I look at it this way....I read what people write and decide for myself what I think of them. If it all adds up, then it all adds up. Oftentimes though, that's not the case.

For example, if you have someone talking about different AP plays they've been on....but then later on, they're talking about dice-influencing (which in it of itself I wouldn't say makes someone non-AP). The person doesn't know what their EV is, or they may say some dumb shit about how they martingale their bets or press, or talk about karma or the vibe of the table, or some other nonsense. At that point, you can tell the person is full of shit in one way or another, because an actual AP wouldn't be doing dumb shit like that. And, of course, this guy has no concept of EV, variance, etc. and can't name any stats about his game.

Compare that to the guy who may also claim to be a dice-influencer, but he can say "Over XXX in-casino rolls, these are the probabilities for each dice roll (2, 3, 4...12). The bets I make are X, Y, and/or Z [depending on point]. For every 100 throws, my EV is $XYZ and my standard deviation is $ABC." Now, he may not be successful, but you can at least tell he has his shit together because he knows what's important and going about it the proper way. Obviously looking at a few posts it may be difficult to gauge, but when you can read hundreds or thousands of someone's posts, then it paints a clearer picture.

Look at Rob Stringer for example. All of his posts add up -- I mean, they're all absolutely retarded, but they're consistently retarded. He claims he was an AP and lost a million dollars. His main game was, supposedly, the triple payouts on quad 7's at the Tropicana Express in Laughlin at the $0.50, $1, and $2 denom (why the fuck would you play 50c or $1 when you can play $2?). After that he claims to have won a million bucks using his systems....yet, he can't name a single damn thing about them. Someone who had their shit together would be able to say, "There's a X% chance I have a winning session, Y% chance I have a losing session. My average session win is $Z. Etc..." among a bunch of other stuff. Plus, if you had a winning system like that, any normal person would play it for AT LEAST 6 months non-stop, make a few million, then retire...instead he makes a million over 10 years, only playing on weekends? Right.


Now look at kewlj. I don't know if he's doing the things he's saying he's doing. Maybe he's an 85 year old Russian living in Siberia or some shit and it's all completely made up. I've never played near him nor met him (AFAIK), and I have no way to verify he's playing the way he's playing. But, everything he says actually adds up. The swings he talks about are real. He's not claiming a million dollar a year profit. He's not saying he plays with nearly no variance, some crazy 5% edge on card counting, some bull-shit 17-level-side-count system, or whatever the hell some of the idiots on BJTF (like Tthree and ZMF) pretend they're doing, or anything else that's wonky. Based on my experience and talking to other card counters, kewlj's "story" adds up in my book.

Moses on the other hand, is an unhinged lunatic who pretends he can play with little or no variance, supposedly. He "attacks" someone for losing ~$30k in a week or however long that period was, showing he really doesn't know what he's talking about. It's like talking to someone who doesn't know anything about AP -- maybe my parents ask how my trip was, I say I was up a few thousand at the start, started losing, and ended down about $5k....and they're like "OMG that's terrible! Why didn't you just quit when you were up TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS??? Wow that's just crazy you'd keep gambling after being up so much, wow, so dumb to do that!" But my parents aren't APs and they don't pretend to be APs, and over the last several years, they've finally figured out "it's not a guarantee....and if you have an advantage, may as well keep playing, whether you're up or down".

I actually know an AP who was like that (was on a BJ team with him). At the start, everything seemed kinda normal. But a few months later on, all he wanted to do was "book a win" and also use "stop loss limits" on some stuff. Unfortunately he was the manager of the team, but once he started getting his crazy ideas going....people were like, no -- this is fucking retarded (and it was), and by golly -- the team disbanded. Anyone I've talked to since basically has the same thoughts. I wonder how his 4'th BJ team is going?