Blackjack on Royal Caribbean - Quantum of the Seas

First, the rules:

8 deck, 1~ deck pen

DAS allowed

No early surrender

Dealer hits on S17

Min $15 Max $150

Split aces only get 1 card, and no natural blackjack from that

Dealer doesn't deal his 2nd card until all players' hands are resolved (slight house edge; will affect certain strategy plays like whether to double player 11 against dealer 10)

It was my first time playing bj in a casino, and I had fun! I had memorized the basic strategy charts (with common deviations) and my counting was accurate within 0-2 over 6 decks in my home practice so I was fairly confident of not losing the count.

Some key points from my experience: 

1) I attracted no heat

It could be because I was using a super conservative bet spread (1 unit per true count up to 5) or I just wasn't winning big, but the casino staff didn't seem to care that I was blatantly counting. 

I deliberately took Seat #1 as much as possible, and often delayed the game as I was trying to estimate the current decks dealt, count the other players cards etc. Pit supervisors were staring at the games but never said anything. Players were also quite tolerant when I took my time.

2) There are all sorts of players

Over about 4-5h of play across 6 sessions, I saw:

- newbies playing bj for the first time (e.g. not hitting a 8 (??) 

- gamblers shouting 'picture!' hoping for dealer to bust

- semi counters who were saying things like 'the next card is going to be big, so I should hit' (I didn't think they were truly counting as they didn't make betting deviations)

- maniacs (there was a guy betting 2-300 per hand, gesticulating animatedly when he won/loss. He was highly entertaining to watch and there was a literal crowd of 10 ppl standing around watching him)

I don't think I saw another card counter, or at least someone who played perfect basic strategy (common giveaways are not hitting a 15/16 even on negative counts - most casual players will be afraid to hit those despite it being +EV to hit those in the long run)

3) There are all sorts of dealers

I'm not sure what system they had for rotating dealers - I've had dealers deal for a full 2 shoes; I've had midshoe changes. The 'worst' dealer I had was this PRC woman who was LIGHTNING FAST. I've never seen anyone deal so fast before. I was glad for her to switch out. 

Then there was this PRC man who was obviously newer, and dealt very slowly and deliberately. In one of the hands, he even made a payout error - the result was a push but he paid out this other player... I don't know if the player noticed, but I didn't say anything to not cause any problems haha.

4) Variance is a bitch

I remember two memorable hands. 

True count was +2 or 3, so I bet 2-3 betting units (can't rem)

• I was dealt AA against dealer 5. Split
• Each hand got a ten/picture card. The guy next to me was celebrating for me, saying 'good job' and stuff. I thought I had a double Blackjack.
• Dealer somehow made 21... and it was a push.
• ( I didn't know that splitting Aces meant u can't get a natural Blackjack, so I was happy for a second)

Count irrelevant, was betting min bet.

• I had 77 against dealer 5. Split.
• 77 7 (dealt a 7 on first hand). Split again.
• 77 7 7 (dealt a 7 again!). At this point I was already hesitating at putting so much money on the table, and I could hear several spectators gathering to watch as they noticed I had multiple hands in play.
• Split again.
• 7K 77 7 7 (first hand was a 17. 2nd hand GOT ANOTHER 7 what in the world. Couldn't split again as max number of splits was 3)
• 7K 774 7J 74(8) [I even hit an 11 on the last hand, so I agonisingly put in the double, and the small crowd (of 3-4 people) behind were watching with bated breath]
• My eventual hands were something like 7K 774 7J 748
• And. The. Dealer. Freaking. Gets. 20. There was an audible gasp and groan from the spectators it was almost comical, as they collectively empathized with me.
• This hand put me on tilt for a while, losing 5 betting units at once (thank goodness it wasn't at some high count, and I was still betting min bet). I had to skip a few hands as I was tilted bad

My overall stats:

Biggest winning session: $192

Biggest losing session: -$139

Total winning sessions: 3 sessions, for total of $259

Total losing sessions: 3 sessions, for total of $420

NET: -$161 loss

All in all it was a fun experience! I felt like I was fairly lucky in that I didn't have a long losing streak and I got a fairly accurate experience of about 50% edge - and I'd have to play more just to let the edge play out. Wouldn't mind going again! Next time, I'll try to spend more time :p

Review of Dream Cruise - World Dream Palace Suites

I just came back from my first ever cruise on Dream Cruise's World Dream with some friends, and thought I could give my take of the experience. We opted for their Palace Suites, which I will review below too. This is not meant to be a comprehensive review of the facilities as I did not take cool photos of everything.

