I play an 8 deck game, split once only, DAS. For basic strategy plays, I've been splitting 9's against 2 and 4's against 4,5 & 6. Is this correct? I haven't won once the last 7 or so times these plays have come up.
Splitting 4s versus a dealer 4 is correct basic strategy only in Single Deck.
As you gain experience, you will understand that 7 trials is not even a blip in the long term. Keep the faith.
To get the exact basic strategy for the game you are playing, go to this link and enter the rules, # of decks, etc. and it will generate the correct basic strategy for that game:
As has already been pointed out, the results of 7 hands is meaningless.
Basic strategy has failed you seven times in a row on these two plays. This proves that computers, mathematics and probability don't work. Your personal trend indicates that you should not split on these plays. I reccomend that you never split these hands again, unless these splits start winning for you. I quit splitting sixes against five in 1982, and I haven't won a hand with this split since, so I'm not sorry that I quit. Remember your seven plays mean a lot more than a 100 million hand computer simulation. You're never going to play 100 million hands in your life, and your not a computer, so what can it prove? Probability only works for the Casino.
:^) CO Red
How can you expect to win a hand you haven't played since 1982??? I have never played carribean stud and have never won at carribean stud. Darn it anyway!!
Mr wong- CO REDs id is in the lower left corner
of post using alteration of my name. WASTE WATER
upon him for two weeks. Mr Braun had the
computer ASS/U/ME that on the the high end
splits and doubles the player would at LEAST break even or push. If you consider that the player does lose all
of those plays the ACCEPTED BASIC STRAT turns into
the picture of Dorian Gray-or the death of his bank
roll. NUFF Said.
Mr. Parker- you have repeatedly said blank #
of hands are meaningless. Like JFK I would
like to point out that if the player won those
seven hands that is a lot more meaningful than
six billion sims or anybodies basic Strat-
to that player.
"if". That if was in hindsight. Parker is talking about a proven method for determining the most lucrative strategy for the future. I would venture that would be pretty dang important to the player, too.
Thanks for the replies and links. I know 7 plays is not grounds for disputing proven theory and it was not my intention to do so. I was trying to see if 8D made these far more marginal plays.
seems well intentioned but I think I'll stick with the proven theories, difficult as it may be to do so sometimes. I've just returned from a losing session ($2000) where I had an inordinate number of 11 doubles and where I was spreading, had the 11 on each hand 3 times. Today I lost every single 11 double I made! That doesn't mean I'll stop doubling the 11 next time. Amazingly, I was playing 3rd base and also pulled a large number of 16's against the dealer 7. Every time I drew and bust, the card I drew would have bust the dealer had I stood. I'm not about to start standing on the 16 v 7 because of this woeful experience.
even though these plays don't come up much, the index is close to zero so i would learn them.
just get all of those silly hunch plays out of your head and make the right damn move. OKAY. damn.
"Stan Frankton's" post was a parody of Frank Stanton's regular posts here. Damn near dead on too, except for the strange single column style posting he uses. Keep going with proven methods, and pick up a copy of Professional Blackjack, which has tables in the back with expected gains and losses for all hands against all upcards.
I smiled when I read your post- after picking
up the strat in 62 and becoming welded to it,
it takes severe dicipline Not to hit the juicy
l0s & lls. When I do get the face card I
accept the fact that it is at best one out of
four for me. I usually bust one of the other
three, however the 2 times that I draw two cards
to a winner make 75%. That compares to losing
75% with the doubles turning it to l50% If you
don't draw good cards-stop doubling plays that
don't work for YOU. Yes every time GREED will say
jump on that! In your disgust you don't hear
your own greed laughing at you. If you draw the
face card, smile , take the money and run.
Or do you hear Voices telling them to you?
I really do wish that I were. The days of
just winning were sublime.
for demonstrating once again your complete ignorance of the methods of calculating Basic Strategy. Baldwin, Thorpe, Braun, et. al did not make any assumptions about the results of splits doubles, hitting or standing. They simply started with a full deck, and removed the players cards an the dealers up cards, then calculated the probability of drawing each card, then repeated the process until each chain led to a bust or 21, and also did this process for the dealer (stopping of course at 17 or higher), calculating the probabilities of the dealer making 17, 18, 19 ,20, 21 or bust. It is all based on the proportion of cards remaining in the deck, or decks for multi-deck. This process is called combinatorial analysis. There is nothing terribly complicated about it, but since blackjack has open-ended drawing, there are a lot of branches to follow. What you have is a whole lot of repetitive, simle calculations to make. This the sort of task for which computers are ideally suited. Baldwin and his collaborators (I don't remember their names off hand), the first group to make the effort to calculate Basic Strategy in the mid '50's, didn't even use a computer. They calculated it manually, using mechanical calculators. Their results were pretty much the same as those of Thorpe, Braun and later workers. Once you know the probability of drawing each hand, and the probability of each dealer result, it is eady to calculate the "Expected Value" This is simply the net monetary result for each outcome multiplied by the probability of that outcome. Basic Strategy is the play that give the highest Expected Value. The only assumption made in any of this is that the order of the cards is random. This is often not strictly true (otherwise shuffle tracking and ace location qwouldn't work), but no one using rigorous methods has shown that actually casino shuffles will produce results much different from a truly random shuffle if the cards are played on the assumption that they are random.
You obviously believe that a player's recent results for a particular play (or more correctly, his (probably fualty) memory of them, are of greater value in predicting his future results than probabilities casculated by sound mathematical methods. I doubt that I or anyone else will change your mind, but I don't understand why you believe this to be true. Do you believe that the presence of a particular player at the table somehow influences the shuffle? How? A small sample of random events will very often differ considerably from the theoretical results. The discipline of statistics can accurately predict the probability of this. Also, one's memory can often be influenced by frustration. When you say that you draw 10 to a 12 90% of the time, or that you lose 75% of your doubles against high cards, I strongly suspect that your perception of these numbers has been warped by the frustration of losing. If these numbers are accurate, I suspect that they are based on a sample too small to be statistically significant. Note that a lot of Basic Strategy is a matter of choosing the least bad alternative. A lot of splits are defensive. A great example of this is splitting eights against a 10. This play has a terrible EV. It just happens to be a little less bad than hitting, standing, or surrendering. You will frequently lose both hands. However, I would submit that if this play is killing your bankroll, your bankroll is much too small, and you would be much better off not playing blackjack than altering your strategy because you are afraid of the double loss.
In 60 plus years I have found some theories, probabilities, and possibilities when applied to indivduals to be overshadowed by Personal EXPERIENCE-
which I have found to be more reliable. None of the
brilliant people in your post ever considered a 21 card
21, but it is possible in a 6 or 8 deck game-what else?
If a trend continues to dominate the player must
find a way to defeat it. However unothidox
