1. #1
    davetookit
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    Join Date: 09-29-15
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    If a Casino Allowed Card Counters and You Could Count

    And you could play perfect basic strategy according to how many decks there are and the specific rules that casino had. As well as knowing the appropriate Kelly betting stakes and having a sufficiently large enough bankroll [relative to the casino minimum] to cover any variance, what would you do? Here is the catch, after playing successfully any night you played, you would proceed to play the pokies for which you had no edge [no points / comp scheme would suffice to make each spin slightly +EV] and burn almost every last cent of profit. You would walk out no better but no worse off financially for the week [bar perhaps enough to pay for rent, a minimal set of expenses and food without digging into savings]. Technically you will be slightly "better off" because you purchased a number of grossly overpriced meals and beverages while in there as well, also you will saved on the cost of heating had you been at home instead for any of the last 48 hours. Those minor silver linings among others are BS of course in the grand scheme of things compared to the thousands incinerated / hard mental work wasted.

    Months go by, your savings are the same but the mental stress nags you knowing you could have six figures in the bank and there is nothing stopping you other than the f****** retarded self-sabotage that you know is exactly that. You even create strict protocols for yourself, step by step shit designed for an infant so that after a night of counting you cash in your chips, and walk the f### out of the casino without playing the pokies. This works some of the time, however any profit that builds up over a few weeks or months is an illusion, the next time you play the pokies, not only do you incinerate the profit for the night, you throw away the profit for all the previous nights as well and end up back at square f****** one. This has gone on for a year and a half, life is just not worth living if you hate yourself and repeatedly fire shots at your feet. The pride of being able to beat the house [not by luck / superstition but by being systematic] even if you throw it away afterwards is great at first, if anything it is worth much more than the money burned but that pride diminishes and the depression of getting to the 99 yard line 20+ times without a defender in sight then throwing the ball backwards instead of getting a touch down is horrendous mental anguish to have to deal with.

    How does a person deal with that situation / what the f### do they do?

    - For clarification, the casino is not stupid but for whatever reason [perhaps the owner once upon a time was a counter himself] does allow counters [and will continue to do so for years to come] so long as they do not take down a property in one night [F them for a few million] or blatantly declare themself a counter / count aloud. Anybody that plays there more than twice a week that is not a loser or at best a wannabe counter will get blacklisted of course.
    - The question is pretty stupid if a person can just stop playing the pokies, obviously they are more than a half full packet of crisps to be able to count cards in practise [not just theory] and more importantly, knowing all the other important elements to successfully make a profit. Evidently they have a compulsive gambling problem or some sort of pyschotic / mental problem(s) such that they are engaging in self sabotaging behaviour they fundamentally know is -EV and have no place engaging in. Many pro poker players play the pokies surprisingly, obviously the difference is the money they waste is a drop in the bucket compared to how much they make.
    - Counting cards is the person's fulltime job. To be able to execute basic strategy perfectly, keep the count without error every time, and do that while maintaining conversation without losing concentration requires constant practise. Ok, so it is not really a fulltime job, they are a bit lazy but it takes fair chunk out of the week and the toll of working a "normal" job on top of that would be too much.
    - The person has no interest in working a wanky white collar job or getting a degree from one of the many fine paper mills. Nevertheless they could save 12,000 euro a year working in a remedial job [aka taking it up the ass] instead but would have to wake up at 6am every morning, engage in mindless work surrounded by parasitic workers who could not care less how much profit [if at all] the company makes and be willing to be a subordinate to a collective set of idiot managers. This might considered the opportunity cost, though the savings might not be worth the mental stress hence it may not be an opportunity cost at all.

  2. #2
    Optional
    Optional's Avatar Moderator
    Join Date: 06-10-10
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    Sounds like you know what you need to do Dave.

    Get past the pokie addiction or find a new 'job'.