[Formatting may be all weird as Blogger's formatting tools are wonky]

Palace Suites 

Dream Cruise markets this as the 'exclusive, attentive luxury experience that goes beyond expectations'. Does it really do so? Let me break down what you get and what our experience was.

The latest prices / offerings can be found here, and the latest screenshot is below.

In a gist, you pay a little more than a regular cabin, and you get access to many extras that the regular folks don't get, such as extra facilities, extra room space, and extra butler service. I'll just comment on the facilities and butler service.

Extra Facilities

There are certain areas on the ship that are marked out only for Palace guests, such as the Palace dining, Palace pool, etc. I don't know how the food compares against the 'regular' dining area as we didn't dine at the regular area, but I liked that there was a 'private' pool that was separate from the main pool that was more crowded and open. 

There were other areas like Palace spa (but you have to pay for everything and the massage prices are exorbitant) and Palace arcade (basically more fun games than the general open arcade, but about $3-4 per game), but they were nothing to crow about. There's a Palace Casino but that's more for high rollers - minimum bets started at $300!

Butler Service

The butler service seemed like a hit or miss experience. We went with two other couples, and basically one of their butlers seemed to be always around and helped them (and thankfully by extension, us too) settle everything; another butler seemed to never be around; our butler was somewhere in the middle. 

The annoying thing is that one key service butlers were supposed to provide was to be able to help you make bookings so you don't have to run all over to make them. However, many of the activities required in-person bookings as they used pen and paper registration (i.e. most of the sporting activities), so we still had to queue early and make our bookings that way for each activity we wanted. 

I can't imagine having to run around to book individual restaurants and shows by myself though, and the little perks (secret entrance and prime seats for shows) of the Palace Suites make me not want to go for the 'regular' experience, if I ever decided to return.

Food

The food was quite disappointing. Being my maiden voyage, one key selling point I hear from friends who had gone on cruises before was that you could eat to your heart's content, and the food was usually pretty decent. This was not the case. 

Part of the Palace Suites package was that we got to eat at all the specialty restaurants on board. Below is a short breakdown:

Steak and Grill @ Marks Best - The wife's steak came way undercooked (was pinkish red when she asked for medium); after sending it back, the outsides were burnt and insides were still pink. The meat was thin and dry. My cod was also pretty meh, and looked like it was in a plate of vomit - which was actually some sort of pasta. The pasta itself wasn't tooooo bad, but just wasn't appetising.

Fish in Vomit

Palace Restaurant  - This was the in-house dining that Palace Suites guests could have meals at all times of the day I believe, which includes breakfast, lunch, high-tea, happy hour, dinner, and supper.

First day hi-tea... not bad

The food was average, with some dishes being quite bad (breakfast had a 'mushrooms' side dish to the eggs, which were just plain boiled with no seasoning/sauce. Tasted horrible). The one time we had lunch there, I didn't quite like the duck either. For breakfast, orange juice tasted like diluted punch, and pastries/bread did not taste fresh. Even the coffee tasted too mild and light, didn't pack much of a kick.
My travel companions swear by the supper menu though, claiming that the char kway teow for supper was one of the best they ever had.

Hotpot - There's a ton of ingredients with the hotpot set(one full plate of vegetables and one full plate of meat), but it was really quantity over quality. Half the meat were those frozen processed kind (e.g. sausages, meatballs) and wasn't that great. I drowned the food in the free-flow goma sauce and laoganma to make the meal more appetising.

Silk Road - Chinese restaurant which was average at best - duck portion was really small (picture shows a portion for 2pax) and the sweet salmon was meh. 

Teppanyaki - This was hands down the best place we ate at.

