insurance against 7, 8, 9, and 10s!

Dear Sir

I live in Europe and I have played some times in one Casino that offers a strange option. You can put insurance not only against Ace, but also against 7, 8, 9, and 10s! (Insurance pays 2:1). E.g. if you have 20 and dealer shows 7, you can put insurance and if he caches 10(or figure), you win both ways! Your Insurance bet must be half of your original bet. I have read a similar situation on Wong�s Professional Blackjack about bust-out bet and I believe that this rule have the same advantage. Wong advises that the best option to play is a two � player team were one counts a normal count (hi-lo) and the other counts for the Insurance decisions (ten count, 10s: �2, other cards: +1, 24+ insurance).
But what I wonder is what is my advantage against the house for several (true?) counts? More simple, how much money must I bet? ( I bet 0.50 KELLY.) Do I have to bet according to hi-lo or according to 10 count? Also what is the better count of them for my playing decisions?
The rules of the house are: 6 decks
Penetration 5/6
No hole card

Double after split

Resplit 4 times

Aces split once

Double any two cards

Early surrender but not against Ace

Stand soft 17

Thanks Themis

Themis,

When I read your post, I knew the question sounded vaguely familiar. I searched around and found that this topic had already been discussed on another board... see link.

In that thread, $ocrate$ described the penetration as being 50%. Also, in his game the players are allowed to resplit aces, which I see your game doesn't permit. In my reply to $ocrate$ I mentioned that with 50% pen the edge wasn't very large, but that it could get much better with deeper pen. Now you say the pen at your game is 5/6, which certainly sounds promising.

If you can tell me what bet schedule you use (that is, when do you bet 2 units, 3 units, etc., up to your max bet) and typically how many other spots are in play, I can run a sim to try to determine how good the game is.

Finally, if you'd prefer to discuss this "off-the-board", click the "Send E-Mail to this Poster" link next to my name to send me an email.

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

I quite agree with Wongs suggestion although there are some drawbacks
with putting two counters at the same table: The danger of getting barred is much greater, combination of the two counts is quite complicated (I did it for a certain period with my girl friend) and putting two counters at the same table is somehow a waste of capacity.It can be justified when its crowded and you need to secure a second box.
When you're alone I would strongly advise you to use the insurance count that you described (instead of hilo) since the possibilities to insure are 8 times more frequent than usual.The full card count as it's also called requires some intense training but it's 100% reliable for insurance. I recommand to start the count at -24 in order to have the pivot at 0. As the rules of your game are quite good (less than -0.3% off the top) you will have an advantage of 0.5% at the pivot.
Your betting should be proportional to your advantage (that's the Kelly Principle).
The real benefit of the insurance count comes only with positive and therefore insurable RCs.Suppose your RC is +3 with two decks remaining which should happen quite frequently.Now the good thing is that the additional advantage in % corresponds roughly to your TC which is 3/2 or 1.5%.So you have now an advantage of 2% and can bet 4 times as much as at the pivot.
After all the years I have played in Europe, I never came across such a rule. I really wonder where this might be.But I understand that you want to keep your secret.

Francis Salmon