The Swings Of The Game

 Havent' posted much on BlackJack for obvious reasons. Casinos were closed and when they opened I sat it out for a while. Having returned, I have found conditions favorable. EV has gone up because less people can play at once. Yesterday I managed to snag a table to myself. 

Wanted to post a graph showing the swings of the game. This is pretty typical of what I see when playing. 

The x-axis is time from session start. As you see I had a two-hour session most of it consisted of being in the red.  I had a particular goal in mind and a time limit. Knowing the swings when the goal was met, I got up which fortunately was near the end of the shoe, meaning I did not have to waste a positive count.

The reason I know the times is because I exit the game at any -1 count. That's when I record where I stand. So each increment shows me sitting out. You see that -1 counts happen quite frequently in the space of an hour (we had two 10 minutes apart, including the time waiting for a shuffle. 

The takeaways from this post is that yes, there will be losing. In my prior experience, I was coming way underfunded for the expected dips. This can really negatively impact your game as you may never be able to recover to preserve your bankroll. So come prepared.

Secondly, if you are playing a positive expectation game you still need to learn to deal with losing and the higher your stakes the lower those dips will be. Do not panic and manage your stress and keep playing by the math.

Road To The Sham 2021: Back To Stability

 So it's September and I'm back on the road to the March Shamrock Anthem Half Marathon in Virginia Beach.  This means I'm back on the training horse but with some significant changes. First though a note on sneakers.

In the late winter into about July I went on a non-stability shoe spree. I purchased a pair of Nike Vomeros, Nike Pegasus Turbo 2's, the latter was to be used at Shamrock 2020. Obviously that didn't happen. Those sneakers weren't used very much and still sit most of the time. Why? Because they offer no stability at all. I can watch my leg collapse inward with each step (left foot). Even the insert was not helpful. 

The Vomeros were not as bad but they are heavy. I also needed to put the insert in to stabilize my left foot. That sneaker was good. I say was because it's worn now at well over 300 miles AND I can tell that the soles no longer cushion like they did before. 

In late spring i purchased a pair of Adidas Boston 8s. Ooooh nice. Light shoe with a very low profile. Not a lot of cushion but very fast shoe indeed. Best thing was that I didn't need my insert. I think the low profile had a lot to do with it as there wasn't a lot of material to squish. Speaking of squish...

So I purchased a pair of SL20s since I liked to Boston's so much. Big mistake. I hadn't even gotten to 75 miles when I had to retire them from running due to pain in my left leg. I now use them for walking. I'm glad these weren't some $200 shoe. 

So with the weather changing and knowing I cannot use the Boston's for everything and my Vomeros being beat, I decided to go back to my trusty Saucony's and purchased a pair of Guide 13s. 

They. Are. Nice. 

My legs are happy. They put a piece of plastic under the arch. There is no collapsing of my foot. At all. Clearly I need to be on stability shoes. My little experiment with non-stability shoes for every day running is done. Now, It'll be Saucony's for daily MAF running and long runs. Boston's for track speed work or short distance speed work (5 and 10K) and the Pegs for races. Maybe.

Which brings us to the second topic of this update: MAF training.  Last Feb I noted that my street MAF was 8;17/mile (a month out from the expected race). Today I run that at 7:58 with many sections in the low 7s and hitting upper 6s.

I'll hopefully get to do a track session while temps are in the 50s and see where I am there. My intention now is to drop my heart rate by maybe 5 BPM over the winter for MAF runs to see what improvements I can make over the next 6 months. 

I think I'm going to have a great PR in 2021. Here's to hoping.