Diplomacy Zine -- EP #188 Chapter Six From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com Date: Sat, 28 Jul 1990 03:15:28 +0000 Issue #188 of ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL: ************************************************************************ Dealer: Say, you aren't one of them card counting types, are ya? Data: Why would I wish to count the cards? Both their total number and face values remain constant. ************************************************************************ Chapter One contains: BLITZKRIEG, GETTYSBURG, RED STORM RISING, and PASSCHENDAELE And is published by daybell@aludra.usc.edu/Donald Daybell Chapter Two contains: DRAGONSLAYER, JACAL, MANHATTAN, VERSAILLES, DRESDEN, and KHAN And is published by tedward@cs.cornell.edu/Ted Fischer Chapter Three contains: MULHOUSE, DAWN PATROL, SNIKKEL-2, BERLIN, SNIKKEL-1, EL ALAMEIN, SQUALANE, UNGAWE, CAPTAIN CAVEMAN And is published by cwekx@htikub5.bitnet/Constantijn Wekx Chapter Four contains: BIG WILLIE, NICKEL, and OZARK And is published by dm8sstaf@miamiu.bitnet/Douglas M. MacFarlane Chapter Five contains: ARCHANGEL, BORDEL, ERIS, MASADA, and YALTA And is published by uunet!bnrgate!bmers1!dgibbs/David Gibbs ----------- Chapter Six ----------- No games in this issue. Publisher comments: Quote is from Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Casino Royale" submitted by rutgers!bcr!nvuxh!hall/Michael D. Hall. And here is an article by him! A Diplomacy "Variant": Casino Blackjack By Michael R. Hall This article points out some similarities between Diplomacy and casino blackjack. Both share a number of incidental similarities, such as the fact that both allow up to seven players, and although I'll mention some of these coincidences through the course of the article, I will focus on the fundamentally similar diplomatic methods employed by experts in both these games. You'll see that Diplomacy experts have the necessary "stuff" to become blackjack experts, and reaping monetary rewards as a result. First I will briefly explain the basic rules of casino blackjack. Like Diplomacy, the rules of this game are deceptively simple. You place a bet that is no smaller than the table minimum and no larger than the table maximum. You (and the other players) are dealt two cards, and the dealer deals himself two cards also, but with one face up and the other face down. You must play your hand before the dealer plays his. The basic play is to hit (take another card) as many times as you wish until you either bust (go over a total of 21) or stand (stop taking cards.) Face cards are valued as 10, and aces may be counted as either 1 or 11. Under certain circumstances you may also be able to split, double down, take insurance, or surrender, but understanding these options is not necessary to understand this article. The dealer operates without any choice in how he plays his hand; he must keep hitting his hand until he reaches a total of 17 or more. You win if you beat the dealer without busting or if the dealer busts while you don't. A "blackjack" is a 10-valued card and an ace for your first two cards, and this is generally paid 3 to 2. In most casinos a tie results in a "push", where no money changes hands. You lose to a dealer's blackjack, unless you also have blackjack, in which case you push. Blackjack is different from most other casino games, in that the trials are not independent, thus unlike other casino games, blackjack is beatable in the long run. The casino has rigged independent trial games like craps and roulette to give the house a fixed expected profit on each different bet. In contrast, removal of cards from the deck to play one hand will alter the probabilities of the next hand in blackjack. There exist professional blackjack card counters who make a living (and many casual card counters who have "free" vacations) based on exploiting this fact. The casinos do not all go bankrupt, because there are so many stupid gamblers out there, and also it takes a somewhat large investment in time to learn to count cards; however, anyone intelligent enough to play Diplomacy and devious enough to do well is intelligent enough to learn to count cards and devious enough to avoid detection by the casino. The common feature of any winning blackjack system is "basic strategy". Basic strategy is more to blackjack than "The Gamer's Guide" is to Diplomacy. Basic strategy tells you the mathematically proper plays of the top of a randomly shuffled deck. For example, if you have a total 14 and the dealer has a 6 showing, then you stand, because it has been mathematically proven (using exhaustive analysis by computers) that this is the correct play. Using basic strategy you can make a tiny profit, break even, or lose at a rate of up to 0.5%, depending on the particular rules of the casino. In the vast majority of casinos, basic strategy is not enough to win - to win you have to count cards. Counting cards does not take abnormal powers of memory (a la "Rainman") nor the ability to perform difficult math. To count cards, all it takes is the ability to remember a simple integer (like how many supply centers you have) and be able to add or subtract one from this number (like when you gain or lose a supply center). It helps to be able to perform simple division and to remember a table of a few dozen numbers. If you were able to memorize multiplication tables during grade school, you can learn to count cards. A simple and popular but powerful counting system is "high-low". In this system, the cards are valued as follows: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A +1 +1 +1 +1 +1 0 0 0 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1 You initialize your count at zero, and as you see the cards come out the the deck, you add the above numbers to this "running count". For example, if you see 2, 6, 8, J, A, A in that order, then you would count 1, 2, 2, 1, 0, -1. You divide the running count by the number of unseen decks to get the "true count" or count per deck, and this gives you an estimate of your advantage. For example, if the running count is -1 and half a deck remains to be dealt, then the true count is -2. When a high proportion of high cards remains to be dealt, the true count is high, and then the game has a positive expected value for the player. The variance in expected value of blackjack hands is very high, so thousands of hands must be played before the expected value asserts itself over the noise of the statistical fluctuations (and it takes a large bankroll, or total cash, to survive the stochastic roller coaster). Card counters increase their bets when the true count is high, and in doing so can attain a 2% edge over the casino in the long run. Card counters sometimes also deviate from basic strategy on certain plays when the true count has drifted away from zero. You are not doing anything illegal or wrong if you count cards, any more than you are doing anything illegal or wrong when you play Diplomacy skillfully. The casinos attempt to make you feel like you're not playing fair when you count, just as your opponents in Diplomacy protest when you ally with them and then stab them, but hey, it's a game, and you're just doing what it takes to win. Unfortunately, the casino-corrupted Nevada Gaming Commission and Nevada courts have ruled to allow the casinos to "bar" suspected card counters; this means that if you ever set foot again in a casino from which you are barred, then you *are* doing something illegal, and you may go directly to jail. The New Jersey Gaming Commission had a similar policy, but it was overturned by the New Jersey Supreme Court when the famous card counter Ken Uston sued and won for being barred by the Resorts casino in Atlantic City. Still, there are actions that Atlantic City and Nevada casinos may take short of barring that will reduce or eliminate the profit-making abilities of card counters. Most casinos have gone to multiple decks, which doesn't make it any harder to count cards, but it does reduce the profitability. Furthermore, countermeasures may be brought to bear against particular suspected card counters; dealing out fewer cards before reshuffling is perhaps the most common and most effective casino countermeasure. Therefore, to extract profits from the casino indefinately, you have to use diplomatic skills to avoid being identified as a card counter by casino management. Just as in Diplomacy, mastering the tactics is not enough to win in the long run; you've also got to master the art of manipulating people to work with you rather than against you. The casino employee responsible for detecting and counteracting card counters (and other casino undesirables) is the "pit boss". The pit boss supervises the operation of several tables grouped around a "pit". If you are a Diplomacy player turned card counter, then think of the casino as the country you wish to attack, while the pit boss is the player-representative of this country. The principles involved in placating the fears of your intended victim are similar in Diplomacy and casino blackjack. First and foremost, you must maintain a facade. The facade should be nonthreatening and believable. Smiles and friendly body language can go a long ways towards disarming your victim by appealing to his primal instincts (smiles seem to have evolved from "fear grimaces" in primates, and indicate that you are submissive and not a threat.) However, your plays will eventually cause the victim to start to suspect that he is being deceived. Although he could confront you outright, a wise victim will attempt to "get inside your head" and see what "makes you tick". He wants to know if you are a casual player or an serious one, inexperienced or experienced, and so on. Above all, he wants to know if you're hiding something - like whether you're planning to stab him in Diplomacy or extract huge profits from his blackjack tables in the casino. To ascertain this, the victim will ask