Card consumption in games without hole card

For many years I have regarded it as a given that the card consumption in a NHC-game would be slightly less than in a hole card game since sometimes the dealer doesn't have to take a second card.This is the case when all the players have either busted or got a Blackjack which happens quite frequently when the dealer is facing only one or two player's hands.A few years ago I had conducted a study for French standard rules (DAS,D9)and established that the card consumption for a BS-player was 2.8 cards per hand.I was therefore a bit surprised to learn that in a typical American game the BS-player would use only 2.7 cards.
But when I saw this recent discussion on card consumption it struck me like lightning that I had overlooked the crucial point:
In a hole card game, whenever the dealer has a natural, no further cards will be dealt to the players which means that for this round the card consumption will be exactly 2.0 per hand.
I think this explains why in an NHC-game the card consumption is actually a bit higher.

Francis Salmon

"In a hole card game, whenever the dealer has a natural, no further cards will be dealt to the players which means that for this round the card consumption will be exactly 2.0 per hand.
I think this explains why in an NHC-game the card consumption is actually a bit higher."

It is clearly the main reason, but thee is another, which makes a very small contribution for the rules you simulated.

Most of our games permit doubling on any two-card total. When you forbid soft doubling, you are forced to hit such hands and, on occasion, you hit them two or more times.

Don

On the whole,DOA will undoubtedly consume less cards although the doubling of soft18 uses one more.
On the other hand, French rules allow splitting only to three hands (another drawback!) which compensates at least partly for the above.

Francis Salmon

After second thought, I came to the conclusion that DOA will actually use more cards because of the doubling of soft18 vs small cards.
The occasional additional hits that one would have wanted to take after doubling with low softhands against the worst dealer cards will not offset this because most of the time you get either a stiff or a satisfactory total.

Francis Salmon