When I used to jump my bet all the way to table max, and for whatever reason it always worked for me (which is what led to the ban), I mean seriously I wasn't losing a single table max bet, was that I would BOTH look for a positive (true) count and I would wait until I had both a great count in my favor AND a sequence when say 11 cards or so had just passed without a single face card / ten or ace, AND I was sitting on first base. This would be playing at a table with say three players on it. I'd feel then that a "million tens" were coming and I had a good chance of catching one on first base as the first card out, with a good chance of catching another one too, or even an ace.
What was weird is that sometimes when I did this I'd catch an eleven in which case I'd double down immediately of course, and then invariably catch that ten. Weird in that - where did the little cards adding to eleven even come from? given the count and flow?
I can't tell you how upset the house would get when I kept doubling down at table max and winning. The dealers loved it, but some of the pit bosses were aghast. I recall one time I stepped in to Harrah's Tahoe and clocked them for fifty grand just like that, at a ten thousand dollar max table, with as I recall at least one of the hands being double down with $10K. As soon as I was up fifty I just left, and it took so little time too.
As far as what is probably happening to ZenKing when he keeps losing, is that he ends up with a hard twelve through sixteen or some such with a million tens coming, the dealer gets the ten on top, and ZenKing busts, or he stands pat with a crappy hand since he reasons that the count is too positive, and loses to a twenty. Yes when the count is in your favor you are the one who is supposed to get the good cards, but sometimes it is the dealer who gets them. That counting edge doesn't assure a victory. But for me, the combination of a great count in my favor plus having just seen no paint no tens no aces in an entire deal makes me feel pretty confident. This watching for a sequence with no tens no faces no aces on top of a great count is what I call watching "the flow of the cards."
Still, the fact of the matter is, if you are getting twelves and thirteens all night doesn't matter what the count is, you will lose, and this may be what is happening a lot to the unlucky Mr. ZenKing.