It is my custom to provide the results of actual games.But the practitioner of Oscar's Grind, when playing Blackjack, is generally too occupied to scribble down every move. This would attract the attention of the pit and of the cameras above. So I shall take actual results and reconstruct them as best I can, using Monopolisto Man's own recollections.
Sam's Town is not your hot Strip casino. It attracts a regular local clientele and people on the way in or out of Vegas on the route that takes you south toward the Dam. Monopolisto Man looks like what he is. A nondescript, somewhat handsome preppie sort who has over the years shed most if not all affectation and accepted his lot in life, that of being an inveterate gambler who has never managed to go broke and whose losses are punctuated by extended periods of reasonable success.
Thus introduced, accompany me to the table and we shall look over Monopolisto Man's shoulder as he tries his first game following his Boston practice session.
He buys in for an unthreatening, $100 twenty units. The game is double deck blackjack. He prefers woman dealers and accordingly finds himself sitting far right staring at an attractive Oriental woman of young middle age and crisp demeanor. She speaks not. But there is no threat in her manner. With twenty $5 chips neatly stacked he awaits the first hand.
Here's the reconstruction as best I can do it.
First Hand MM has a 15 against dealer's ten showing. He stands. Loses $5 to her 20.
Second Hand. Rebets $5. Gets two fours - hits and busts on the fifth card. Down two units.
Third Hand. MM has 20 stands. Dealer busts with 22. Our hero is one unit down.
Fourth Hand: MM bumps to two units - $10. He is dealt 6-5 against dealers 6 showing. MM doubles. Draws six. Dealer wins with 19. MM is now down five units.
Fifth Hand. $10 bet. Blackjack for MM. MM is now 2 units down.
Sixth Hand . He bets three units. Stands against 10 showing with 18. Dealer has 20 and wins. MM is five units down.
Seventh Hand. MM bets three again. MM gets another blackjack and, rounded down, is now just one unit down.
Eighth Hand. MM bets $10.. Busts. Down three units.
Ninth Hand. MM bets $10.Loses to dealer's 20. Down five units.
Tenth Hand. MM wins 20 over 17. Down three units.
Eleventh Hand: Bets three units following his win.. He stands on 19 and the dealer busts. He is even.
Twelfth Hand. MM bets one unit. Loses.
Thirteenth Hand: MM repeats one unit bet. and loses. Down two.
Fourteenth Hand: MM bets one unit. Loses.
Fifteenth Hand. MM repeats the one unit bet. and loses Down three now.
Sixteenth Hand. MM cops a 20 and dealer busts. Down two now.
Seventeenth Hand. MM bets two units. Loses. Down four units.
Eighteenth Hand. MM in for two units. Zaps dealer with a 21 on four cards. Down two units.
Nineteenth Hand. MM bets three units. Dealer has blackjack. Zap. Down five.
Twentieth Hand. MM bets three units.Doubles a ten and pushes at 19.
Twenty-first Hand: MM bets three. Still down five. Loses and is down eight units.
Twenty-second hand. The dealer changes. MM repeats bet of three units and wins with 21 over 20. Down five units.
Twenty-third hand. MM bets four units. Busts. Now down nine units.
Twenty-fourth hand. MM bets four units. Dealer busts. Down five.
Twenty-fifth hand. MM bets five units on the win. Loses down ten. Some might leave but MM stays.
Twenty-sixth Hand. MM bets five units.Ties.
Twenty-seventh hand. MM bets five units. Has ten versus dealer's exposeed 4, doubles LOSES Down fifteen units.
Twenty-eighth Hand. MM bets five units. Blackjack for MM. Rounds down. He is now 8 units down.
Twenty-ninth Hand. MM bets six units. Ties at 20.
Thirtieth Hand. Repeats six unit bet.Busts and is now 14 units down.
Thirty-First hand: Busts. Now 20 units down.
It was at this point that Monopolisto Man ceased to play. In fact he spent the next three days absorbing the fact that Oscar had failed him. He did not bother to analyze things because he knew that results differ with the same frequency that matter's behavior befuddles scientists.
He read, played some slots, meditated, wrote in his spiral notebook and wondered if there might be a better way to play Oscar than he had so far learned.
He began to think about allowing himself to interact with the workings of seeming fate.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Monopolisto Man Explains Oscar's Grind
As the author it is my prerogative to jump ahead and provide the reader with the nub of a thing without a boring story attached. I shall naturally tell stories of Monopolisto Man's various successes with Oscar's Grind, but here I shall simply take up the theme of how Oscar's Grind does not work.
Oscar's Grind operates as follows. You bet one unit and your objective is always to win a unit. After a loss, you play at the level you are at until you win. On a win, you bet two units and maintain that bet until you have added a unit to your wins or until you have won. If you are still down from your initial bet, you add another unit on a win. You bet at that level until you are a unit ahead for the sequence.
Here are several ways to win one unit in which case you start all over again.
ONE UNIT BET L L L W -2
TWO UNIT BET W You are even so you start over with a one unit bet
*
ONE UNIT BET W you start over with a one unit bet.
*
ONE UNIT BET L L L L L W -4
TWO UNIT BET W -2
THREE UNIT BET L L W -5
FOUR UNIT BET L L L W -13
FIVE UNIT BET W -8
SIX UNIT BET W -2
THREE UNIT BET W +1
Needless to say Monopolisto Man would have been in the soup with any sustained losses at higher levels. He therefore established some limits to avoid massive wipe-outs.
