Charity Night Blackjack
Interesting question, the kind that often perks up the interest of the gang over at www.rge21.com.
Playing blackjack is playing it slow at one of these charity night things. The big winners are likely to be those that just get lucky in a game with big payoffs for a lucky plunger...such as roulette, where a couple of 1x35 payoffs could hold up.
Still for I would guess you would need to provide some more details for blackjack analysis.
How long do you expect to play? How many hands per hour would you get in, (which would be affected by many other players at the table with you.) What would be the size of your fun money, and what would be your goal (or target you would think you would need to bid on a gift you want). Often, at these charity events, you can buy additional fun money to use in bidding right up until the gaming stops and the auction begins. The rules can be a problem, as charity nights often have special rules such as the house wins all ties on 17.
But assuming you are playing Downtown Vegas single deck rules, with some volunteers recruited by your charity to do the dealing, I would think the play would be very slow. But you might be able to benefit by sloppiness and see the burn card, the bottom card, and sometimes even the dealers hole card, and for sure the penetration would be deep--to 39 cards or more. There will likely be no supervision of the game...so you can spread like mad. If you are sitting at first base you can cheat with post-betting (sneak more onto the table) easily as the dealer finishes the round (but that would not be appropriate because it is for charity). I would conservatively figure 50 hands per hour per betting spot, with say 1.5%-1.75% advantage due to counting with a 1-4 spread...you would improve you winnings if you were to play multiple hands when the count is favorable, only one when bad, and ask the dealer to shuffle up on negative counts and spread beyond 1-4. I believe Blackjack in Blackbelt has some info for spreading beyond 1-4 for expected win percentages.
(By the way, a real nasty trick, courtesy of Lawrence Revere, would be to remove one or more 5's or 6's from the deck somehow...perhaps when you bust.)
If the game is dealt to 39 cards, you would be playing with an advantage 32% of the time, using simulation data from bjstats.com, and the true count would be +4 or greater (thus an Expected Value of 3% or more) about 15% of the time. One would might get those conditions 15% X 50 X number of hours X number of hands played...
say 15% times 50 times 2.5 hours times 2 hands or about 37 bets with 3% or more advantage.
Kelly betting says bet no more than 1% of your bankroll on any hand, but here, you have only a limited time to bet, and need to score good to win, your betting should not be restricted...I would bet on one hand up to 3-4% of my bankroll early in the night on high counts, and up to 5-10% in the last half hour if I was short of target.
Does anyone else have any ideas?
(I guess I got a little involved here and I am amazed at how much came out--gee I guess I have done a lot of reading on blackjack).
Anyway, its for charity, and fun and keep it friendly.
