Blackjack Query

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denisco_uk

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Ive long wondered about this, and exactly how the casino's make money. I'm aware that players often play suboptimally, doubling on 9, 10, 11 when it may not be in their best interests ev wise, etc.

Hypothetically speaking, If the dealer has to stick on 17 or more, surely if i adopted the exact same strategy (i.e. never doubling, splitting etc), i would win if played infinitely?

My reasoning is thus: I am playing by the exact same rules as the casino, therefore there is no edge to the house, plus the few times i do get blackjack, i get paid at 1.5 my stake. Played infinitely, i couldn't lose.

Perhaps my reaosning is naive, but i can't see how the casino would have an edge using this system. It is inherently boring and would probably require some sort of bot to play to ensure optimal strategy (and a large bank roll - assumung online play), but, would this be infallible?

Cheers all.
 
In Blackjack a tie is a push.

I think the problem occurs because you have to play first. i.e. you are dealt 16, the dealer has a face card up, playing by the casino rules (and common sense) you would take another card. If you bust the dealer immediately takes your cash, he does not have to play his hand.
 
If you can teach yourself to card count, and more importantly not get caught!!! you can win, with a degree of regularity. Dealers and operators are trained to spot you though, after it was discovered the table didn't hold the edge in the 1950's if played correctly.

The slightly better way of doing it, is to teach a couple of other people to do it. You act smart Alec, and they act like stupid novices enjoying a bit of beginners luck. The smiling dealer is invariably trying to get you beat to wipe that "smug know all" / "trying to impress" look off your face, whilst being slow to observe that the other people involved are building up a healthy pile, (indeed pyschological that even been routing for that result) whilst you're managing your loses to an acceptable enough level not to alert the table. Essentially you play as a team.

Without going into the methods the idea is to assign a score of +1, 0 and -1 to each card dealt dependent on what it is, and bet accordingly dependent on when the deck yet to dealt is positive and negative. Alot of tables play with 6 decks, but practice at home, and you'll soon learn how to estimate to a reasonable degree of accuracy how many decks are in play dependent on where the split occurs, and provided you're mathematically dexterous can divide accordingly. Traditionally it was your betting patterns that gave you away, but you need to be quick at totting what values are being thrown down.

Come to think of it I remember watching Derren Brown clean a Blackjack table out a few years ago. Although he was trying to poass it off as a memory retention feat, it was clearly an example of card counting. What was impressive, after he came clean with the dealers, and confessed that they'd filmed secretly with the owners consent is how he was able to cut a deck to specified number. They said, say, 27, and he just lifted 27 cards cards staright off the deck, made them count it out and bingo!!!

PS did anyone see what he did at the Dog track? now that I would like to know. Indeed he did confess he made a fortune before becoming famous conning bookies accordingly.

pps - whilst on the subject, as it might be topical later today? did anyone ever see what he did with those QPR players and the Goalkeeper about how to predict where a penalty taker would attempt to place his shot? Now why Sven bothers with a coach and training for such eventualities is beyond me. Send for Derren!!! Even if he never replied to my email about whether ti would be possible to hypnotise umpires from the boundary into giving Australians out last year
 
Warbler - does the number of packs in use and more importantly the almost constant use of a card-shuffler in most casinos negate any card-counting advantage?

I trained myself to do it a few years ago, but have always found the other distractions of a casino - alcohol, girls, mates asking me how to play Punto Blanco etc - too great to put it to practice.
 
The number of packs needn't, provided you can satisfy yourself how many are in use, and where the breaker has been inserted. You'd be surprised how accurate you can be with a degree of practice at home, and will quickly be able to get down to about 10 either side in 6 decks, just through experience and accute visual obeservation.

A constant shuffler would however, and I must confess its a few years ago now since I played Blackjack, and have no idea what the general practice is regarding shuffling. In my day they used to cut the pack occasionally, in which case you'd start up again, betting small, until you established a feel for the pos or neg nature of the deck yet to be dealt.

I think above all you need bottle, discipline, and be quick at assessing a situation through accurate counting. If you can manufacture distractions to slow the game up (the dumb blondes I was alluding to - who incidentally are very accomplished card counters themselves) then that will increase your chances, and add to the camouflage. As you say though, there are better things in life

And as a point in passing, what casino's have you found in the UK that serve alcohol? The only one I can remember using (where it was free and compulsory, as was food) was in Peru. Have they relaxed this now, as drinking at a table was definate no no, and so far as I can remember none I've ever been in served it, full stop
 
betsmate is right. The house edge in blackjack exists purely because the dealer goes last and automatically collects stakes from those players who have bust whether or not the dealer's hand busts.

So, although no one wins when the hands are tied ("push") at 21 or under, the house wins when both player and dealer bust.

