16 vs. A or 10

Unfortunately I am not able to give the title of the book that I read but Scarnes is the author. It basically is a complete guide to gambling and the book is extremely thick.

Anyway, in his blackjack chapter, the author goes into very detailed analysis of why standing on a 16 vs. ace or ten is a better decision than hitting. Basically you would lose less times over.

Have any of you read about this or can support the reverse idea of hitting against the ace or ten? This only pertains with a 16 showing up.

Thanks,
Brendan

Anyway, in his blackjack chapter, the author goes into very detailed analysis of why standing on a 16 vs. ace or ten is a better decision than hitting. Basically you would lose less times over.

Could you provide more details as to why he feels this way?

The only way I can think of his being right is where you are counting but not using indices, since you would be betting more in situations where it is favorable to stand. This would be true for 16v10, but I'm not so sure about 16vA.

Of course, the best play is surrender these hands if possible.

You can get a used copy on Amazon.

This is a very old issue. It's well known that one of Scarne's primary sources of income was as a casino consultant. He never wrote a single line of computer code. All his arguments are based on "common sense," and of course the infallibility of the great Scarne.

His basic strategy is nonsense. Standing with hard 16 v T isn't so bad, but many of his recommendations are complete horseshit (excuse my French). When Thorp and others proved that basic strategy was thus and so, and it contradicted the great Scarne, he just decided to dig in. Contrast this with the behavior of people like Oswald Jacoby, John Crawford and Albert Morehead, all of whom had published incorrect strategies, but promptly changed their tune after Beat The Dealer made its debut.

ETF

You requested more details. Here it is but it is very long. This is from "Scarne's complete guide to gambling" by John Scarne. Here it is from page 374 to 375 in quotes:

"Whenever the dealer's upcard is an ace, he must peek at his facedown hole card to see if it is a 10 count. If it is, he turns it up, and there is no problem; the player has lost the bet then and there. If, however, the dealer fails to turn up a natural (21), we know that he doesn't have a 10 count in the hole, and that his highest possible two-card count is a 20 and his lowest 12. We can now calculate the exact number of hands the dealer will bust and the exact number of completed 17-21 count hands he will hold in the long run.
Sine most of our Black Jack calculations are based on a full-deck composition, with the dealer's upcard and the player's considered mathematically in the full-deck composition, we will do the same here. To simpifly the mathematics, suppose the dealer and the player are each dealt 52 hands, that each of the dealer's 52 upcards is an ace, and each of the player's 52 hands has a 16 count. Also suppose that each of the player's hole cards and all the remaining cards dealt to both dealer and player fall exactly as probability theory predicts.
Out of 52 hands, the dealer will turn up a natural Black Jack 16 times, bust 11 hands, and reach a count of 17-21 on the remaining 25 completed hands.
Because the player holding a 16 count immediately loses the bet each of the 16 times (out of 52 hands) that the dealer holds a natural, these 16 hands cannot be considered. Therefore, a player who stands on a 16 count when the dealer's upcard is an ace will collect 11 dealer busts and lose 25 dealer completed hands out of every 36 dealt hands - a net loss to the player of 14 hands.
If the player hits the 16 count in each of his 36 dealt hands, then he will bust 22 hands and reach a count of 17 - 21 in the remaining 14 hands. From this player loss of 22 bust hands we must subract the dealer's busts.
We calculate the numbre of dealer busts in the player's and dealer's 14 completing hands by multiplying the dealer's bust probability by 14. In this case 11/36 x 14 = 4 5/18 dealer busts. Since the dealer will hold 1 1/2 twenty-one counts less than the player, he will lose 1 1/2 completed hands out of his remaining 9 13/18 completed hands. We subtract the 4 5/18 dealer-bust hands and find that the player hitting a count of 16 when the dealer shos an ace will suffer a net loss of 16 4/18 hands out of each 36 hands. And the player who stands on the 16 count will suffer a loss of only 14 hands."

I was wondering if anyone can provide additional information on what I just read from this book.

Thanks,
Brendan

"I was wondering if anyone can provide additional information on what I just read from this book."

You seem to think this explanation is "very long," but the real explanation -- leading to the correct answer -- would be 15-20 times longer.

First, he neglects the cards removed from the pack to get 52 hands and "simplify the mathematics." There aren't 52 possibilities. Let's say the player's cards were T6. We know dealer has no T in the hole. There are 34 possibilities for the dealer's hole card. How does 52 enter into it?

At one point he says "From this player loss of 22 bust hands we must subract the dealer's busts." This is flat wrong. Once the player busts, he loses, period. There is no rule that says you can subtract wins in one category from losses in another category. When you do that, the proportions (the denominators in the probabilitites) will be wrong.

Let's say dealer's hole card was a 6. Then there are 48 cards left in the pack to choose from, 31 of which would bust the player. Where does 22 come into the picture? Or any of the other numbers he throws around? There is no "there" there. It's not a real calculation by a real mathematician.

Here's how the real calculation would proceed. First, it's done based on the actual composition of the hands. The total-dependent or generic strategies most of us learn are constructed from the comp-dependent strategy later. So we would start with, e.g. T6 v A, then ask, "What is the probabilitity that the following cards are drawn after a T, 6 and A are removed from the pack (for dealer's hole, player's draw, dealers first draw, etc.):

A, A, A, 2, 2 [result: 17 v 17 -- push (assuming S17)]
A, A, A, 2, 3 [result: 17 v 18 -- dealer win]
A, A, A, 2, 4 [result: 17 v 19 -- dealer win]
.
.
.

