- Tips For Advantage Casino Blackjack Play
- Never Sit at A Losing Blackjack Table Again
- Ken Uston Blackjack Legend
- Ken Uston On Blackjack Card Clumping
- Choose Blackjack
- Playing Blackjack With Shuffle Machines
- Target 21 and Casino Comps
- Blackjack Kelly Bet
- Blackjack Strategy
- Basic Blackjack Strategy
BLACKJACK KELLY BET
What Is A Betting UNIT? What Is A Half KELLY Bet?
WHAT IS A BETTING UNIT?
From time to time we get questions from clients, "what is a unit"? While most experienced casino players know, not everyone is familiar with this term. The first time I heard it was nearly 30 years ago.
So, for a quick and simple explanation, a UNIT represents a dollar denomination. The terms UNIT or UNITS are often used to describe a players winning or loosing sessions. The reason the term UNIT is used and not dollars is because some players may prefer to bet with in RED or $5 chips, while other players may prefer to bet with GREEN or $25 chips, or even BLACK $100 chips.
When describing a players winning activity as a $200 win, this does not provide a clear picture of his/her winning activity. For example, if this player was a GREEN chip player a $200 win equates to eight (8) units, (8 x $25 = $200). But, if this player were a RED chip player, he/she would have won forty (40) units, (40 x $5 = $200).
When we are analyzing player's results, we are NOT measuring his average dollar bet. We are measuring his/her play results in UNITS; this gives us a clearer picture of the winning or losing activity. Converting the play results to UNITS, not dollars, allows everyone is on the same page. Using the above examples, the 40 UNIT (Red Chip) player "won five (5) times more hands" than the 8 UNIT (Green Chip) player, even though the net amount of the win is the same $200. Keep in mind that the red chip player and the green chip player could have been playing at the same table at the same time. In hind sight, one could say that if the 40 UNIT (red chip) player had been using $25 UNITS, he could have won $1,000, instead of $200.
At any rate a Unit is simple a Measurement tool.
WHAT IS A 1/2 KELLY BET?
Let's first get an understanding of what a Kelly is. Kelly is a term used in the gambling world as a method of breaking up one FULL UNIT into parts of a UNIT. It is referred to as The Kelly Criterion and was originally developed by AT&T Bell Laboratories physicist John Larry Kelly, based on the work of his colleague Claude Shannon. Kelly's formulas are often referred to as the "Kelly Criterion". You can find more information on the Kelly Criterion at Wikipedia.org to see a formula used for a gamblers bankroll. "An assumption of the Kelly formula is that currency and bets are infinitely divisible, though this is met for practical purposes if the bankroll is large enough."
Professional's Insight Series Blackjack Master, "Killer Konrad" uses a simplified Kelly Criterion to breakdown his average unit bet size of $50 into smaller pieces of his full Unit. Killer's average one unit bet size is $50. Converting Killer's $50 unit to the Kelly Criterion means one full unit is one full Kelly. Each equals the same dollar amount of $50. By using the Kelly Criterion, Killer breaks his one full unit down into parts of a unit. For example: One FULL KELLY is $50. One Half (1/2) KELLY is $25.
Killer likes to play at a $25 minimum table. But, until he has confirmed this table is a player favorable table, he uses a 1/2 Kelly betting unit or $25 (1/2 of $50 = $25). If Killer is using a three (3) unit stop loss for this table session, his stop loss is $150. However, by using a 1/2 Kelly bet size, he could actually incur six (6) losses during a given session, before his table departure criteria kicks in. Six (6) losses x $25 = $150. Using the 1/2 Kelly betting unit allows Killer to analyze deeper into a given session to assess the card flow. This can be particularly helpful when playing a 6 or 8 deck shoe game to get a more meaningful read of the card flow, much deeper into the shoe. At some point if/when this shoe develops winning conditions, Killer can increase his bets to a Full Kelly, or Full $50 Unit. He can also become even more aggressive by increasing his bet size to one and half Kelly or $75. He can continue to increase his Kelly bet size all the way to table limits. Without over exposing his playable by-in.
You can use the Kelly Criterion to further breakdown your UNIT SIZE. Example: If your normal betting unit is $25 Green Chip play and you scout out a $5 or $10 dumping/winning table, you can use the Kelly Criterion to break your normal $25 unit size down to 1/5th Kelly's. This means a RED ($5) chip is 1/5th of your Full Unit or Full Kelly. So, at a $5 table you could experience 5 losses in your session, but it's still only considered a ONE-unit loss of your $25 average unit bet size or Full Kelley.
Likewise, if your at a $10 table, you would have 2/5ths Kelly per bet. You could have 5 losses in this session, but actually would only have lost 2 Units. ($5 x 10 losses = $50).
Also consider in some Las Vegas casinos you can find $2 and $3 games. If your average unit bet is $5, simply break down your $5 UNIT into smaller KELLY sizes. Therefore, if your stop loss is 3 units of $5 each = $15, then you could incur 7 losses at a $2 table or $5 losses at a $3 table.
This is how you can utilize the Kelly Criterion to provide you with more flexibility of playing more hands but still protecting your bankroll.
You can learn much more about disciplined Money Management in our Target 21 Blackjack and Blackjack Masters DVD's.