Plateaus: A Key Element of Your Success at the Tables
How you place wagers and your betting patterns in general will be more determinant of whether you win or lose. Most people will get too frustrated with a cold streak, especially if they get one when they first sit down. Betting wildly and emotionally will make you lose 9 times out of 10.
You want to establish a betting pattern that you won’t deviate from when you hit the inevitable bad string of luck. Key to this is establishing the amount of money per Unit (i.e. $5 per unit, $10 per unit, etc.) and establishing Plateaus.
A Move that Keys Your Raising the Level of Your Series
You’ve already grasped the idea of the win goal being broken into guarantee and excess. You’ve also realized the importance of dividing winning series in half and splitting the chips between guarantee and excess:
- Your Guaranteed profit is rising
- Your Excess, which allows you to take more chances, is also rising
Now we come to another part of your money management picture. It is called “plateaus.” Go back to your starting session money of $500 where you set a win goal of $100 and when you got to $120, broke it into guarantee and excess.
I’ve told you that your excess play can become a little more aggressive by either increasing the length of your series or by slightly raising your betting series.
For those of you with higher bankrolls, spread into sessions, you start with a $1,000 table amount. Your series goes like this: $35, $25, $40, $60, $50, $75, $100. It contains two regressions in your up and pull moves and takes six wins to reach a $100 bet.
In your excess, you could go to $40, $30, $50, $75, $75, $100, $150. That series contained one regression, a same bet and got to a $100 bet after five wins. It was a little more aggressive than your initial play, yet not stupid, wild, uncontrolled betting.
Well what happens if you continue to win in the excess part of your session? Glad you asked! I give you plateaus, a move that keys your raising the level of your series to coincide with your success at a table.
Splitting the Profits between the Guarantee and Excess
Go back to the blackjack series that started with $10 and ended with $25. When you got to the excess play, you went to $15, $5, $10, $15, $25, $35, $50.
On this particular day you catch a cold dealer and win several series at that higher amount. Remember that you are still splitting the profits between the guarantee and excess and both piles are growing.
Enter the word “plateaus.” It is the point where you will begin to increase your series as you reach these preset plateaus. In this case we’ll make $100 profits per plateau to signal that you’re again increasing your series. That means every time you change to a new series with a slightly more aggressive betting sequence, you will keep track of your winnings and when it hits $100, you go up a notch.
These $100 goals become plateaus that you are trying to reach because they signal both a profit and an opportunity to go even higher. Since your series continue to grow, your chances of reaching $100 plateaus come easier. At that time, you could make the plateaus $150 or even $200.
Continuing with the basic series we used as one example, we’ll go over a possible increased betting series, which was reached by gradual increases: Now it goes: $15, $20, $15, $25, $40, $60, $50, $75. The regression comes after the second win, was small, and added another small regression after the sixth win. Note the amount of the bets at the fifth and higher streets. This is the same person who started with a series that capped at $25 but by going up gradually, got to a point where his peak bets almost equaled the amount of money he’d like to win for a day.
Using plateaus as a means of increasing your series is very easy to do, besides being logical. Don’t start thinking these terrific winning streaks are a daily occurrence because they’re not. But when you get to the points where they will happen, you have to be prepared.
Besides, the series that I lay out for the $5 player to proceed to could also be the series that a well-heeled player could begin with, and then spin off to increased wagering as they hit their plateaus.
Swallow, Reread, Absorb, and Zero In
Before trading in your wife and kids for a stake and heading off to make your millions, let’s look at the dork sides of this play.
I always advocate betting small when losing and increasing your bets as you get into a hot streak. The same is true if you get to a session, hit your win goal, move into the excess, go up a few plateaus, start raising your series and whacko – you hit a cold period. The options are still:
- Abide by your loss limit
- Leave after 3 or 4 losses in a row
- Reduce your series
Swallow, reread, absorb, and zero in on that last option.