Blackjack Simulator - Card Counting (original) (raw)

Advanced Blackjack Simulator

"The gold standard in Blackjack simulation software." - Don Schlesinger

Two Blackjack Simulators join the Casino Vérité Blackjack line. CVData is described here and CVCX on the CVCX Page. For card counting practice and drills, see CV Blackjack Game. CVData is a tool used to gain a better insight into the workings of Advanced Blackjack card counting and betting strategies. What are a strategy�s strong and weak points? Where are the opportunities? Why and when does a strategy work? What really goes on at different hand depths or counts? This is the reason for the heavy emphasis on input (strategies) and output (statistics).

CVData Features

• Rounds - Up to 100,000,000,000 rounds of Blackjack can be simulated.
• Players - 1-7 seats, each seat can use a different playing & betting strategy. Also, you can vary the number of players at the table during a sim.
• Data - I figure, if you're going to play billions of hands, you ought to record what happened. Up to 60,000 stats are created per seat.
• Custom Bonuses - You can now create up to 20 custom bonus rules in a single sim. These rules can be very complex based on dealer or player number of cards, card totals, suits, colors, exact cards, upcard, downcard, bust card, Poker hands, streaks and whether or not you split, DD or win. There is now the ability to save custom rules and side bets in a library. The idea is to allow the specification of tens of thousands of new rules without learning a programming or scripting language. All rules are set by Windows options and dropdowns. It is possible to define a bonus that pays if the dealer up and players first card make a straight-flush, one card is the Queen of Hearts, there is a third card that is a Four and the dealer Busts with a Nine just by selecting options. An absurd rule; but that's the point.
• Custom Side Bets - These are like Custom Bonuses but require a side bet, are only bet on specified counts and generate stats by true count to aid in determining strategies. Many standard Side Bet rules are supplied including:

