was 30 years ago. The heyday of video poker was 20 years ago. I don't see how anybody can do anything with the current scenarios. If KJ is indeed pulling this off, I'm not sure he knows how historically hard this is.

The heyday of gambling forums was ten years ago? Real people.

[Dankyone]

It's a pretty interesting read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/ma...e-casinos.html

I'm sure Rob Singer will love it.

Great read. Sun was on GWAE, with help from an interpreter, and she is damn savvy. Possibly one of the best Advantage Players of all time.

[MisterV]

In this article about AP, Munchkin says he knows a craps player who can control one die.

Isn't that illegal,i.e. dice sliding?

I seem to recall someone got arrested for it.

As far as edge sorting goes, why in the holy hell haven't casinos taken the simple step of insisting that all of the faces of the cards be uniform in design and manufacture, without the variations that allow edge sorting?

[kewlJ]

Isn't that illegal,i.e. dice sliding?

I seem to recall someone got arrested for it.

Didn't someone get arrested just last week? Planet Hollywood, IIRC, but they had been doing the same thing earlier in the day at Mandy Bay (I think).

[Travis McGee]

Isn't that illegal,i.e. dice sliding?

I seem to recall someone got arrested for it.

Didn't someone get arrested just last week? Planet Hollywood, IIRC, but they had been doing the same thing earlier in the day at Mandy Bay (I think).

Yes, police in Las Vegas arrested a man from Georgia (the country), he was a known dice cheat mostly from Europe.

Dan Druff, thanks for the article. I can relate as there were many losing months in over 10 years of research and develpoment.