innocent-seeming questions. He will be vague at first, and become more focussed, but he will not escalate to a direct confrontation, unless your answers reaffirm his suspicions. The reason the victim will not confront you is that he risks offending you and thus harming a possibly beneficial relationship. You would just deny his accusations flatly anyway, so the wise victim tries to exercise subtlety to get you to reveal your true plans without realizing it. To allay his suspicions, you must supply an alternative explanation for your actions. In Diplomacy, you could argue that you are attacking someone else, while in blackjack you could tell the pit boss that you are playing for fun. Then you must support your alternative explanation. In Diplomacy, you could list some future moves compatible with what you told him your plans are, while in blackjack, you can look like you are a real gambler out for a good time by being careless with your chips, tipping the dealer occasionally, and carrying on inane conversations with the pit boss. If your victim is still not placated, you give reasons for the victim to reject his hypothesis that you are a threat. This may be as simple as acting too stupid to be a threat. Finally, a nice touch is to ask your victim for advise, thereby forcing him into the role of an ally rather than an antagonist. Voila! Your victim will have no choice but to shift his beliefs to conform with your fabricated explanation, and you will no longer be the focus of his suspicions! To review, put on an act, smile, and when this starts to wear thin because of your plays, ham up your act in the following ways: 1. Provide an alternative explanation for your actions. 2. Support this explanation. 3. Supply sufficient reasons to refute your victim's hypothesis of suspicion. 4. Lure the victim to your side by asking for advise. Sometimes doing the second item takes care of the third. Your victim will probably ask questions to make this all flow naturally. Consider the following hypothetical exchange in Diplomacy, where you are Italy and have opened with A Rom-Apu, F Nap-Ion, then F Nap CA Ion-Tun and build fleet Nap, and now the player representing Turkey has a little talk with you: Turkey: "You play well - what are you planning on doing with those fleets and that army?" You: "I am attacking France. She violated an agreement by building that fleet in Marseilles." Turkey: "Funny, those moves looked like a Lepanto opening." You: "Gosh, no, uh, what is a Lepanto opening?" Turkey: "Haven't you ever read any Diplomacy 'zines?" You: "No. Say, do you have any suggestions for how I should attack France?" You have supplied Turkey with the alternative explanation for your moves - that you are attacking France - and have supported this by saying that France violated an agreement, plus you have discounted Turkey's suspicions by playing dumb, and asked him for advise for your attack on France in order to put him into the "ally frame of mind". Now compare this with the following hypothetical exchange in blackjack, where you are counting cards and have just parlayed your bet from $5 to $50 over a series of rounds, and are winning profusely. Pit Boss: "You play well - what is your strategy?" You: "Strategy? I just do what I feel like. Sometimes I can `feel' what card is coming out next if I concentrate hard enough. And I like to parlay my bets if I'm winning, cut back if I'm losing." Pit Boss: "Funny, those plays looked like basic strategy, or maybe even advanced play." You: "Gosh, no, uh, what is basic strategy?" Pit Boss: "Haven't you ever read any Blackjack books?" You: "No. Say, what do you suggest I do with these two 8's against the dealer's 10? I'm not getting a good feeling about the next card." Here you have supplied an alternative explanation for your betting spread and winnings - that you are just stupid and lucky - and you have supported this explanation with B.S. about psychic powers and a progressive betting scheme, plus you have denied any deep knowledge of blackjack, thereby throwing the pit boss of the trail, and finally you asked him for advise on the play of a hand, further supporting your facade as a fool and pulling him to your side to assist you rather than suspect you. A big reason to get on the good side of the pit bosses is that if they like you and think you are a real gambler, they can grant you "comps": free food, free lodging, free shows, and I've heard even free sex. Thus, many of the same sorts of devious, deceiptful diplomacy used in the game of Diplomacy can also be used in casino blackjack, letting one live of a playboy while making money to boot. There is probably no better primer to putting on a facade in the casino than playing face-to-face Diplomacy (play-by-mail Diplomacy is useful too, but you need to practice telling lies to someone's face.) An interesting post note is that many fewer women than men play Diplomacy and blackjack. Women have unique potential advantages in both games, largely