• Playing Strategies - CVData can use the 400 CVBJ card counting tables and strategy creation screens.
• Betting strategies - A new, much simpler, method of specifying a betting strategy has been included. Although it is much easier to use, it still provides for sophisticated camouflage plays and betting errors. I believe that a sim without sophisticated cover play simulation is useless. For more advanced strategies (wonging in and out, advanced camouflage, combination counting/progression for camouflage, etc.) the old advanced method of defining a betting strategy is also included. For details see Blackjack Betting Strategies.Wonging/Backcounting - Up to six different wong-in and separate wong-out points can be specified per seat by depth. You can also specify when you will stop observing a table and move to the next by depth. Wonging-cover also supported.
• Optimal Bet calculation - This feature supports optimal bet calculations for 1-7 hands and changing number of hands by the count. Bets can be fine-tuned after the sim and some statistics will be recalculated.
• True-counting Unbalanced Strategies - Strategies like TKO (true-counted KO) are supported for simulation and index generation.
• Usability Features - Such as:
  • Batch facility
  • Multi-Sim. This feature allow simple execution of a very large number of sims varying up to four parameters.
  • Halves Counts can be accurately simulated.
  • Double-barrier RoR/Bankroll calculator
  • Trip Ruin Calculator
  • Modern Windows interfaces
• Expert Methods - Such as:
  • Different betting strategies by deck depth or bankroll
  • Different playing strategies by deck depth, bankroll or number of cards in your hand
  • Counting by Inference simulation
  • Counting by Inference strategy creation
  • Insurance side count
  • Peeking at other players' cards
  • Lots of new, unique options for customizing deck estimation and True Count calculations.
  • Ability to assign different strategies to each player and collect statistics for all players. Each of the seven players can be assigned up to six playing and six betting strategies switching strategies at different deck depths.
  • Betting errors
  • Strategy errors
  • Multiple hands with different numbers of units.
• Index Generation - A modern index generator with many unique features is now included. See the CVIndex Page for details.
• Remove Seat Effect - This feature rotates the players among the seats to allow a fair comparison of different strategies in the same sim.
• Real Shuffling - As an alternative to random shuffling, you can now specify real shuffles. The shuffles can be extremely complex and variability can be specified in every step. A shuffle animator is supplied to ensure that you have correctly defined the strategy. Note: Shuffle-Tracking support has not been added. This is to test for shuffle weaknesses. (Note: I am calling this section experimental as it is highly complex. It has been extensively tested and verifies deck contents successfully after every shuffle. But, I won't declare it non-experimental until after a few more months of testing.)
• Multi-Card Index Tables - You can now specify different indexes or decisions based on the number of cards in your hand.
• Session Data - A new set of data based on sessions and bankrolls has been added.
• Bankroll-Based strategies - You can now alter playing and betting strategies based on the current bankroll size.
• Dealer Errors - Seven types of dealer errors can now be generated at specified rates. (This is in addition to current player error options.) For details on the many types of errors simulated see Blackjack Error Simulation.
• Team Play - Support has been added for Big Player and Gorilla team play.
• SimTract - This feature provides the ability to subtract all of the thousands of pieces of data in one sim from another sim to see the differences of configuration or strategy changes in detail. This is a procedure that I have used numerous times in the past to see the exact difference between close strategies. But now it takes a couple clicks instead of spreadsheets.
• Calculators - The Risk of Ruin and Bankroll calculators have been reorganized and expanded to cover all such formulae in Don Schlesinger's Blackjack Attack third edition. There are now twelve card counting calculators and nine charts. Two new charts have been added to chart your actual casino results or estimated range of results on the standard normal curve to show you exactly where you are on the curve. (Note: two of these calculators will not function until the release date for Blackjack Attack 3e.)
• Customized TC Calculation - New methods of True Count calculation have been added for both simulation and index generation. You can now set up an exact table of divisors by user defined deck segments to more accurately match the sims to your specific style of estimating depth and calculating. You can also use multipliers instead of divisors. Many people use this method for hand held games. This will allow users to create betting ramps and examine results based on the exact style of play and can also be used to calculate the effect of deck estimation errors.
• Expanded Composite Dependent Indexes - CD Indexes are indexes that depend on the exact cards in your hand. Up to 500 CD indexes can be used in a strategy: 100 each for two-card Hard Hit/Stand, three-card Hard Hit/Stand, Surrender, Hard Double Down and Insurance. Each of the seven players could have 500 different CD indexes for each section of the shoe, or for six different bankroll sizes for a total of 20,000 CD indexes in one sim. There is only a small change in sim speed even if 20,000 CD indexes are used.
• Custom Bonus Composition Dependent Indexes - This feature allows the generation of card counting indexes for custom rules that you invent. For example, you could define the rule 'suited 678 pays 7:1 and non-suited 678 pays 2:1' and generate an index for a hand with suited 6 and 8 against a dealer 5. Up to nine rules and 17 indexes can be defined in one sim.
• Hole-Carding Simulation - Hole-carding support includes the specification of up to three strategies, one when you don't see the hole card, one when you see the card and the dealer upcard is high and one when the upcard is low. The focus is on cover play, not perfect play. You can also control how often you see the hole card, how often you win Insurance and under what conditions you see the card. Generally basic strategies are used; but card counting indexes are supported.
