Basic strategy calls for hitting 15 & 16 vs. dealer 10. Could someone explain this? With a 16 you have 8 cards in a normal distribution that busts you but only 5 that will help. With a 15 you have 7 cards to bust you but and 5 that will help. One card, A, will only get you to a 16 to work with. Seems like the odds are in your favor to STAND with 15 or 16 vs. dealer 10. Comments?
Wish I had a nickle every time I have heard some genius at the tables say this.
15 and 16 only wins when the dealer busts. The dealer doesn't bust very often when he has a Ten up.
It's better to take your chances at hitting and trying for the slim chance of improving your hand, then depending on the slim chance of the dealer busting.
That is if, you are not counting. If you are counting then you can make some predictions about dealer busting versus improving your hand by hitting, and sometimes hit or stand.
15 and 16 is a lousy hand any way you cut it. It just so happens that, for the purposes of basic strategy, hitting those hands against a dealer 10 will lose less money in the long run.
about 22% of the time with a 10 up and you will win 24% of the time when you hit...so hitting your 16 is about 2% better than standing.
It seems to me that some people like to go by the feel of their decision to decide what to do...Since, as has already been stated, this is a losing situation, it is easy to feel that there must be a better way to do this...It is important to remember that when the difference between hitting and standing is minimal, there is no way that you can "feel" which is the right way to go...The math says hit and that is what you should do.
"Dealer busts about 22% of the time with a 10 up and you will win 24% of the time when you hit...so
hitting your 16 is about 2% better than standing."
I don't know where you got your 24%-figure from but if this was true and after figuring in standoffs we would arrive at a loss of less than 50% which would imply that hitting would be better than surrender!
I personally don't like that the question puts the two situations in the same basket.
With 16 v 10, hitting and standing are precisely equivalent in a neutral deck and the count should tell you what to do.
Standing on 15 v 10 however is a clear mistake and loses 3.5% more than hitting.
Francis Salmon
If you have the surrender rule available, should you take it every time for 15, 16 vs 10. What about vs Ace?
In S17 shoe games with surrender, basic strategy is to surrender 16v9, 15/16vT and 16vA every time. If you're counting cards at a game with surrender it's advisable to use at least the "Fab 4" surrender indices, in which case you may not surrender every time.
Is there a big difference for surrendering with hits on soft 17? This is what i play mostly, does it mean more surrendering or less? Thanks Magician.
With H17 you surrender more often against an Ace because you expectation for hitting, standing, doubling or splitting is lower (there's no change against a dealer 9 or 10 because the dealer can't make a soft 17 with these upcards). You should surrender hard 15, 16, 17 and 8-8 against an Ace in H17 shoe games.
If you have Microsoft Excel, check out my Flashcard spreadsheet, available at bjfonline.com in the Free Software group (or email me).
becomes advantageous when by playing out the hand properly you lose 75% of the time or greater. If you lose less than 75% of the time then surrender becomes a worse play. The threshold isn't 50%.
If by playing out a hand 100% of the time and you win 25% of the time betting $1, you have $2 25% of the time. (lose 50 cents/ $1 bet)
If you surrender every hand you have 50 cents 100% of the time. (same ev, lose 50cents per $1 bet)
Your formula might be fine for Backgammon where no standoffs are possible but here we are talking Blackjack.
If you say that in the case of 16v10 the player wins 24% of the time by hitting, this would leave only 76% for losses and pushes the latter accounting for at least 5% bringing the loss percentage down to 71%.
In EV-terms this would mean: 24%-71%=-47% => no surrender
In fact the EV for 16v10 is about -57% which is therefore a clear surrender, cutting it down to -50%.
Francis Salmon