The starter dish of live-cooked vegetables was tasty and well-seasoned. Fried rice was a little bland for my liking, could have been a little more salty, but it was still nice. The filet mignon was juicy, soft, and really good. Above all, the live chef (shoutout to Brian) cooking the food was really funny and entertaining. Out of all the food I ate, this was the only one I would actually willingly pay for outside.

Entertainment

Wi-Fi - The complimentary Wi-Fi was HORRENDOUS. I don't care about data speeds, but the connection was never consistent. This was a big problem because our group of 6 had to often rely on Whatsapp to communicate and coordinate (due to the COVID 2pax rule), and often we had awkward radio silence as the connection just kept dropping. There were long stretches on the third day where we just had no Wi-Fi at all. It was horrible.

Casino - I'm only interested in the physical table games, and not the slots machines / digital games, so I will only comment on those. The minimum bet was $50 for certain games (e.g. baccarat), and $100 for most, and it was kinda disappointing that they pegged it so high. I'm not sure if it's covid-related and they wanted to keep play sessions shorter, but I wish they had lower budget options. Kinda sad that they didn't have a poker table too. The games were largely blackjack variants and chinese gambling games (e.g. da xiao, pai gow), all capped at 2 pax per table, which does dampen the atmosphere a bit. 

VISION - This was a magic show by a French magician that was pretty good! I thought he made the most of the COVID restrictions where it's harder to have audience interactions, though I wish he had a greater variety of tricks - several of them were repeated in idea (i.e. forced choice). He was a good performer though, so he gave us an entertaining show (regardless of whether we could figure out the tricks)

FAITH - Shipwrecked buff dude, acrobats, pirates doing flips, ballet dancing, hot topless males, aerial ring/cloth tricks, cross-dressing 'witch' (who looked more like a clown) talking to an angel and a demon, trampoline stunts. 

If the above sentence sounded disjointed and confusing, that was exactly how this show felt. It felt like they had a talented crew of performers who could do certain things, and they just tried to string them together and slap on some storyline which didn't make sense. I never thought that an acrobatic /circus show needed coherence to be good (I'm probably spoilt as my previous experiences were Cirque du Soleil / Vegas shows) but I left this show scratching my head wondering what I just watched.

Ropes Obstacle Course - This was pretty fun - you are clipped into a safety harness and have to navigate a rope obstacle course that's a few metres up in the air. The obstacles weren't overly difficult to navigate, with the hardest being a rope wall at the end that requires you to clear a tricky gap sideways -  but being that high up and walking on shaky and/or small platforms IS quite thrilling and fun. The course climaxes in a zipline over the sea back to the starting point, which is a great adrenaline rush. 

Water slides - There are 5 adult water slides, and they are pretty good. Without spoiling anything, expect to twist and turn and zip down REALLY fast. I always ended up a little dizzy at the end of each slide and needed a moment or two to compose myself. 

Bingo - There were multiple games of bingo throughout the cruise, each 'escalating' in a their 'jackpot' prize ($28,888 to $68,888). We went for at least 3 out of 6 of them, and there were no winners of the jackpot prize in any of those sessions, which originally led us to suspect that the game may be rigged. 

Basically how it works is you pay $30 to get 3 cards with 24 random numbers each, and they will call out numbers from 1 - 75 'at random', one at a time. If a called number also appears on your card, you can mark it by punching it out (the numbers are perforated slightly). To win the jackpot, you need to hit all 24 numbers on a single card by the 40th call. 

In all 3 games I witnessed, no one came close - I think the earliest anyone took to hit all 24 numbers was around the 60th call? That person wins a consolation prize of about $300 - given their minimum participants of 10 and maximum of 40, and most games were full, they basically make $900 each bingo session, providing they don't pay out their jackpot. 

So assuming no one wins the jackpot prize, you are paying $30 to win $300 with a 1 in 40 chance of winning - negative EV! Not worth.

