"Counter" Basic Strategy

There is a website called blackjack678.com advertising a "Counter" basic strategy invented by Hal Marcus in 1999. This strategy supposedly eliminates the necessity of memorizing various indexes for changes in how basic strategy is played, depending on the true count. He emphasizes that bets must be varied from 1 to 12 units for this strategy to give better results.

For a typical Vegas strip 6 deck game (s17, das, doa, late surrender), here are the differences from accepted basic strategy:

1. 9 v. dealer 2: Basic Strategy (BS) says hit; Counter strategy (CS)says double (index variation would say double with tc of +2 or more)

2. 8 v. dealer 6: BS is hit; CS is double (index variation would say double with tc of +6 or more)

3. A,8 v. dealer 5 or 6: BS is stand: CS is double

4. A, 7 v. dealer 2: BS is stand: CS is double

5. A,6 v. dealer 2: BS is stand; CS is double

6. A,3 v. dealer 4: BS is hit: CS is double

7. 9,9 v. dealer 7: BS is stand: CS is split

8. 8,8 v. dealer 10: BS is split; CS is surrender if available, otherwise hit (note index variation would be to surrender or STAND with tc of 0 or more)

9. 7,7 v. dealer 10 or A: BS is hit: CS is surrender if available, otherwise hit

10. 4,4 v. dealer 4: BS is hit; CS is split

11. 15 v. dealer A: BS is hit; CS is surrender if available, otherwise hit (note index variation would be to surrender if available, otherwise stand with tc of +5 or more.

I am interested in everyone's thoughts about these changes to basic strategy for a counter who will make substantial bet variations. It doesn't seem to make sense to me.

One of the points I am making here is I don't see how counting and varying the size of bets automatically justifies these changes in the universally accepted basic strategy, particularly when these changes aren't even recommended as variations in basic strategy (the indexes) based on the true count.

Correction. The Counter basic strategy on hard 16 (not 8,8 though) v. dealer 10 is to surrender if available, otherwise stand, just as basic strategy index variation is to stand at true count of 0 or more. If your 16 is composed of 8,8 v. dealer 10 Counter strategy is to surrender if availble, otherwise split as noted in point 8 of my original post.

Ken

Thanks for the input and I think I understand what you are saying. By the say, I incorrectly said basic strategy is to stand on A,6 v. dealer 2. Actually you always either hit or double soft 17 in basic strategy.

But to make sure I understand you correctly, you are saying those that use CBS play exactly according to that strategy no matter what the true count is?

Ken

Let us look at a specific play, say doubling 9v2. Suppose for this particular rules set the index 1. But suppose that you do not want to learn an index for it. You will either always Hit, or always Double.
Now Basic Strategy says you should Hit. This would be your best choice if you are flat betting.

But you are not flat betting. Consider this

At a TC of <=0, hitting is better, but you have minimal bets out.

At TC o1 it is a borderline play.

At a TC of 2 doubling is little better, and you have a moderate size bet out.

�

At a TC of 5, doubling is a lot stronger, and you have a Big Bet out.

The idea behind CBS is that is better to play correctly when you have a big bet out. That is, your expected gain from doubling in the higher counts is much greater than your expected loss from incorrectly doubling in the negative and neutral counts.

These relative gains and losses are effected by Bet spread. So different spreads will have a different CBS. As noted, for flat betting, the standard BS is optimal

For most spreads, any7 play with an index of <=2 should get into CBS. If your spread is too weak for that to occur, then you aren�t playing a very strong game.

For stronger spread, some Index=3 plays will become CBS. For stronger spreads, Index=4 spreads will.

One application where CBS is useful is for more obscure plays, where you don�t bother to learn an index. Last week, we had an example on Green Chip of a non-DAS split. There was a lot of discussion fo what the correct BS. Here, however, it was pretty that BS was a close play, and so the CBS would be to split. It would make sense for counters to �Always Split�, rather than to worry about the BS.

Hole card plays are another example. You probably don�t memorize many indices for hole card plays, because they are so rare. But if you were going to learn a hole card strategy, it would make more sense to do ti with CBS.

Thanks, Math Prof. That makes a lot of sense.

Playing pure bs and moving your money with the count yields �� 70% of the gain you would realize moving your money with the count and using an indices matrix with a wide array of deviations.