Over/Under

So, I only know of one casino in the country that offers this bet. Many of you will know which one I am talking about. I had a friend heading there and he asked me to check out the games in CBJN, and there was this over/under bet. Sure enough, he confirmed it was there.

Now, the game is six deck with pen to 1.8 decks and h17, so it's not exactly a great game for standard blackjack. But... would it be worth a trip just to play crush count against the side bet? Or would you get backed off fast? The maximum bet is only around $200, so it's not like you can really, really, load up against them. Still, $200 ain't bad with some of the odds you can get with a crush count (I believe you can play the side bet for up to your basic blackjack bet). Or would it make more sense to play hi-lo against the blackjack game and just go to the over/under side bet on very high of very low counts. Of course, the best would be to take a partner and keep both counts and signal.

This casino also has some half decent two deck games to play as an option, so I am considering a trip.

If it's the same place that I think it is, CBJN has it listed as $25 max on the o/u bet. Never been there so I can't say for sure.

Hmmm. I see that you're right about CBJN. And yet my friend said there was no limit on the side bet other than your initial bet. But he may not have been paying close enough attention. I will call.

With hiLo count, bet 'over' on a +3 count, and 'under' on -5

You might want to wong out on negative counts and forget about the "under" bet. (assuming the sidebet cannot exceed your blackjack bet)

$25 max on this bet is right; I just called. Given that penetration is 1.8 out of six decks, I don't know if it is worth playing this game. I'm not sure how much extra edge $25 side bets will give you.

What does "Over/Under" mean? Is it a bet on whether your 1st card is under 8 or over 8? Is an ace in the over or under category?

... a bet placed on whether your first 2 cards total over or under 13. Aces count as 1 and dealer wins all bets on players' total of exactly 13.

House edge is very high for a non-counter but it is a VERY profitable bet for counters using the approriate counting system.

Best regards

'Switch'

given the middle value card (7) times 2 = 14. The seven is of more value to the player than the house.

Hi Stealth Bomber

Yes, you are correct about the 'over' bet coming up more than the 'under' bet and this was offset by the casinos paying 7/1 (in the UK) if you received A,A and had bet the low.

It's been a while since I did the 'Over/Under' calculations but I'm sure that 13 was the most common total with 2 cards coming up nearly 7% of the time (which is what the house edge was minus the 'bonus' on A,A). In fact, when the 'Over'Under' was introduced into the UK I calculated my own count system for it using effect of removal (not that difficult) and came up with :-

A,2,3 +3
4 +1
8,9 -1
10's -2

So I had a balanced count system and raised my bets on TC of +6 or -7 (I think).

What was interesting was that I played with a friend who used the hilo system and we would reach situations whereby he would be increasing his bets when I had a -'ve count and he would have minimum bets out when I had a high +'ve 'Over/Under' count.

In the first instance, with a high +'ve hilo count and -'ve 'O/U' count, the cards contained a high proportion of 10's but also still had a lot of A's,2's and 3's with the 5's and 6's depleted.

In the 2nd instance, with a -'ve hilo count and a high +'ve 'O/U' count, the remaining cards contained a high proportion of 10's but also had a lot of 5's and 6's with most of the A's,2's and 3's depleted.

There were times in the 2nd instance, with the lack of A's,2's and 3's, where we considered whether a hit on 'Soft 18' was actually detrimental to us although we decided to keep with Basic Strategy to play safe.

With the 7/1 for A,A it certainly helped if you could locate Aces. My friend and I used another tracking method to make this very profitable but I won't go into details here.

Unfortunately all good things come to an end and it lasted about 1 year in the UK before the casinos removed it from practically every casino. The last casino to use the 'O/U' bet, in the UK, was in the Midlands and it lasted about 3 years. By then almost every advantage player had been barred from playing there.

Best regards

'Switch'