Systems Archive 3
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Best system...
Posted by Brh on 10 September 1999, at 8:34 a.m., in response to 6 decks, posted by Novice on 8 September 1999, at 11:52 p.m.
Novice,
There is no such thing as the 'Best System', its all a question of how difficult you want to make it.
If you want to only keep one count, with no side or secondary counts, then you can get increasingly small gains by using counts of higher levels. I think this definition is misleading, but generally, level is defined by the value of the greatest (whole number) integer in the system. Using this definition, Hi-Lo or Uston +/- are level-1, RPC, Zen, or Brh-0 are level-2, Wong Halves, Brh-I are level-3, except these counts still count the ten as -2. Full level-3, with the tens counted as -3 can be constructed, and can have a betting correlation as high as 99.6%, but are getting pretty hard to use.
Now the systems which are unbalanced, with a positive unbalance, can be used by running count alone. Generally these systems, such as Red-7, K-O, UBZ11, Uston SS, or running Brh-I can not perform any better than true count K-O, except perhaps in single deck, but they can usually outperfom true count Hi-Lo, although Red7 and K-O cannot do this in eight decks. Running count Red-7 or K-O are generally accepted to be the easiest counts of them all.
A true count can be calculated for all counts, whether balanced or unbalanced. For these single parameter systems, up until a few days ago, Brh-I was the best in all but single deck, where Zen has the edge. Some people have very recently shown a Brh-I/Zen type hybrid count does outperform Brh-I, but it is more difficult in my opinion to use. Of course full level-3 counts too could be constructed to do this as well, but the difficultly level increases quite a bit.
The next 'level' of difficulty is those counts which use an ace-side count for betting, and count the ace as zero in the main count. The simplest of these is Hi-OptI, a level-1 count considered now to be redundant. There are three main level-2 non-ace reckoned counts, Advanced Omega-II (AOII), Brh-II and HiOpt-II. AOII has fallen out of favour somewhat, since it has been shown that counting the '9' hurts the insurance correlation. The same problem is seen with Wong Halves. Brh-II is an unbalanced cousin to HiOptII, which has advantages, one of which is that it can be used as a very powerful running count in its own right. In true count mode, Brh-II is very close, but usually just behind HiOptII, which is a very good count indeed.
Next we have secondary counts, which are combinations of a non-ace reckoned count, plus a simple secondary count to give a traditional ace-reckoned count for betting. The three simplest combinations are AOII/Halves, BrhII/BrhI and HiOptII/RPC. Of the three BrhII/BrhI is the best, and this combination outperforms HiOptII+ace-side as well.
So as I see it there are four 'best' possibilities plus a very new fifth option. If you want to use a single parameter running count system, the best is either UBZ11 or running Brh-I, with a lean towards UBZ11 for SD or DD, and Brh-I for shoes.
If you want to use a single parameter true count system, you have either Zen in SD or Brh-I in DD or shoes. There is the new Zen/Brh-I hybrid, but its creators(who are not me) are far from having a commercial product at present.
For a non-ace reckoned count, in my opinion Uston APC is not worth the effort, and HiOptII is the best in SD and shoes. However, it is expensive, and Brh-II is so close it does not matter. The optimal betting spreads provided with Brh-II more than make up for the extremely small difference.
The fourth possiblility is a secondary count combination, which is difficult (too difficult for me and I created one), and BrhII/BrhI is the best of these.
The very new option is the new Brh-II running count system. It is the first running, non-ace reckoned counting system devised. In single deck, a simple ace subtraction, as opposed to the traditional ace-richness or poorness estimiation, is sufficient to give a system capable of outperforming full true count Zen, and even ace-adjusted AOII! In other than SD, a traditional ace-side count is required, but this can be done in such a way that only requires estimation of decks used, not remaining. There is still no division by remaining decks required, so it is still much easier than a full true count conversion. This system can even outperform full true count Halves or Brh-I in even eight decks, where usually running count systems tend to fall down. The main drawback with running Brh-II is that the indices are non-portable across decks. This means you have to memorise completly new sets of indices for one deck, two decks or six decks. While running Brh-II is very powerful, a player really has to play only one type of game, which can be inconvenient.
Cheers,
Brett.
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