Card-Counting Is A Waste Of Time For Real Profitting

[Alan Mendelson]

Dankyone summed it up admirably.

Now here's the thing. The original poster has been silent. No f****** kidding. How is he going to try to spin this embarrassment of misinformation on his part? That he's given us the great insight that big bankrolls are advantageous? That "big bankrolls" are an advantage play? LOL.

Rob is not totally wrong. Don Johnson only got his deals because of his big bankroll.

What we DO NOT KNOW is how much impact card counting had on his winning. Does anyone know? I saw only one reference to card counting and it was done by an "associate" playing with him.

[Alan Mendelson]

Of course he used the loss rebate. It was a “marker reduction” of 20%. After he was down a certain amount (usually $1mm but sometimes as little as $500k) he would end the trip, Pay back only 80% his loss, and start up the same play down the street.

Massive advantage play if you only pay 80% of your losses but collect 100% of your winnings. He had the same deal with 3-4 casinos in AC. It didn’t last long since he was crushing them with it.

Hold it a second. If he won at the table he would have to pay back all markers before he got any cash. I'm sure they watched him like a hawk considering his special deal.

So if he only won at the tables (and I don't know that he did) there was no marker reduction.

[redietz]

Of course he used the loss rebate. It was a “marker reduction” of 20%. After he was down a certain amount (usually $1mm but sometimes as little as $500k) he would end the trip, Pay back only 80% his loss, and start up the same play down the street.

That's not the way I read that it happened.

Johnson was quoted that he never even used the rebate.

You know, does anyone else find it strange that coach's responses in this thread sound like one might imagine an uninformed "Rob Singer" might throw out there when baffled at how wrong his information was? Evidently coach and "Rob" use the same library. They both must have "read that it happened" the same way.

[Dankyone]

Of course he didn’t always or only win, Alan. If he lost on a trip, he paid off 80% of what he owed and the markers were considered clear. Meanwhile he could start a trip at another hotel down the street, or come back next week to the same one and do it all over again.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...c-city/308900/

[redietz]

Dankyone summed it up admirably.

Now here's the thing. The original poster has been silent. No f****** kidding. How is he going to try to spin this embarrassment of misinformation on his part? That he's given us the great insight that big bankrolls are advantageous? That "big bankrolls" are an advantage play? LOL.

Rob is not totally wrong. Don Johnson only got his deals because of his big bankroll.

What we DO NOT KNOW is how much impact card counting had on his winning. Does anyone know? I saw only one reference to card counting and it was done by an "associate" playing with him.

Jesus, Mr. Mendelson, who has "consulted for casinos," informs us that large bankrolls get advantageous treatment. Maybe even free drinks! Tomorrow's intrepid headlines: "Sky is blue. Sun came up. Stay tuned."

Yes, big bankrolls are an advantage play. In sports books, a big enough bankroll can get you -105 some places. That's been going on at least 30 years. Check in tomorrow for more expert revelations. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

[redietz]

Of course he didn’t always or only win, Alan. If he lost on a trip, he paid off 80% of what he owed and the markers were considered clear. Meanwhile he could start a trip at another hotel down the street, or come back next week to the same one and do it all over again.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...c-city/308900/

Dankyone, let them do their own homework. Argentino stays silent because he f***** up. Meanwhile, coach and Mendelson chime in with weirdness. If you removed the names from the posts, one would assume Argentino was writing coach's posts. It's that bad.

[Alan Mendelson]

Then redietz you are in agreement with Rob. The big bankroll opens doors.

Thanks for stopping by.

[Dankyone]

If anyone cares to read the article, Johnson is quoted as saying “you’d never lose the million. If you got down $500,000 you’d quit and pay $400,000.

Then he would start playing elsewhere, after essentially collecting $100,000 from the marker discount.

If he won, he would just keep playing.

[coach belly]

Then he would start playing elsewhere

I recall reading Johnson quoted as saying he never used the loss rebate.

I'll try to find that quote, as I'm sure I read it online years ago.

I did skim through the Atlantic Monthly article,
and it doesn't say that he lost and used the rebate.

If it does say that, then post the quote, because I must have missed it.

What the article does say right at the top is this...

Atlantic Monthly April 2012
Don Johnson won nearly $6 million playing blackjack in one night, single-handedly decimating the monthly revenue of Atlantic City’s Tropicana casino. Not long before that, he’d taken the Borgata for $5 million and Caesars for $4 million.

If he won $6 mil in one night at the Trop, before they cut him off,
then how could have used his loss rebate for that trip?

And where did he/would he have gone "down the street" to play if he had lost at Trop,
as Caesars and Borgata were no longer taking his action under the loss rebate conditions?

There is no mention that he lost at Borgata, took the rebate and played elsewhere,
or that he lost at Caesars, took the rebate and played elsewhere.

In a 50-50 game, you’re taking basically the same risk as the house,
but if you get lucky and start out winning, you have little incentive to stop.

So when Johnson got far enough ahead in his winning sprees, he reasoned that he might as well keep playing.

According to Johnson, the Trop pulled the deal after he won a total of $5.8 million, the Borgata cut him off at $5 million, and the dealer at Caesars refused to fill the chip tray
once his earnings topped $4 million.

