Trip Planner

The planner turns your table rules, spread, Trip Bankroll, and trip length into your Expected result, Chance of profit, Chance of losing half, Trip ruin, Chance of hitting goal, and the range where nine trips in ten land. Even with an edge, one short trip can still be close to a coin flip.

Counting systemTrip bankroll ($)the money you bring on this trip, not your career bankrollHours of playHow crowded?Hands per hourtype your own pace to override the crowd presetWalk-away goal ($)the profit at which you quit the trip

Table rules

Table entryDecksSoft 17PenetrationDealer hole cardDoublingBlackjack paysDouble after splitLate surrenderResplit aces

Playing deviations (Illustrious 18 + Fab 4, insurance at +3)

Bet spread (units)

Wong out of negative counts

TC −1 and belowTC 0TC +1TC +2TC +3TC +4TC +5TC +6 and up

This is the same table setup as the betting calculator. An edit on either page shows on both.

Expected result+$205over 1,200 hands

Chance of profit54%ending the trip up by any amount

Chance of losing half8.9%ending down $2,500 or worse

Trip ruin1.0%the Trip Bankroll hits zero at any point during the trip

Chance of hitting goal65%your profit reaches +$1,000 at any point during the trip

Realistic range. 9 trips in 10 end inside it

worst realistic: −$3,094▲ $0 · ▮ expected +$205best realistic: +$3,505

To plan your trip, pick your counting system, enter your Trip Bankroll, hours of play, and Walk-away Goal, choose how crowded the table is, and set the rules and spread to match your casino.

How to read these numbers

Trip ruin is the chance your Trip Bankroll touches zero at any point mid-trip, not only the chance of ending there. Once you are felted you cannot keep playing, so the mid-trip number is the one that matters, and it is always higher than the end-of-trip version. Chance of losing half is an end-of-trip number, the flight home with half your roll or less. Chance of hitting goal is the probability that your profit touches your Walk-away Goal at some point during the trip, whether or not you stand up when it does. If trip ruin is too high for you, bring more money for the same stakes, or shrink your unit. Those are the only two choices.

One trip means nothing

The expected result above is a long-run average applied to one short trip. Over a single trip, luck dwarfs skill. A perfect counter loses trips regularly, and a tourist wins them. The edge shows up over many trips, so plan around the realistic-range bar, not the expected result. If the worst-realistic number would hurt beyond the money, bet smaller or bring less.

Methodology

Your spread's per-hand EV and variance come from the same measured data as the betting calculator (20,000,000 simulated rounds per rule configuration). Trip outcomes use the normal approximation over your total hands. Trip ruin and goal probability are first-passage (barrier) probabilities, not terminal ones. The goal number is a single barrier, so it counts a few paths that bust before they reach the goal, and it reads slightly high when your trip ruin is large. The math holds your spread fixed for the whole trip, even as the roll shrinks. Real players bet smaller when they are losing, and that lowers both ruin and EV slightly. The percentile band is P5–P95.

Tune the spread itself on the betting calculator, and practice the counting it assumes on the training table.