EV = Expected Value
2.5% chance to win $300 vs 97.5% chance to lose $30 
$7.50-$29.25 = -$21.75

I was curious so I dug deeper, and realised that it was probably not rigged, just that the chances of getting a 'complete cover' (i.e. all 24 numbers on your card is called) by the 40th ball is really infinitesimal... ridiculously small:

The probability of one of the cards being completely covered (all 24 numbers) by the 40th call is 0.000000244%

Other Activities - There were other free activities like origami and stretch classes that you had to book, but they were all limited to 10 pax (due to COVID I suppose) and so most ended up being fully booked. And nothing was really spectacular or sounded like a 'must-try'.

Overall Experience

Given I had the impression that food was the best thing on a cruise, I was severely let down when out of all the food I ate, I probably only really liked one of them (Teppanyaki). The rope course and water slides were fun, but I wish their booking infrastructure for activities would improve. Being more of a 'do-activities' person, I was somewhat bored by the 2nd day after trying almost everything. Maybe my expectations were too high and people usually just... chill and do nothing much on a cruise [then what's the point?]? I only know that this was not much of a dream cruise for me, and I will not be returning.

Why it makes sense to time the market for certain ETFs

 There are two popular adages in investing:

"Time in the market is better than timing the market"

and a related one:

"If you have a sum of money to invest now, investing a lump sum is better than dollar-cost averaging (DCA)"

In many articles you will find online, the second statement is usually backed by studies showing that lump sum outperforms DCA roughly two-thirds of the time, even by the well-reputed investment firm Vanguard. 

However, I am here to make a contrary statement - I have found that for certain ETFs, it actually makes more sense to time the market, and NOT DCA or lump sum!

Gasp! How can it be true?? Heresy! Lies! Yes, go ahead, quote me.

"It makes sense to time the market (Teo, 2021)"

I want to point out that 'time in the market is better than timing the market' is premised on a very important assumption - that markets go up over time. Hence, it makes sense to get your investment in early and get it to work, rather than trying to wait for the perfect opportunity to enter where you may miss the market upsurge.

However, there are markets which do not meet that criteria of going up over time. Some markets actually trade in a range. Here's an example of the SPDR Straits Times Index ETF (ES3) which trades on SGX:

You don't need to use any fancy indicators to see that the price generally ranges between roughly 2.5 and 3.5 (with some exceptions, but I'm trying to draw a best fit support/resistance line). Hence, my hypothesis is that it does NOT make sense to quickly put in your money into the market, but you NEED to time it so that you don't get in at a bad price.

I did some backtesting with market data from 2017 to 2020, comparing 3 different strategies:

Strategy 1 - Lump sum $12,000 at the start of each year. 

Strategy 2 - DCA $1,000 each month

Strategy 3 - "Timed DCA" : DCA $1,000 each month ONLY IF market price is below 60% of the price range that ES3 trades between (i.e. I'm using $3.132). If market price is above that price, to accumulate that amount till a month where market price falls below my threshold price. 

(e.g. In Jan if market is above that price, save that $1,000 to next month. If in Feb the market is below that price, then put in $2,000)

For all 3 strategies, I account for dividend payouts too.

Here are the results:

It's not even close - timed DCA blows the other two strategies out of the water, even after accounting for dividends that were foregone due to the delayed investment.

Interestingly, DCA also beats Lump Sum here - likely because ES3 does not go up over time at all and trades in a range, so getting your money in earlier does nothing; even after accounting for higher dividend payouts. Some other markets that also trade in a range that this should apply to are: EEM, VWO, VXUS.

It's worth noting that with this timed DCA strategy, you could be 'sitting out' of the market for a long time. For the 2017-2020 period, you would sit out for up to 19 months (Apr 17 - Oct 18), when ES3 is doing really well. In spite of this, my backtesting above shows that it is still profitable to just sit out and hold cash, rather than enter at a suboptimal price (i.e. the dividends gained from being in the market during that period does not surpass the amount you lose in mistiming your entry)

To sum up, before you dive into an investment, look at the price action history of the underlying before following any touted strategies. One major caveat is of course that past performance is no guarantee of future performance (who knows, maybe after today ES3 goes on a long-term upward trend), though in the stock market historical patterns often repeat themselves.

This is not financial advice not a recommendation to buy ES3 or any of the stocks mentioned. I have no positions in any of the stocks mentioned, though I intend to be long ES3 - when the price is right :)