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Blackjack - Basic strategy question

ianmc38

I've started playing blackjack in the casino quite regularly. As there is no gambling forum on boards, i thought this was the best place to ask.

I'm currently trying to fully memorise basic strategy and there's one particular thing thta I find confusing. That is, in bs they say split with a pair of 7s when the dealers hole card is a 7. Can someone please explain why this is, as it doesnt make much sense to me.

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Culchie

I don't play, but isn't blackjack a game you can't beat long term anyway, no matter what stategy you apply?

Excuse me if I'm incorrect, but I thought the 'house' always wins in the end?

ianmc38

If you play perfect basic strategy, the house has a 2% edge. if you play perfect basic strategy and count cards, you have a 1% edge on the house. But obviously, none of us would do that.

Culchie

Presuming you play perfect cards and count cards, and have this 1% edge, would it not be better to put your money in Northern Rock at 3%+ ?

You appear (from what I've read) to be in and around the business end of most tourneys you play in the SE ... so why spend time on BJ, and a maximum edge of 1%
Any serious (winning) pro would say stay away from the house games, these are the major leaks in their bankroll.

Not trying to be confrontational, but I am trying to see what angle you are coming from on this, it would be different if you just walked in off the street and didn't know any different, but you are a poker player so you do know better.

ianmc38

Culchie wrote:

Presuming you play perfect cards and count cards, and have this 1% edge, would it not be better to put your money in Northern Rock at 3%+ ?

You appear (from what I've read) to be in and around the business end of most tourneys you play in the SE ... so why spend time on BJ, and a maximum edge of 1%
Any serious (winning) pro would say stay away from the house games, these are the major leaks in their bankroll.

Not trying to be confrontational, but I am trying to see what angle you are coming from on this, it would be different if you just walked in off the street and didn't know any different, but you are a poker player so you do know better.

I play it for fun and for free drink

Culchie

Cool, the free drink did it for me :v:

ianmc38

No blackjack players then?

If anyone fancies a bet today, I would recommend Andre Lane in the Bobsleigh at 4:30. Currently 6/4

shoutman

ianmc38 wrote:

No blackjack players then?

If anyone fancies a bet today, I would recommend Andre Lane in the Bobsleigh at 4:30. Currently 6/4

on ladbrokes he is 5/4 second favourite is alaxandr zoubov at 5/1....

Hmmmm.

ianmc38

shoutman wrote:

on ladbrokes he is 5/4 second favourite is alaxandr zoubov at 5/1....

Hmmmm.

I stuck €120 on him at 6/4. Its as close to a sure thing as you can get really and I made a tidy profit from betfair yesterday thanks to a tip from iloveireland in the horse racing forum. For anyone who likes a bet on the GGs, watch that guys tips as they are top notch.

fixer

basic strategy is calculated off millions of hand simulations. So asking "why" for any theoretical play doesn't make sense, as the only answer is "cause the computers at MIT told us so"

gerire

I got most of by card counting basics from "Bringing down the house" but as you probably do know the book you'll know it really is the basics only. Read a bit here: http://www.countingedge.com/ and then decided to give up playing against the house unless I was out out on the piss and "Tonight is it, Im going to clean them out" and go in and lose money away.

ianmc38

I've seen a documentary about the MIT card counters, havnt read the book though. Its pretty simple to count with a bit of practice. I just find it interesting that basic strategy recommends to split with 77 when the dealer has 7.

Kinda perplexes me.

Iago

ianmc38 wrote:

I've started playing blackjack in the casino quite regularly. As there is no gambling forum on boards, i thought this was the best place to ask.

I'm currently trying to fully memorise basic strategy and there's one particular thing thta I find confusing. That is, in bs they say split with a pair of 7s when the dealers hole card is a 7. Can someone please explain why this is, as it doesnt make much sense to me.

Well if you have 14 and the dealer has 7 what else would you do? Over half the deck will bust you (8s,9s 10s(J,Q,K), and around a 1/4 of the second half will leave you thinking about taking another card, (A,2,3) so really you can only get a 4,5,6,7. There are 3 7's in play already so how many good cards are out there for you?

If you split you give yourself a couple of chances of beating the dealer but more importantly you open your options. Now if you hit a a,2,3,4 you can take another card with a high likelihood of hitting 18+, you can double up your bet increasing your chance of winning more money, and you get a second hand to play with.

If you hit one of the high cards you can stick and let the dealer try to outdraw you.

Basically it gives you a far better chance to A) not bust and

beat the dealer. It also gives you a 2nd hand to beat him with, doubling your chances.

Samba

My perfect strategy is don't play.

Iago

Samba wrote:

My perfect strategy is don't play.

I tend to agree for offline play, the only time I play offline is when I'm waiting for a poker tourney to start.

But there is a huge amount of EV available online playing blackjack, too much to blanket say I won't bother!

Samba

Iago wrote:

I tend to agree for offline play, the only time I play offline is when I'm waiting for a poker tourney to start.

But there is a huge amount of EV available online playing blackjack, too much to blanket say I won't bother!

I would have to agree with the this, however how and when should you go play is the big question!

Online casinos have payout percentages, so if some poor mug just dropped alot of money, the RNG will start dealing some nice cards.

at the same time, this is a bit like the famous drug question, will it lead to harder drugs, will this stepping out of poker bring you onto another level of gambling, where skill becomes less of an influence over the outcome of games played.

