Advantage Play: Mindsets, Expectations and Misconceptions

By BJA Member “GreaseMonkey”

I’ve started and stopped writing this post for over two months. A single blogpost can’t summarize everything listed above. And even if it could, it would be a novel. The collective wisdom of the forum covers absolutely all of the above. Six months worth of posts is a good starting point. 18 months is better.

My goal on the forum has been twofold:

1. To work out my own thought processes as they relates to card counting and advantage play.
2. To give the forum what I think it needs at any given moment.

So today, I want to address Advantage Play mindsets, expectations and misconceptions; and I will filter my thoughts based on what I feel the forum needs today. I apologize in advance for a lack of comprehensiveness. I’ll risk leaving myself vulnerable to criticism for the benefit of getting some particular thoughts out while they are fresh in my mind.

An AP seeks to find a positive expectation play and exploit that advantage over and over and over. An AP is first and foremost disciplined to the hilt. If the advantage goes away or does not exist, an AP will cease from executing that specific play.

Aside from critical thinking, discipline is the most important trait an AP possesses. It doesn’t mean an AP is not emotional. We are all human. It does not mean an AP never makes a mistake. Nobody is perfect. But an AP knows when to walk away from a negative expectation play.

How else is an AP disciplined? They bet within their game plan. They don’t rationalize a larger bet than the math requires. They play within their accepted RoR. They fire out their bets because the math calls for it. And they do this over and over and over again. And that leads me to the most important sentence I have ever written or will ever write on this forum:

Not only does Advantage Play take discipline; Advantage Play, in itself, is a discipline.

An AP has realistic expectations on the outcome of their play. They understand how long it will most likely take to achieve a goal. They understand the bankroll swings they will probably encounter before their goal is achieved. They understand they could lose their bankroll, even with an extremely low risk of ruin.  An AP understands how long it will take to remove the majority of the luck from their results.

An AP understands the Gaussian Bell Curve prior to betting a dollar, even if they don’t know that’s what it is called. They might land right in the middle of expectations. They might land on the left hand tail. Hopefully they land on the right hand tail.

• Advantage play is not easy money. In fact, it’s a grind.
• Advantage play doesn’t mean you win a lot more times than you lose. In fact, your win/loss sessions over time might be close to 51%/49%. That’s a lot of losing. But it sure is better than being the best hitter in baseball, who might only “win” 35% of his at bats.

I am quite certain there are many more misconceptions, and I invite you to comment and add to these lists. This is a forum, after all!

This journey has a tremendous amount of ups and downs. I have experienced them myself and I have commiserated and celebrated with many on the forum regarding their own adventures. It is, after all, a journey and it most certainly is an adventure. While on the ride, at all times, aspire, think and behave as an AP does.

GreaseMonkey