peeking at the top card...

for the first time in my brief career, all those minutes of looking at the dealer shuffle the cards finally paid off. as he lifted the 5 decks off the table, i saw that the top card was a 10. at the casino i play at, they don't burn the top card. i was sitting on box 3 and somebody else had box 1. i quickly reached over to his box and laid out a 3 unit bet. i caught the ten in box one and then another ten against dealer 6. here's the weird part: i didn't know if i should be happy or what. should i have bet more than 3 units??

are there any stats on this? if i know for a fact i'm going to get a picture or, even better, an ace, should i jump my bet and if so, by how much?

thanks,
toecheeze

"are there any stats on this? if i know for a fact i'm going to get a picture or, even better, an ace, should i jump my bet and if so, by how much?"

When you know an ace is coming, you have a 50+% edge. With a ten, it's 14+%.

Bet as much as you can afford!

Don

thanks for the reply. i'm not really sure what "50+% edge" means in this context though. since, off the top of a shoe, i normally have less than 50% advantage, what would be the equivalent true count to getting a 10 or ace?

i hope my question makes sense. for example, with a true count of +7, the player has a certain advantage, i bet according to this advantage. when i make my bet on the first hand of the shoe (knowing i'll get a 10 or ace), should i bet AS IF i had a true count of +10 (or +5 or whatever)? could you translate the edge i have in getting the ace to a true count number (so i can get more of a feel of my advantage)?

of course, i will see the top of the card so rarely in my life...but i'm fascinated by the numbers of this game.

thanks,
toecheeze

It would be a true count of around +100 , give or take!

Yours got to be the worst handle that made it on these pages for quite a while! Pass me the barfbag...

you said that at the start of a shoe you have slightly less than 50% advantage. That is wrong, your advantage is the amount you can expect to win...off the top of a shoe you have somewhere around a -.6 advantage. When you know your first card is an Ace you have a 52% advantage, that means for every $100 you bet, you should expect to receive back $152 (winning $52). To compare this to a true count, if you use hi-lo, knowing your first card is an Ace is similar to having a true count of around 100, which is impossible in counting. Knowing a 10 is equally important at around 12%. Having a 12% or 52% advantage is a great thing, because most counters can rarely even get an advantage over 1%.

Shotkaller

I'm not 100% sure about the exact bet, but I've heard that the optional bet if you know that your first card is an ace, is close to 1/3 of your bankroll (please correct me if this is wrong). This is normally impossible, but it might give you an idea of what the ace is worth.

Of course, jumping your bet from a quarter to 5k and recieving an ace on your first card will probably get you tossed out right on the spot, but so what? You're in it for the money not the game, right?

good luck on your next peek...

8th passenger

here's the thinking behind my handle. i wong quite a bit and spead most of my time on my feet. when i come home, i take off my shoes and socks...and low and behold, what do i see? toe cheese. that fuzzy lint from socks, dust, debris, dirt, filth and stink that gets stunk between your toes. i identify myself with the toe cheese. i am it's incarnation.

i'm a big-time chess player. if you're nice, i'll tell my past chess handles one day. 'toe cheese' is tame by comparison.

:C)

thanks guys, you understood my question and answered it. i just couldn't believe the advantage was so high. however, nobody answered (exactly) the question of how much i should bet when i know a 10 is coming. that would be the more common situation anyway. i guess i should still max out the bet.

where i play, there's no heat and nothing i could possibly do would stand out. (unless i put my toecheesed-feet up on third base). so i jump bets like you wouldn't believe.

thanks guys, you understood my question and answered it. i just couldn't believe the advantage was so high. however, nobody answered (exactly) the question of how much i should bet when i know a 10 is coming. that would be the more common situation anyway. i guess i should still max out the bet.

You should bet 10% of your bankroll.

With an ace, 8th passenger's recommendation of a third of your bankroll is roughly correct if you use basic strategy. However, technically you can do even better by employing a special playing strategy to reduce risk which basically involves declining doubling, and betting 40% of your bank. This is purely hypothetical though because you will never be able to bet anything like 33% of your bankroll for various practical reasons-you just shove out as much money as you can and play your hand normally.

Btw I like your posts but your handle really is disgusting, please change it.

If you stand on a hard 16 against the dealer's face card, your chances of winning are determined by the frequency with which the face card busts which is about 23%...Therefore, in this situation, you will lose 77% of the time and win 23% of the time for a loss ratio of 54%...That is why, if it is allowed, you surrender this hand [lose 50%].

Don is telling you that when you know that your first card is an Ace, you have a win ratio of 50%.

"Don is telling you that when you know that your first card is an Ace, you have a win ratio of 50%."

It's not quite as simple as winning 75% of the hands and losing 25%, for the net of 50%. That's because the great portion of the edge attainable when you know an ace is coming is from the 3 to 2 bonus you get when you have a natural. And, that natural occurs over 30% of the time.

Don

Be glad the person who was playing box 1 didn't throw your bet back into your face.

i reached across the table and backbet my three units. i didn't knock the other guy's bet out of the way. but know that i know the advantage i have with an ace coming, i'd probably step on the other guys' toes, spill his beer on his lap, and accidentally elbow him in the face so that i can lay out 33% of bankroll on the box. no mercy.

and heck...maybe i'd take off my socks and threaten him with my toe cheese!

anyway, from now on, i will pay even more close attention to the shuffles.