stemming from the fact that men (and women) do not feel threatened by friendly-acting women. Card-counting blackjack women are very rare, but those who exist can get away with much larger betting spreads, and thus they can make much more money per hour of blackjack than men. The sexist casino management does not suspect women, thinking that they do not possess the mathematical mental faculties to count cards. As I explained, only grade school level math is required to count cards, so this is a pretty degrading attitude; women can turn this to an advantage by smiling, giggling, and flirting, all while taking the casinos for big bucks. For men, it is possible to make about a million dollars a year playing blackjack full time, but women could potentially make even more. If you would like more information on blackjack and card counting, I refer you to the following books: "The World's Greatest Blackjack Book" by Humble and Cooper and "Professional Blackjack" by Stanford Wong. You may also send me e-mail and I will send you an article I posted on the rec.gambling computer newsgroup - the article explains the high-low count in more detail than here and includes postscript-encoded strategy tables for Atlantic City rules. My e-mail address is hall@mobydick.leis.bellcore.com or {rutgers!} bcr!nvuxh!hall. You are probably wondering if I make money counting cards, and the answer is I do, but not much (yet) because I don't have a big enough bankroll (yet). It takes money to make money even in blackjack, though it is a better and less risky investment than the stock market. I am willing to teach anyone in the north/central New Jersey area to count cards, and to possibly form a blackjack "team", which is sort of like an alliance against the casino, and it improves the expected win rate of the team members. Here are some more comments on the Runestone Poll: "Hi, I just read your comments on results of the runestone poll (wrt EP) and people's responses to your them. I'd just like to note that I agree with the point someone made that the relatively poor performance in the poll may have been to do with the size (and therefore 'impersonal-ness') of the magazine. I don't think that this is bad - to me, the fact that there are many gamestarts is more important than having a friendly atmosphere." "Well-run game zines often finish low in the Poll. This is a well-known phenomenon, and you should not be too surprised at it. For instance, this year we have the following contrasts: % GM % Zine 91 Benes 30 Dippy 83 Lutterbie 22 Down at the Mouth 77 Hyatt 20 The Home Office 60 Klien 15 Protocol and 45 Electronic Protocol If you look at the difference between GM and Zine scores, you got screwed less that those other guys. I imagine voters feel they've already rewarded the GM in the GM Poll. The real question is why you were not higher in the GM Poll. I would have expected you to come in higher than 60%." "Eric, just to say that I agree with most of the comments about the RP. Ignore it your doing a good job!" "Another noticable tendency is that well-run game zines take a number of years before they get good marks. Apparently people don't really have confidence in them until they've been around for a while. I'm not saying your zines deserved to be where they are, though. I'm just pointing out that this is a frequently-observed tendency." "i have been thinking about this ever since you told me how low our ratings were. i can come up with only one solution. next year, when we publish the ballot, we also include a paragraph letting the others know how the majority vote. both of us get a lot of people that participate in few other zines, if any (though my players have been getting around a bit more the past year or so). let them know that most people vote an 8 or 9 as an average vote. other than that, the only other thing i can think of is to not publish the ballot. it may keep you off the main list, it would not hurt me at all. i did not print it last year, and when i did this year i dropped several places." "PS: Maybe the poor rating obtained by EP is due to the fact that E-Mail dip players often never played by mail before, and thus never had a look over normal zines. Furthermore, maybe they don't really see what use they can do of EP, as they receive results from their masters, and maybe don't really care about others. Thus I bet that some of them often receive EP, don't read it, and when asked to vote send in an average estimation just because they don't know it well. So, I think that EP has obtained a rather poor rating because too much people receive it. PPS: I must admit that I didn't vote; I forgot: The greatest shame fall upon me!" ****************************************************************************** To join in the fun, send your name, home address, home and work phone numbers, and country preferences to Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com. ****************************************************************************** Up