[18 Yos LOLZ]

LOLZ @Singer. What a fucking retard. Attempts to disparage card counters but ends up shooting himself in the foot with his total cluelessness. Priceless stuff from the full of shit greaseball. LOLZ

[Alan Mendelson]

If anyone cares to read the article, Johnson is quoted as saying “you’d never lose the million. If you got down $500,000 you’d quit and pay $400,000.

Then he would start playing elsewhere, after essentially collecting $100,000 from the marker discount.

If he won, he would just keep playing.

This is his description of his strategy. Has anyone actually seen an accounting of his play? In other words everyone here is just arguing about their guesses. This is typical of forums. I never saw a ledger or record of Johnsons play, so I don't know if he ever used a rebate or not. And does it really make a difference? The bottom line is he won a lot of money with special rules made possible because he had a big bankroll and played big.

That's what we know from the various reports.

We don't know how often he used rebates or what the bottom line value was for the rebates. We don't even know the impact card counting had.

[coach belly]

This is his description of his strategy...everyone here is just arguing about their guesses.

Correct, his strategy may have been to quit if down by $500K,
but Johnson is not quoted that he lost, used the rebate, and continue playing elsewhere.

[Alan Mendelson]

Coach by now you know that everyone on Internet forums believes they have all the facts.

[coach belly]

We don't even know the impact card counting had.

Here's another quote from the Atlantic Monthly article...

The wagering of card counters assumes a clearly recognizable pattern over time, and Johnson was being watched very carefully. The verdict: card counting was not Don Johnson’s game. He had beaten the casinos fair and square.

Here's another good one...almost sounds like he's talking about using
hot and cold streaks as part of a short-term playing strategy...

Many casinos sell laminated charts in their guest shops that reveal the optimal strategy for any situation the game presents. But these odds are calculated by simulating millions of hands, and as Johnson says, “I will never see 400 million hands.”
More useful, for his purposes, is running a smaller number of hands and paying attention to variation. The way averages work, the larger the sample, the narrower the range of variation. A session of, say, 600 hands will display wider swings, with steeper winning and losing streaks, than the standard casino charts.

[Alan Mendelson]

We don't even know the impact card counting had.

Here's another quote from the Atlantic Monthly article...

The wagering of card counters assumes a clearly recognizable pattern over time, and Johnson was being watched very carefully. The verdict: card counting was not Don Johnson’s game. He had beaten the casinos fair and square.

Copied for emphasis.

[Dankyone]

When Johnson and the Trop finally agreed, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent, by his figuring. In effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played. He had to pony up $1 million of his own money to start, but, as he would say later: “You’d never lose the million. If you got to [$500,000 in losses], you would stop and take your 20 percent discount. You’d owe them only $400,000.”

[Dankyone]

Johnson is quoted above as doing exactly what I said. In the article I just posted.

Alan, he won by exploiting loss rebates. Period.

[coach belly]

When Johnson and the Trop finally agreed, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent, by his figuring. In effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played. He had to pony up $1 million of his own money to start, but, as he would say later: “You’d never lose the million. If you got to [$500,000 in losses], you would stop and take your 20 percent discount. You’d owe them only $400,000.”

That doesn't say that he lost and used the rebate, that's what he said would happen if you lost, but that's not what did happen.

If it happened to him, then why didn't he use the first person?

He says if "you" lost, not when "I" lost.

He played one night and won $6 mil in one night...when did he lose and take the rebate?

[Mission146]

We don't know how often he used rebates or what the bottom line value was for the rebates. We don't even know the impact card counting had.

Yeah, but he didn’t, “Use his big bankroll to grind out the dry spells,” like Singer said. He used multiple advantage play techniques at once. It’s not like he just sat there, played basic strategy and tore the house down.

Point is he was +EV all the way and a ridiculously bad comparison to how Singer plays.

Now you guys are arguing he may not have used the rebate at all? Okay, if he didn’t, then there would be no, “Dry spells,” to get through (as Singer claimed) due to the substantial advantage the other AP elements had.

It’s one thing to ignore it if your boy steps in shit, but taking a big whiff and telling him the shit he stepped in smells good is something else entirely.

[Mission146]

While counting cards today to make money is mostly a myth--thanks to the software and safeguards casinos utilize that effectively combat every counter but the occasional "anonymous professional" who can basically make up any scenario they want without having to back up what they claim--doing so has never helped anyone make millions year after year. If counters were lucky, they supplemented whatever primary income they already had.

While people like Stanford Wong and his silly "Wonging" concept has had the "advantage player community" continually going gaga over everything he says and writes, he cunningly makes them look the other way as his real life's earnings has come via the same method most Americans make their living: hard work. In his case, he writes about and sells casino gaming strategies. Period. Good work Stan!

While all this has been going on, Don Johnson has simply and methodically made fools of everyone in the blackjack community by winning millions upon millions, year after year. With him, there has never been any of the nonsense people sell when he plays. He sticks to a solid understanding of the game, playing basic strategy, and most of all--he uses a healthy enough bankroll that allows him to easily get through the dry spells. In other words, he uses his head and does not waste his time trying to count cards and being undetected at the same time--something nobody can really do in the long term today.

DJ is a big name who plays big. You can see how his hefty bankroll makes him a winner in an otherwise "-EV" setting. Well, how many of you bazookas know anyone who only plays mostly -ev video poker, and who does so with a $171,600 overall bankroll....and $57,200/session....with a relatively paltry win goal of $2500? And consistently wins!

I think you're starting to get the point.

QFP