He would play for twenty units a session. He would confine himself to blackjack and play the Ainslee version of Basic Strategy which enables a wider range when doubling bets. For example doubling on a total of ten rather than eleven. This was something of a superstition, but Monopolisto Man was well beyond the stage of card counting by this time. He recognized that such counting was possible but that the price in sheer nerves was more than was to his liking.
After his Boston practice he boarded a plane for Las Vegas and was soon ensconced at Sam's Town, heading south from downtown on Boulder Highway. Sam's Town at the time dealt double deck blackjack, which suited Monipolisto Man just fine.
.
Oscar's Grind operates as follows. You bet one unit and your objective is always to win a unit. After a loss, you play at the level you are at until you win. On a win, you bet two units and maintain that bet until you have added a unit to your wins or until you have won. If you are still down from your initial bet, you add another unit on a win. You bet at that level until you are a unit ahead for the sequence.
Here are several ways to win one unit in which case you start all over again.
ONE UNIT BET L L L W -2
TWO UNIT BET W You are even so you start over with a one unit bet
*
ONE UNIT BET W you start over with a one unit bet.
*
ONE UNIT BET L L L L L W -4
TWO UNIT BET W -2
THREE UNIT BET L L W -5
FOUR UNIT BET L L L W -13
FIVE UNIT BET W -8
SIX UNIT BET W -2
THREE UNIT BET W +1
Needless to say Monopolisto Man would have been in the soup with any sustained losses at higher levels. He therefore established some limits to avoid massive wipe-outs.
He would play for twenty units a session. He would confine himself to blackjack and play the Ainslee version of Basic Strategy which enables a wider range when doubling bets. For example doubling on a total of ten rather than eleven. This was something of a superstition, but Monopolisto Man was well beyond the stage of card counting by this time. He recognized that such counting was possible but that the price in sheer nerves was more than was to his liking.
After his Boston practice he boarded a plane for Las Vegas and was soon ensconced at Sam's Town, heading south from downtown on Boulder Highway. Sam's Town at the time dealt double deck blackjack, which suited Monipolisto Man just fine.
.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Monopolisto Man Learns Oscar's Grind
Monopolisto Man has what many gamblers have. A short attention span. He is too old to have been diagnosed. He thinks diagnoses are for the birds. Schmuck studies. Asinine headlines. Predictable prose.
It was thus that our protagonist left Divonne and encamped in Boston for some weeks, haunting the public library. He found Ainslie's book on gambling and turned as if by instinct to the pages that describe Oscar's Grind.
Since my readers are not after Ellroy prose or extended narrative, but merely the meat of actual gambling, I shall jump immediately to how Oscar's Grind works. In Ainslie it was used playing the Don't in Craps.
You make a one unit bet. As long as this bet loses you bet one unit. When you win after a loss or losses you bet two units. You bet after wins in ascending amounts until you are a unit ahead and then revert to one unit. You never Martingale. You never follow a loss with a bump.
Monopolisto Man maintained an apartment at the Fairfield Buiiding almost next to the library. He felt at home in the Copley Square neighborhood. There were decent places to eat and the library was wonderful. One could not ask for more.
He took Ainslie out and carried it back to his studio apartment. It was Friday. Later Boylston Street would reverberate with the drunken cries of short haired incipient alcoholics, most in their twenties. Only in Boston could could one detect a note of such utter despair. In Boston the game of life was big. Everyone played it with addictive flair. It was completely sealed off and personal to every soul. It was a penumbra thing no doubt.
Monopolisto Man did not go to bed. He had a computer that was happily not new. Something from the early 1990s with all the old games. His a blackjack was vastly superior to anything that had since been offered. He spent the next 48 hours straight -- with minimal sleep breaks and no change of clothes -- learning the conditions under which Oscar's Grind, like all other gambling systems, would not work.
It was thus that our protagonist left Divonne and encamped in Boston for some weeks, haunting the public library. He found Ainslie's book on gambling and turned as if by instinct to the pages that describe Oscar's Grind.
Since my readers are not after Ellroy prose or extended narrative, but merely the meat of actual gambling, I shall jump immediately to how Oscar's Grind works. In Ainslie it was used playing the Don't in Craps.
You make a one unit bet. As long as this bet loses you bet one unit. When you win after a loss or losses you bet two units. You bet after wins in ascending amounts until you are a unit ahead and then revert to one unit. You never Martingale. You never follow a loss with a bump.
Monopolisto Man maintained an apartment at the Fairfield Buiiding almost next to the library. He felt at home in the Copley Square neighborhood. There were decent places to eat and the library was wonderful. One could not ask for more.
He took Ainslie out and carried it back to his studio apartment. It was Friday. Later Boylston Street would reverberate with the drunken cries of short haired incipient alcoholics, most in their twenties. Only in Boston could could one detect a note of such utter despair. In Boston the game of life was big. Everyone played it with addictive flair. It was completely sealed off and personal to every soul. It was a penumbra thing no doubt.
Monopolisto Man did not go to bed. He had a computer that was happily not new. Something from the early 1990s with all the old games. His a blackjack was vastly superior to anything that had since been offered. He spent the next 48 hours straight -- with minimal sleep breaks and no change of clothes -- learning the conditions under which Oscar's Grind, like all other gambling systems, would not work.
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