PLAYTECH BJ

[Westland Bowl]

Surely the point is it would work even if you were trying to prove it didn't? If it works, that is

The Cipher software is not an automatic, stand-alone, you-make-the-decision-for-me type of thing. It just helps you to see what your outcomes have been so far, the chi factors of various cards, your profit or loss so far in the session. It has built-in basic strategy that highlights for you what basic strategy suggests for your hand. You can override it at your discretion. It helps visually your game. Patterns develop and you can see it as it happens. Not all the time though. It requires your own ability to "read" what is happening. So attitude is important here.

Anyway, somebody else brought up the subject of Cipher and I'm not wanting to answer anymore questions or comments about it. I already mentioned two websites in earlier posts in this thread and provided three, uh, what is called "scrolls" of my recent sessions provided by the Cipher software. Readers, you'll just have to decide for yourself if it is for you.

[GrandMaster]

Surely the point is it would work even if you were trying to prove it didn't? If it works, that is

This must be my problem. I don't believe in betting systems and they don't work for me.

[Slotmachine]

You can download it free at www.thegamblingedge.com

Fair enough.

Cheers,
SM

[freakin]

Mitch, whether you believe me or not, I really couldn't care, for I know how I play BJ online after years of playing it the "correct" way and losing my a** off.

I finally understood that "online" BJ is nothing and nowhere the same as B&M (brick and mortar) BJ. Once I stopped playing right ...I started stretching my money a whole lot longer in play..and IMHO, whether you choose to believe or not...playing "wrong" will pay off a lot more than playing right on online BJ.

Do some practice runs for free if you care to try it out...either way, when your gut says something is fishy...then it stinks....and most BJ games online played right, stink.



Liquid soap is right on this.

I just tried this with play money and real money and lost my ass off quickly. Clearly, this can't possibly work, since I didn't make any money off of it

[Janek12]

I'm not quite sure I get what you mean. I'm making an assumption that land-based casino blackjack is random through the shuffling and being regulated and all that. So I expect and do experience more of a mixed win/lose outcome. Online is very streaky in comparison, in my view.

I have the same experience; I played BJ at Playtech quite a lot for some time but I do not do so anymore because the dealer's winning streaks really seemed excessive to me. As compared to the RNG-based BJ at Playtech, when I played live BJ at a Playtech casino, the winning and losing streaks were much shorter and I was, for example, able to make more than 200 USD from 75 USD just by using a simple combination of Fibonacci progression and D'Alembert progression (first Fibonacci; then D'Alembert), without busting the bankroll. It is true that in the live BJ, I also witnessed a streak in which the dealer did not bust for something like 15 hands; but overall I felt that the streaks were much shorter in the live BJ. Also, I have a tip - if someone is looking for a RNG-based BJ, I recommend single-deck BJ (available in MG casinos, for example); the dealer busts perceptibly more often and therefore his winning streaks are shorter.

[Janek12]

None of this makes any sense to me. Why would they program a sophisticated strategy-detecting program with such a weakness that it could be counfounded by some counter-strategy or sacrifice bets?? They could just as well program into it a feature that notices when the player is defeating the program (simply the program would notice that it's not winning) and then just toss in the odd blackjack for the dealer, or just a slightly better hand.

Anyway, you are saying that the program cheats, i.e. deals itself non-random cards when it "learns" the player's strategy. I mean, the program itself has no strategy beyond stand on 17 or whatever so it cannot alter its own strategy. Very simple.

Nobody answered the original question: What be the point of designing such complex cheating software when fair software already has a guaranteed house edge??

As for the question about why the casinos should deny winnings and such if the games are fair, it's pretty obvious: The house edge is so small that a skilled player will have an edge in a fair game if he uses bonuses, even small ones. That's why they need to exclude the advantage players from receiving winnings. (it's stupid, but then I'm all against sign-up bonuses anyway)

I don't think any of these theories make any sense whatsoever. Absolutely no offence meant ad hominem, it's just how I feel about the issue at hand.

Cheers,
SM

I would disagree with you; the reason for rigging the software is simple - for the very reason that the house edge is quite low and I think with a large BR it is possible to make the casino go into red numbers (a loss) for quite a long time; of course, casino should recover due to the law of large numbers (its house edge) but that might take a long time and who would have the nerve to wait for months (which I read happens to land-based casinos - that they go into loss for months, even if rarely), paying all the employees, etc.
I also have some more speculations on this topic:
1) I read somewhere that the casinos may not know that the software is rigged; it is better for the software provider to do this without the casinos knowing it; the less people know this, the better, of course. But it makes perfect sense for the software provider because the rigged software would make the casinos, their clients, prosperous and never even facing the threat of going out of business because of lack of money to pay winnings.
2) Also, the need to rig the games beyond the natural mathematical house edge seems to me to be more acute in the on-line casinos because these casinos offer a greater opportunity to win - by making the games faster, which means that a player can finish his progression successfully more often than (I am not speaking about beating the negative expectation consistently, of course) in a land-based casinos simply because the player has to quit after several hundred spins and go and get some sleep, while in on-line casinos it is possible to play thousands of spins in a single uninterrupted session. Some may argue it does not make a difference if the outcomes of spins are random but I would say that the statistics laws apply to sequences of spins so there is some difference between interrupted session and uninterrupted session.
3) And a general speculation: If so many things are fraudulent today; cf. Enron, etc., why would on-line casino software be an exception, if it is SO EASY to rig in, to some unconspicuous extent, in favour of the casino (and ultimately in favour of the software producer)?
But these are just general speculations, I am not accusing anyone.

[laxmanalal]

and the moral is stop gambling!!!