For the Basic Strategy Player is Playing Two Hands Better Than One

I had a discussion recently with a very lucky basic strategy player who claims that playing two hands all the time improves his odds by 33%.

It has been discussed alot on green chip how playing two hands is good when card counting, but is there any truth that playing two hands will improve a basic strategy player odds.

It appears this lucky player flat bets the same on each of two hands and if things are going good will increase his bet, but he does not adjust his bet amounts that often. He is a pretty good basic strategy player, but I noticed several basic strategy errors such as not hitting 12 vs 3 and doubling 7 vs 9.

I normally post only on green chip, but thought I would ask this question here since I suggested to him to check out BJ21 and he will see the answer here.

Don't know the specific rules & conditions of your friend's game, but for most present day BJ games, basic strategy w/o counting has negative expectation.

Playing two hands won't improve your friend's odds by 33%. If he plays the same amount of money, for example, two hands of $10 each as opposed to one hand of $20, then it will reduce his risk. He could play two hands of $15 each for about the same risk he has playing one hand of $20. Perhaps this is how he came up with the 33% figure. However, risk and odds are two totally different things. His per hand expectation doesn't change when he is playing two hands. He does reduce the variance and, hence, the risk.

It should be noted that his eventual risk of ruin is still one hundred percent in the long run, unless he is playing one of those rare games that are positive off-the-top. I doubt that if he is playing in the U.S. Playing two hands will mean that he will get to play more hands before he goes broke than he would if he was playing only one hand.

ain't retirement great?!!!

Congrats to you. Don't know when you retired, as I've been off GC for a good while. Hope you and yours are well, enjoy the Holidays.

Might bump into you in or near that big gold shiny place south of Memphis one of these days.

Regards,
WC

I like it, I love it, and I can't get too much of it.

Gives you more room at a crowded table.
It doubles your hourly rate of hands per hour.
More hands, more doubles and splits and more BJs.
Gives you your outcome faster.

And to the guy that said two hands "Gives you your outcome faster," he's right -- you will go broke faster playing two hands than one. With 100% probability, as Boot said.

ETF

It impresses upon the mind that you had better figure out why your losing. Wasting your time at the tables playing slow is just delaying the inevitable.

So you are still at it I see.

You are aware, I am sure, that some games in the GNW are so good that a perfect basic strategy player can indeed do very good with just a small amount of luck. In fact some games are almost even off the top if you know how to play it, even not counting.

I am actually surprised such a veteran as yourself would even be asking such a question. Are you getting senile in your old age? :)

Are you still carting around your 4 legged fiend?

If you still have my e.mail drop me a line.

Iggy.

It doubles your hourly rate of hands per hour.

Why would he want to play two hands? He'll go broke faster...it's still a negative game playing BS. On the flip side, he may increase his comps due to twice the money on the table.

Regards,
PM

C U soon.

WC

This may not apply to your friend, but it is possible for BS players to make money at BJ, after comps and cash-back. You play a game with negative EV, but this EV is offset with cash-back and comps

This is routinely done in VP, but it can also be done in BJ. In both cases, Game Selection is very important. Not just pay table selection, but you have to play casinos which have good cash back and/or are generous with comps that you can actually use.

Max Rubin wrote a whole book on doing this in BJ.

Now if we have a winning BS player- winning because he/she can hustle comps to offset the loss � then playing two hand is certainly a good idea. They can get the same action, and therefore the same cash-back, with less risk. Or, for the same risk, they can increase heir action, and therefore their comps.

There is one other important part of the equation. Comps are not proportional to Action. A black chip player gets MORE than 4 times the comps of a green chip player. For us, if you double you action, you double your EV. With comps, doubling the action can bring more than twice the comps. This increases the attractiveness of playing two spots.

If you friend is simply looking at the money he wins at the table, and he thinks that playing 2 spots improves the EV of the game, then is believing in Voodoo.

Ouchez, you change your handle again. You are the only guy I know who refers to the U.P. as GNW (Great North Woods).

Your new handle reminds me of a casino in the U.P. You know the place where the Indians built a new 36 million dollar casino, but were so dumb that they didn't bother to check if it was on Indian land that qualifies for gaming.

You still gamble there? Are the games still pretty much the same?

PS. The four legged friend is the wife's not mine. Sometimes we even cart him off to the casino. There are a couple of places in the U.P. that allow dogs. So far this year haven't been kicked out for having a barking dog, but for some reason the place that has those great ice cream shakes won't let me play their blackjack game anymore. They won't even give me a reason why. They just say I can play slots.

As a voodoo player, I first put a hex on the dealer.
Next,I temporarily suspend the house advantage. It works for me.
Don't mess with a voodoo player unless you have a powerful talisman handy. I suppose the comp method could also work.