Signal 8: 14 points in a row that alternate direction

Bouncing results is an indication of an alternating strategy, say from a progression to tracking, or some type of over correction.

You will definitely need to talk with the player to find out what strategy he is using or what conditions he is experiencing in order to pinpoint the cause.

Signal 9: 15 points in a row within plus or minus Sigma 1

Signal pattern 9 tends to indicate a player who is afraid to lose. He is severely under-betting and failing to put the money in the betting square during the high true counts.

Often a player will be paranoid about betting high because of suspected heat. As a result he bets less than he should.

It is imperative that this behavior be corrected, otherwise the team results will ultimately suffer.

Let's take a second look at Player A’s results of Figure 12.6. Notice the long string of sessions from Session 8 through to Session 27, where the results are all within plus or minus one Sigma.

It looks to me like Player A had a big win in Session 7. Thereafter, it appears like he is taking no chances of losing what he has won.

Finally in Session 28, it looks like he takes the plunge and loses. Perhaps the team manager had spoken with him or he was just trying to keep his winnings to get a bigger payout when the team bank was split, but for whatever reason, he decides to try his luck again.

This is clearly seen because the variance increases. For example, a couple of sessions later he wins $2,000 and then loses it all back in a later session.

Shortly thereafter, it looks like he quits the team. My guess is that he couldn’t psychologically handle the large normal variation that is just part of the game.

I saw another example of compression in Rick Blaine’s Blackjack Blueprint book. Rick had written a section on monitoring performance. On page 40, he provides a record for 2 players and on page 39 explains that “Player 2 appears to have tightened up on his play.”

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger