DD penetration question

been about 5 years since I've ventured out to play - used to take frequent trips to Reno playing small stakes and most of the time get a free vacation out of it. Since then it seems that the "advantage" conditions everywhere have gotten a lot worse. In Reno I would typically play single deck using the KO "preferred" system.

I Have recently had the itch to play again. I played a small bit around my local casinos here around Seattle. Entering in the numbers into "John Austins Blackjack Risk Manager" as well as a bit of research and I can usually figure out if the game is good and what my general expectations are, though don't have a great knowledge of how much penetration has an effect of advantage. Thought I might run this scenario by here...

A double deck game
$10 dollar min - $300 table max
my spread probably around 1-8
h17,ds,LL9 --
as low as 50% penetration --and haven't seen much past 60%

Do I have an advantage here?
how much does penetration effect this game?
should I just book a trip to Reno?

thanks - S

Force deep pen. spread multiple hands keep time per casino short. Dont get greedy. If you pretty much have your trip paid for there is no reason to push the envelope right

Hope this helps

thanks for the reply - but with all due respect ...
I'm aware that you can spread to multiple hands during positive counts to achieve deeper pen. Also aware of short casino times , don't get greedy etc. none of this addresses my question. Almost like you skimmed or didn't really read my post.

My question involves whether these conditions create an advantage ( using the KO (unbalanced) system ...

A double deck game
$10 dollar min - $300 table max
my spread probably around 1-8
h17,ds,LL9 --
as low as 50% penetration --and haven't seen much past 60%

Do I have an advantage here?
how much does penetration effect this game?

thanks for the reply regardless
-S

smokeyjo,

I fired up CVCX for a DD, H17, DAS game with 3 total players for a counter using KO Preferred and a 1-8 ($10-$80) spread with a $10,000 BR.

With 52 cards cut off (50% pen), I get a Win Rate of $17.53/hr, a Risk of Ruin of 8.2%, and a SCORE of 21.95.

With only 40 cards cut off (roughly 60% pen), I get a Win Rate of $23.03/hr, a Risk of Ruin of 3.0%, and a SCORE of 40.20.

With only 26 cards cut off (75% pen), I get a Win Rate of $31.23/hr, a Risk of Ruin of 0.8%, and a SCORE of 75.65.

Thus, while you have an edge at 50% pen, you can see that deeper pen will dramatically improve your win rate (and edge).

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

Rule of eleven. A method devised by Green Chip member Fine Tuner as a general guide to quickly gauge if a double deck game is worth playing. Eleven, minus the number of players, equals the worst cut percentage that is playable. For example, in a game with 3 players already there, if you sit down, there will be 4 players. 11 minus 4 = 7. This means you need 0.7 or better cut for the game to be playable. Conversely, if you know the cut is 1.0, then you also know it's playable only if you get it heads up. The table:

Spots Cut
4 players 0.7
3 players 0.8
2 players 0.9
1 player 1.0

Copied from the glossary at the left...

no cover at all you will not get more than an 0.8% advantage on an h17 ds double deck game with 50% cuts. With 60% 1-8 should be OK, but if playing on a 50% cut game you need to treat it like a shoe game and either spread 1-12 or 1-16 OR keep the 1-8 spread and just refuse to play the final round if the count is worse than a shoe "exit" count.

just the info I was looking for - thanks DogHand.

have to decide whether to risk the wild standard deviation and huge bank roll + spread for this local game ( but in the convenience of my home town ) - or take a trip to Nevada.

the stats are awesome to have - I think it's time to spring for CVCX. BJRM doesn't seem to support many levels of penetration in it's simulations.

-S

In response to LVBear and bigplayer. guess I'm a bit gun-shy about playing Russian Roulette with my big ( for me ) bankroll and possibly losing it to standard deviation. Plus with a table max of $300 I might miss some DAS opportunities. good advise though. Looks like I should maybe resist the temptation and save some of my bankroll for airfare and hotel.

great + useful formula that I am going to utilize ..thanks - S

Are you constrained by the table min (meaning that your spread is $10 - $80) due to a limited bankroll and don't want to bet more? I thought this was the case when you said that you were gun-shy. However, you then mention being up against the table max (I think) when you say that you would miss some DAS opportunities.

The table max limits your INITIAL bet, so this would not keep you from splitting or doubling. My apologies if I misunderstood your point here.

If you have BJRM, then you should calculate the bet spread based on an ROR you are comfortable with. This varies by person. Personally, I like to keep it around 1%, others have different tolerances. However, you also need to be comfortable with the losses that you will reasonably experience in absolute dollar terms. Play around with the random walk feature and be honest with yourself about whether you could keep your composure with some of the trip loss amounts that show up.

If I am correctly reading that you have a limited BR and want to keep your max bet to some amount below $100, then you should also take advantage of the fact that the casino will not feel threatened by your action. Use no cover whatsoever, don't tip, use full indexes, and sit out hands frequently when the count is negative.

The problem is your bottom bet. Drop your bottom bet don't raise your top bet. If you don't have enough money to spread properly because a game is horrible, then you should play some other game.

When people bust out their bankrolls playing sub-par games it's because of this very reason. They're not spreading big enough not because they can't bet high enough, but because they can't bet low enough when they don't have an edge and in bad games the house has the edge far more often than in good games.