IMO you are better off sticking to the poker tables, I remember the free £16 Noble account, i built that free $28 in to approx. $450. lol. then I found built in online casino, needless to say I peed away the entire 450.

I don't even ponder Blackjack these days, even when I'm waiting for a tourney to start. You can go broke so quick it's not funny

ianmc38

Samba wrote:

Online casinos have payout percentages, so if some poor mug just dropped alot of money, the RNG will start dealing some nice cards.

Are you joking me? That would imply that the game operates like a video poker machine where the cards are dealt based on the amount of profit made, rather than actually dealing them randomly.

Samba

Go read up about RNGs in online casinos. Some of them do have this in place.

Most if not all are software based RNG's, there is a big difference between hardware and software based RNGs.

http://www.tstglobal.com/articles/Software_vs_Hardware_RNGs.pdf

Drakar

ianmc38 wrote:

If you play perfect basic strategy, the house has a 2% edge. if you play perfect basic strategy and count cards, you have a 1% edge on the house. But obviously, none of us would do that.

I thought card counting was made pretty difficult nowadays by the automatic shufflers and large number of decks they use? Also if they notice you changing your bet sizes they got suspicious pretty easilly...

Samba

Drakar wrote:

I thought card counting was made pretty difficult nowadays by the automatic shufflers and large number of decks they use? Also if they notice you changing your bet sizes they got suspicious pretty easilly...

The more decks the easier it is for card counters, MIT guys pretty much sealed the fate of every professional card counter around. It's very hard to get away with these days.

It is however still perfeclty legal.

Iago

card counting is for mugs, read Breaking Vegas by the same author as Bringing down the House. Brialliant book, and outlines 3 methods of manipulating the deck to give you up to a 30% advantage over the house

alternatively you could just play online with the free bonus money and leave it at that

Drakar

It is legal, but they can ask you to leave the casino if they suspect that you're doing it.

I would have thought smaller number of decks is better for card counters. Imagine we are playing with 1 deck. There are therefore 20 high cards in the deck. So if you start counting and you note that there were no high cards after you saw 5 cards, this means the chance of one coming up next is 20/47 (~43%). Imagine instead you were looking at a 10 deck shoe. There are 200 high cards. As before, if you start counting and after 5 cards there are no high cards. This means the chances of one coming up next are 200/515 (39%). IE with a smaller number of decks, the differences are more pronounced. Maybe I'm looking at it wrongly?

ianmc38

Drakar wrote:

I thought card counting was made pretty difficult nowadays by the automatic shufflers and large number of decks they use? Also if they notice you changing your bet sizes they got suspicious pretty easilly...

Well obviously a counter will never play at a table with an auotmatic shuffler. Only a table where its dealt from a shoe.

Bet sizes dont just suddenly increase. Its done incrementally as the true count goes up, so the betting patterns never look that suspicious. And when you play the min stakes table, no one really notices anyways.

Drakar

And while they're plying you with this free drink you'll be able to increment your bets by exactly the right amount (remembering it's a 1% edge at best)? Muahaha, I bet after a few hours it'll be all on number 17 in roulette hehe.

Oh, for people who play online to take advantage of the bonuses... I use http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bjbse.php to generate the correct strategy for each site. I also use http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack if the site is simple enough to support it as it offers more detailed exceptions (like if your 14 is made up of 2 3 7 2, it may change your optimum action).

ianmc38

Drakar wrote:

And while they're plying you with this free drink you'll be able to increment your bets by exactly the right amount (remembering it's a 1% edge at best)?

Incrementing is simply mutliplying the minimum bet by a number, not hard at all. The free drink is the killer. I swear one week every drink i got had more vodka in it. Without a shadow of a doubt. the last one i drank tasted like it was 90% vodka 10% coke, so the counting pretty much goes out the window at that stage, but as long as i'm even I dont care as Im essentially getting paid to drink there for the night. And its a good laugh when you do it with a few mates as well.

fuzzbox

Culchie wrote:

Presuming you play perfect cards and count cards, and have this 1% edge, would it not be better to put your money in Northern Rock at 3%+ ?

1% per minute is miles better than 3% per annum.

Culchie

fuzzbox wrote:

1% per minute is miles better than 3% per annum.

I'd say -2% per minute is pretty bad as well.

fuzzbox

Culchie wrote:

I'd say -2% per minute is pretty bad as well.

Whats that got to do with your question?

Norwich Fan Rob

about 2 years ago, b4 i played poker, i made about 4k in 2 months, downloading about 40 online casinos, depositing for the max bonus, and playing low stake multi handed perfect bj to fulfil wagering requirements, twas easiest 4k ever made.

Drakar

fuzzbox wrote:

Whats that got to do with your question?

I believe what he may be oh so subtly suggesting is that the perfect application of basic strategy is a goal that eludes many an eager punter with a clever plan and dollar signs in his eyes.

fuzzbox

Drakar wrote:

I believe what he may be oh so subtly suggesting is that the perfect application of basic strategy is a goal that eludes many an eager punter with a clever plan and dollar signs in his eyes.

The quesiton was - why take 1%, when you can get 3% from Northern Rock?

If you can get 1% per minute, then its vastly superior to 3% per annum.

This is a great reason to take this 1%.

If you cant get this 1%, then this question doesnt really matter.