The house edge is reduced by blackjack paying 6/4 and by the player's ability to make decisions rather than having to obey fixed rules as the dealer has to. If a player wasn't allowed to adopt a strategy and had to play as the dealer must (stand on 17 or over, draw on 16 or below, no splitting or doubling down) then the house would have an edge of 5.9%. This is because the dealer will bust an average 28.8% of the time and so wil the player. So the chance of both busting at the same time is 28.8% x 28.8% = 8.29%. The palaer gets 6/4 for blackjack while the dealer gets only even money. This equates to a player advantage of 2.37%. hence the 5.9% house advantage in this theoretical world.

By playing what is known as "basic strategy" the intelligent blackjack player can reduce the house percentage to somewhere between 0.6% and 1%. It is amazing how few players use basic strategy, which is simple to learn and to use.

Simple card counting to enable the player to modify stakes (having more on when the count is favourable) makes the chances equal. Used in conjunction with basic strategy a simple card count will give the player a 1% edge.

More sophisticated card counting methods, such as Warbler describes, using mechanical aids and/or teams when used with staking plans and basic strategy will improve the percentage in the player's favour but the casinos are on the lookout for card counters all the time and those caught will be banned and their details (with photos) circulated to other casinos. At least this is better than the penalties handed out when the Mob ran the casinos.

For those who like to take on authority, concealable electronic blackjack counters are on sale openly in the USA and they become cheaper all the time. If you buy one of these then I'd suggest that you are very careful where you use it...

One final point -the house "drop" in a casino is always more than the house's favourable percentage. This may seem impossible, but the reason is simple. The player has one major advantage over the casino - he can play or not play whenever he likes, the casino must play every hand that is dealt (or wheel that is spun, dice that are thrown etc). Most players play too long at their game of choice, allowing the house edge to gnaw away at their stakes. An obliging gambler who loses on average nearly one percent per hand will, if he sticks at it for an extended period of time, wind up dropping about 15% of all the money that he has staked. So, even the most favorable game to the player, blackjack played with perfect basic strategy, is just the least favorable winning game for the casino, eating you in nibbles rather than giant bites.
 
And more and more casinos are now using automatic shuffling machines which make the card counter redundant without delaying the game which would reduce the house's drop.
 
Warbler - Thanks. I think the over-jealous shuffling is designed specifically to counter any advantage.
 
Why is card counting such a heinous offence? I can't see it's any worse than trainers learning how to beat the handicapper, and I haven't heard of Mr. Tester taking Sir Mark round the back of the stables to administer a good whuppin'.
 
Originally posted by krizon@Jun 25 2006, 09:13 PM
Why is card counting such a heinous offence? I
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The only people who believe it to be are casino owners. Unfortunately they are also the only people who have the power to prevent it.
 
I agree Brian. I regard it as a skill, but it comes back to old addage about casino operators, bookies or layers generally being interested in encouraging us to gamble. They're not. What they want, is to encourage people to lose, so if someone devises a method for winning (within the rules of the game) they actively move to stop it. And lets be honest card counting accurately and at speed, is not actually so easy that anyone can pick it up without a good deal of practice. As Brian has alluded to, in the 1950's/ 60's in Nevada they tended to stop the individual period, once they realised the player that could execute the skill had an edge (for a period there was actually a degree of debate whether the edge actually existed, and whether or not it was just another theoretical gambling hypothesis).

The Derren Brown trick of getting paid out on losing tickets remains my favourite though :D
 
I saw that programme as well. He just went up to the window and told the girl he had a winning ticket and she paid him out. I think it was last year I saw it. What I couldn't understand was the fact that surely the ticket would have been bar coded so the machine would have rejected it as a losing ticket? He is very good with the mind games though.
 
So getting back to my original point, if i played exactly the same strategy as the dealer (hitting until 17+, no doubling etc), the house would still have the edge, due to the fact that if we both bust, he wins?

Shame, ah well another year's working for me.
 
Originally posted by tetley@Jun 25 2006, 11:53 PM
I saw that programme as well. He just went up to the window and told the girl he had a winning ticket and she paid him out. I think it was last year I saw it. What I couldn't understand was the fact that surely the ticket would have been bar coded so the machine would have rejected it as a losing ticket? He is very good with the mind games though.
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T'was more subtle than that Tetley (if memory serves me right) where as I can explain some 20% of his tricks, this one most definately fell in the 80% category.

What he did was to get the other punter to present the ticket at the booth and say "this is a winning a ticket" the assistant then put it through the barcode machine and it bleeped him as a loser, and she duly gave it back with a denial. Standing on the punters right hand shoulder, Derren than taps the side of the window twice and says "this is the ticket that you're looking for" (removes the word winning note, which I believe might be significant, but can't imagine why or how). She then re-scans it, and again it bleeps as a losing ticket, but for what ever reason, this time she fails to respond to it and acknowledges her error with an apology and pays him out, as winner :what: He went through the whole card. I had visions of every one turning up at Ladbrokes the next day, tapping desks, or Tote windows and saying the same
 
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