Sunday, October 12, 2008

Paperless Modified Labouchere in 3D



I've been working on a way to keep track of my bet progressions by chip stacking instead of maintaining a paper-trail. This might not be very helpful in roulette and baccarat where scorekeeping is routine. But, my goal is to apply this to Blackjack where scorekeeping is not allowed (and where creative chip stacking seems to make the pit staff nervous).

I am going to present my method in several parts (only because I do not want each particular post to be too long and I may need to write at several different times). Again, this post is really about a manageable way to monitor the progress of your labouchere line(s) without using paper.

The First Component - The Modified Labouchere

Because I am setting out to keep track of a labouchere line without pen and paper, I chose to begin with a very simple modified labouchere which comes from Marten Jensen's book "Secrets of Winning Roulette."

This MM system has you winning 1 unit on any first bet after the successful cancallation of any line. Although I find it a very appealling and very conservative method, it will not appeal to those who'd rather not bet 6 or 8 units in order to get back to zero after having lost only 1 unit.Jenson sets forth his modified labouchere on page 155. No doubt my attempts to explain his system here will be less effective than studying his text on your own (which I obviously recomend). Nevertheless, the key to the "modified" labouchere is that the line begins with no numbers. You place a bet of 1 unit and if you win, you place that bet again and again. If you lose, your next bet would be the first number in your line and a win there would cancel the line and end the series. So, after your first loss of a 1-unit bet, your would then place a bet of 1 unit to recover. A second loss would be the 1st loss in your line and you would place your next bet at 2 units (then 3, 4, 5, etc.). As with any labouchere, a win cancels the last 2 numbers in your line. Unlike other laboucheres, when you cancel Jensen's "modified labouchere" you have no gain (nor loss) for the series. Your net wins are only from the "first" bet wins after a series, which is NOT a number in your line. Perhaps I can elaborate on this if there are any questions. I assure you it all makes good sense in the Book.

The Second Component is the Segregation of your chips.

I propose segregating your chips into three piles:
1) Your "chip locker"
2) your "win vault"
3) your "labouchere line"

YOUR CHIP LOCKER:

Suppose you buy into a $10 table for $300. You are given 30 red chips and you stack them somehow neatly and together, this area is basically your session bankroll which I call my "Chip Locker". (Not to be silly, but you might want to stack them in 6 stacks of 5 for example and keep those 6 stacks clustered together so that you can easily assess the balance in your chip locker).

You've sat down. You've bought in. You've stacked your chips and you can easily see that you have 30 chips in your "chip locker" which means you are even with the house.

YOUR WIN VAULT:

Now its time to you place your first bet. Move one chip from your locker onto the layout, and you win. Your win/loss record would look like this: W. Take both chips and place one in your chip locker and the other next to your chip locker by itself in an area we'll call your "win vault." As long as you have 30 units in your chip locker (as you do now) and NO chips in your labouchere line (as you do now), the win vault represents your net gain for the session (presently up one chip).

Now place your next bet of one chip on the layout and continue this way until you lose.Lets suppose you lose your very next bet. Your win/loss record looks like this: W,L. You placed your second bet on the layout and you lost. Now you have 29 chips in your locker and 1 chip in your vault for a net gain or loss of zero.

YOUR LABOUCHERE LINE:

Because you lost your most recent bet, you now take a chip from your chip locker and place this chip in your third segregated area, your labouchere line. This chip is the first number in your labouchere line and tells you how much to wager on the next (third) bet. Think of this as being a new labouchere line with one digit "1" represented by one chip. Now place one chip (from your locker) on the layout. For this your third bet, one of two things will happen: you will win or you will lose (pushes have no consequence).

IF YOU WIN (this third bet) (your win/loss record would look like this: W,L,W) - take your two chips from the layout and place them in your chip locker, you have cleared your line, so you place your single labouchere chip back in your locker and notice that you now have 30 chips in your locker and one chip in your win vault. You are once again up by one chip. And you will place a new bet of one chip on the layout but no chips in the labouchere line area because you have NO line at this time.

OR

IF YOU LOSE (this third bet) (your win/loss record looks like this: W,L,L) - take another chip from your locker and place it next to (adjacent and to the right of) your single labouchere line chip. This tells you that your next bet needs to be 2 chips (by adding the only two numbers in the line 1 + 1). So place 2 chips stacked on the layout. Your fourth bet (after W,L,L), is 2 chips. At the risk of sounding redundant, lets look first at if you win this 4th bet.