• Hole-Carding Strategy Generation - The index generator can now generate hole-carding strategies for various rules. Although most players don't use card counting indexes, index generation is supported including risk averse indexes. You can now generate (but not sim) partial knowledge holecarding strategies.
• Next-Carding Simulation and Strategy Generation - That is, strategies assuming that you know the next card to be dealt.
• Double Exposure - DBX is very much like HC except that the dealer takes ties and there is no need for cover. This means, for example, you will hit a 20 against a 20. DBX simulation and strategy generation are supported including the use and generation of indexes.
• Heat - A major focus of CVData has always been the cost of using highly complex cover. CVData/HC adds two levels of periodic heat. During these periods, when the player perceives heat, playing and betting strategies can be changed. The purpose is a more realistic calculation of advantage that doesn't always assume perfect playing conditions.
• Side-Bet Side-Count - You can specify a separate count, including face card and suit-awareness, to determine when to make side bets.
• Log - You can log the first 400,000 hands. All wonging events (enter shoe, exit shoe, abandon shoe) are also logged. All session events (session won, lost, pushed, bankrupted, target reached) are logged. The log can be displayed or exported to a spreadsheet.
• Double-Strategy Rules - There exist some new rules that require two sets of strategy tables. These are now supported:
  • Double Down Rescue. One strategy is used for normal Surrender and different strategy for a Surrender after a Double.
  • Discard after Split supported allowing you to throw away a split hand. A separate strategy is supported to indicate when to discard the Split hand.
  • Discard after Double supported. A separate strategy is supported to indicate when to discard the DD card and draw another.
• MRI Slices - Like a medical MRI machine, slices of data can be created by limiting stats to a specified range of TCs, RCs, Hand Depths, shoe segments or Units Bet. This will build tables that, for example, would show TCs of +4 at a hand depth of 3. With this feature one can now obtain data that used to require custom programming.
• Custom output screen - Create your own output screen with charts if desired.
• ComboSim - We don't always play the same game. What is the overall data of all the games we play? For example; suppose we play six decks, S17, DAS with a large spread 50% of the time; the same with heavy cover 30% of the time and Single deck, with a small spread and H17 20% of the time. ComboSim now allows you to combine multiple sims into one. All ten thousand stats are combined and displayed as if one sim had been run.
• Reports - Printing all of this data requires 250 pages. Clearly this is silly. So, a reporting subsystem has been included. A customized report can be defined including only the data that you wish for the players that you wish. To deal with the large variety of stats; descriptions can be included on the reports.
• WWW Publishing - But, what about the Internet. The same reporting facility can be used to create a customized report for Web publishing. The data will be written to disk using HTML tables and formatting for readability. This file can be displayed and edited with a browser or posted to a web page. See a sample one seat WWW report.
• MS Word - Alternatively, you can create a Microsoft Word document which you can then edit.
• Charts - 41 standard graphs.
• Do it yourself Graphs - I find that graphing sim data greatly improves understanding of results. With all this data, I could not decide what to include in graphs in addition to the 41 standard graphs. So, a Do-it-yourself graphing subsystem has been added. You can take any sets of the 60,000 data items and graph them. You can also take data from different sim runs and graph them together. A separate help file has been included to describe the hundreds of graph options.
• CVSpread - A spreadsheet subsystem has been included with CVData that can support Excel commands, functions and files. 143 math functions are included.
• Number formatting - To support the huge number of rounds, each number is tested for size and converted to scientific format if necessary. To improve readability for non-U.S. users; numbers, currencies and dates are customized by country.
• Speed: CVData is by far the fastest sim on the market. This was true before multi-threading was added. On an Intel high-end desktop chip, up to 80 million rounds a second can be run.
• Help/Manuals - There are two manuals in print form and PDF form. The 105 page Reference Manual details all options and output. The full color, 48 page User's Guide gives step-by-step instructions to get the new user started. Additional pop-up Help balloons are used. In particular, passing the mouse over the data displays will provide information on the contents. The on-line Help has also been improved. In particular, the complex playing error and betting error methodologies are now detailed. Simulation templates are now provided for common tasks.

CVData/Shuffle Tracking

If you are interested in shuffle tracking simulation, see CVData/ST. This is an add-in to CVData that adds shuffle tracking functionality.

CVData/CVCX

If you have licenses for both CVData & CVCX, you get a different version of CVCX that adds many of CVData's advanced features while retaining the speed of CVCX. For a comparison between the two, see CVData/CVCX Blackjack Simulator Comparison.

Pricing

• CVData has a price of $200.
• CVCX has a price of $120.
• Both Blackjack simulators can be purchased for $250.
• Upgrades are available from earlier versions.
• To order, go to the Orders Page.

Downloads

For demo and update card counting downloads go to the Blackjack Download Page.

Policies

• All CV products come with a no questions asked refund guarantee.
• Demos are available for all CV Products.
• A printed manual and CD are shipped on request.
• Telephone support is available at 212-593-1747.
• One license can be used on a home and an office, or a desktop and a mobile PC so long as only one is used at a time.
• CV Upgrade policies are quite liberal.

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