    I was in a similar position about 30 years ago and thought I could not stop. Good news is you actually can stop sabotaging yourself and gambling every last cent you have over and again. But you have to work out how to do that yourself. Banning yourself from the casino or gambling for a year and seeing how you feel about pokies then is one way. It was hard but it worked for me. There are pokies in every bar and club where I live and once upon a time I could not go for a night out with friends without slipping off and spending the entire night playing the pokies. I can't even be bothered to play them at all and gamble remarkably sensibly now. Never would have believed I would ever feel that way at the time but my experience is the same as several others I know.

    Hitting rock bottom and being able to walk away is the hardest part. Don't stay in that trap of thinking you have no control. Thats just part of the mental excuse to let you keep sabotaging yourself.

  3. #3
    davetookit
    davetookit's Avatar Become A Pro!
    Join Date: 09-29-15
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    Another way of putting it, what would be a better ending or rational ending to Good Will Hunting? The real ending was a cop out to appeal to a larger audience [namely females] and revealing of a common personality trait among writers [love supposedly trumps logic].

    This is my life, to say Will should have continued with remedial work even if he enjoyed the manual labour is a gross waste. To put him in a cage [research at a Uni or white collar job] and force him to perform him like a circus monkey just because the overwhelming majority of society does that again is a waste even if he might get paid much more than the average person and have more prestige. Neither of those appeal to me, I just want independence, to have enough savings so when I go to the supermarket I do not think twice about what I buy especially if over 50% is fruit and vegetables. It's absurd.

    More recently, I have now in the last three months, wiped out the equivalent of 39,000 euros down to 4,500 in the space of a week. A more recent breakdown in the space of six hours, I wiped out 14,000 euros. This is the more recent cycle, I will build up approximately 25-30,000 euros over a few weeks / months and then within a crazy short amount of time proceed to blow it all until I usually drop below 6,000 [which causes huge knee jerk reaction, and all gambling ceases for a while only for the cycle to repeat]. The original post is an analogy to my situation but due to the skepticism of much of SBR it is easy to leave it at the above.

  4. #4
    msutter
    msutter's Avatar SBR PRO
    Join Date: 03-14-07
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    Those things can be very dangerous. I used to think slots (pokies) were boring as hell back in the day, but these new machines are like playing video games. They now have tons of interactive features, animations, and some go as far as having cut scenes from movies (ex. Iron Man). The past few months I've blown thousands of dollars on these stupid ass things. In the past I've saved my degening for sports betting and the occasional blackjack. Now there's a new blood sucker in the mix and it's much more -ev than the rest. I've told myself after this past weekend that I'm staying away from them for a long time, but easier said than done. I live in Illinois and video gaming is the States new found savior for increased revenue. Any place that has a liquor license is allowed to have 5 of these machines in their establishment. They're literally everywhere. So I can do my part staying away from the Casinos, but when I'm several deep out at a bar that's where it might get tough. This is a new found way of degening for me so I'm going to cut it out right away before it becomes too ingrained in my psyche. If I'm going to find a way to blow my poker profits I'd rather do it sports betting. I have more fun with it and it lasts much longer.

    My best advice for you Dave is to create a documented plan for yourself with rules/steps/goals for your blackjack profits. You need to right this shit down and keep a copy of it with you when you're out at the casino to remind yourself why you're there. It's not enough to just say you're going to the casino to count cards to make money. You need to write down finite numbers of how much money you're trying to make, how you're going to achieve that goal, and what that money will be used for once you make it. If you just generalize and don't create these steps/goals your brain will get bored with your endeavor and you'll end up blowing whatever amount of money you've accumulated on the pokies again. You need to constantly look at your plan on a daily basis or you'll lose focus.

    It's great that you've found a consistent way of making money doing something on your own terms. Now you just need to treat it like it's your own business that you're running. If you think of it in those terms you will want to protect it and stay away from things that will harm it like -ev pokies. It won't be easy, but nothing worthwhile is. Best of luck bro!
    Last edited by msutter; 09-29-15 at 09:28 AM.

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