There are hundreds of these entries, and they must all be mutually exclusive, so you can add up the probabilities to get the final answer. (And this is one of the simpler decisions to analyse. Some decisions require the calculation of thousands of separate probabilities.)

There's not even a mention in Scarne's ramble about the possibility of a push. Or of both hands completing, and one or the other coming out on top. These possibilities do NOT even out at any point, because the dealer has a soft hand, and player's hand is hard.

Sorry, but Scarne's explanation is childish gobbledygook.

ETF

Scarne was a High School dropout who was a pretty good magician.
That was all that he was good at.
But he was a tireless self-promoter who admitted to being in the employ of casinos when he launched his tireless attempt to convince the public that card counting was bogus.

Dr. Thorpe and numerous other top guns challenged him to put his money where his mouth was and let them play unmolested for big money, but no challenges were ever accepted.

I suggest reading the complete story of Scarne in "The Big Book of Blackjack"
It is a simply amazing story.

I'm not defending this guy and am not biased to him but on page 361 of his book, he specifically states that he challenged Professor Thorp to a $100,000 contest to be staged in Las Vegas. He said that Thorp's reply was a big "No". He later indicates that he challenged Dr. Wilson on the same challenge and this guy never got back to him.

Read an objective balanced thoroughly researched accounting of the truth, as I suggested, by the redoubtable Arnold Snyder.

Just go to a Barnes & Nobles or a "Borders" get a cup of coffee and sit down and read the chapter.

Looking at Wong's "Professional Blackjack" and the EV tables in the appendix,

EV Stand 10-6 vs 10 -0.543 (lose 54.3 cents for every $1 bet)
EV Stand 9,7 or 8,8 vs 10 -0.518

EV Hit 10-6 vs 10 -0.507
EV Hit 9,7 or 8,8 vs 10 -0.512

EV Split 8-8 vs 10 -0.463 (no DAS) or -0.453 (w/ DAS)

As you can see from the above, assuming $100 average bet per hand you will lose $3.60 less each time you hit 10-6 vs 10 rather than stand on 10-6 vs 10. You will lose 50 cents less each time you hit 9,7 vs 10 rather than stand on 9,7 vs 10 for each $100 wager. You will lose $5 less per $100 bet for each time you split 8-8 vs 10 rather than hit and $5.50 less each time you split 8-8 vs 10 rather than stand on it. This is for basic strategy non-counters and from the single deck tables on page 317 (Appendix E) of Wong's Professional Blackjack.

Yesterday, I wrote that Scarne makes no mention "about the possibility of a push. Or of both hands completing ..." I take it back. Actually, he says: "Since the dealer will hold 1 1/2 twenty-one counts less than the player, he will lose 1 1/2 completed hands out of his remaining 9 13/18 completed hands." I have no idea where he gets the 1 & 1/2 hands figure, but obviously he needs to account for many other totals besides just totals of twenty-one. The other totals (17-18-19-20) are also unlikely to come out even.

Also, I was perplexed by his choice of 52 hands for a "whole deck" interpretation. As my head hit the pillow this morning, it occured to me this might be his term for an "infinite deck" interpretation, where no matter what cards are dealt, the deck remains "whole." That would make some sense out of this statement: "Out of 52 hands, the dealer will turn up a natural Black Jack 16 times ..." However, basic strategy for infinite decks is still to hit hard 16 v A. In fact, it should be possible for a person to calculate the EV for standing vs. hitting under the infinite deck assumption without even using a CA program. You would have to just assume that basic for hard 17 and higher vs an ace (stand) had already been determined. Interesting way to waste two or three days, unless you have an actual life.

ETF

Suggested New Year's resolution for the multiple offenders on this -- and every other -- blackjack site:

Spell it THORP!!! He may be the greatest athlete of all time, but that ThorpE (Jim) didn't play blackjack! :-) ED Thorp is the reason we're all here. The least he deserves is that you spell his name correctly! :-)

Don

The strange thing is that some of these multiple offenders want people to take their opinions about blackjack seriously!

I generally think it's bad form to correct spelling on a public message board. But for "Thorp" on a blackjack board, it should be two strikes and you're out.

Ed Thorp Fan

years ago, so now I correct others. I must be subconciously seeking penance. I think it's fine to correct people on a message board. Nobody knows the correctee, so no embarrassment no foul. Plus, we're here to help one another, so maybe this helps someone - in business for example. They write a report and spell it/use it correctly, impress the boss and get a million dollar raise. Of course there's spell check. Mine is too slow on this site so I don't use it. I just risk the wrath of DS, with which I'm okay.

From the Internet Movie Database:

Technical advisor John Scarne doubled for Paul Newman's hands in the film. It was he who did all of the card manipulations and deck switching in the film. It would have taken a long time for someone to be able to master all of the card routines shown.

That being said, his bj playing stategy was completely wrong, for the most part.

Regards,
drumz1

Don, I strong believe, You would be here, if Thorp would have never been arrived in this world.