IF YOU WIN (this fourth bet following W,L,L) - You take 4 chips from the felt and place them in your Chip Locker. You cancel your labouchere line by removing the 2 chips from your segregated labouchere line area and place those two chips back in you chip locker and you are again up by one chip. Notice that you have won 2 bets and lost 2 beats and are up by one unit.

OR

IF YOU LOSE (this fourth bet following W,L,L) - You take two chips from your locker (two chips because that is the number of chips you lost on the 4th bet) and place them stacked next to the two single chips in your laboucher line (now your line on paper would read 1,1,2). Your next bet is 3 chips because the last two numbers in your line add up to 3.

I am going to stop here for now. I hope that there is enough informaiton here to get you going. I hope that you see that any time you clear your labouchere line, you should have 30 units in your locker and pure profit in your vault.Please post any questions.

For the next part of this post, I will be adding my 3D element and looking at a long W/L run to show you some of the benefits of the modified labouchere and this practical method of tracking your progress.I hope you will see this method is easily learned and when diligently applied, you can at all times know exactly how far you are up or down and what you need to do to cancel your current line.

PART II

OK - I've been working on this chip stacking thing and the modified labouchere in 3D and I'm not sure how to post my information graphically, but of course I'll try.

I reiterate what I said at the onset: THIS IS NOT A SYSTEM TO HELP YOU WIN<>

The idea is simply to build a grphical representation of your position so that you can comfortably chose the size of your next bet AND decide when to stop playing based on wins or losses. I have been owrking on this because I use notepads to keep my labouchere lines going when I play at home and I've been wanting to become proficient with something I could take into the casino wihtout the need for notes.

Key:
(1) <<<< = one chip
(2) <<<< = two chips stacked
(3) <<<< = thre chips stacked, and so on
-----<<< = the dashes are used to make the verticle lines intersect and have no other meaning


The Modified 3D Labouchere Chip Stacking Method for Blackjack:


As with the orignal modified labouchere, we will bet one unit until we lose. After a loss, we begin a labouchere line with one single digit (one unit). This is represented on the layout by removing a single chip form your Chip Locker and placing it in the Labouchere Line area of the felt. Thus:

(1)

Your next bet is 1 unit. A win clears the line. A loss tells us to add a digit to the line equal to the loss. Thus:

(1)(1)

Now with the 3D concept, you can lose three more bets without escalating your bet. Any win while betting 1 unit clears one chip from the 3D line. Notice that YOU ARE not clearing 2 digits as with a traditional labouchere line. With 4 straight losses (5 counting the intitial loss prior to beginning the line), your 3D line should look like this:

---(1)
(1)(1)(1)
---(1)

Now you begin betting 2 units because you have 2 intersecting lines, each line with 1 unit at each end.A win of 2 units here would clear 2 chips. A loss would require us to add a stack of 2 chips to the diagram:

---(1)
(1)(1)(1)(2)
---(1)

At this point (as with any point along the way), you can chose between betting 2 units and add the loss to the left of the horizontal line OR bet 2 units and add the loss to the top or bottom of your vertical line.

------(2)
------(1)
(2)(1)(1)(1)(2)
------(1)
------(2)

IF you built your line symetrically as above, you'd start betting 4 units on your next bet. However, the above illustration would be how your ships would look if you lost 10 decisions in a row (highly unlikely in perfect basic strategy Blackjack). More than likely, your 3D lines will be more often less symetrical.So what is the point of all of this??In order to appreciate this scorekeeping method, you really have to play with it. The chip stacking element allows you to focus on the cards and your basic strategy decisions. You can assess your overall picture of how much you are up or down by looking at your three chip areas. You can decide how much to bet on the next bet by looking at your 3D lines. The 3D element often gives you flexibility to chose from a smaller bet or a larger bet. As you win, you can shift the remaining chips around so that the smallest denomination is in the center and there is a graduation of chip stacks radiating out in 4 directions. You may find yourself with something like this:

---(3)
(4)(2)(3)
---(3)
---(5)

Here you could bet 3 or 4 or 5 or 7 or 8 in an effort to clear the lines when you are winning and/or balance them when you are losing.Keep in mind that pit staff are often bothered by chip stacking. They are prone to think that you are counting cards. When they see that you are not wildly escalating your bets at the end of a shoe, they should have no problem letting you do whatever you want.


Please feel free to email with any questions!