Table Team Play

I pose this as a serious inquiry since I have not had time to read the volums of information on this and other sites.

Team play is generally described as a group of players, a manager, one or more 'big players' and several spotters.

Has anyone considered and investigated team play where all the seats at the table are occupied by team members who "don't know one another" and play acording to the team rules and determine their outcome based on how much the table takes from the casino?

Theroetically, there are many advantages to this not the least of which is the ability to dissipate heat at will.

I welcome all responses.

DK

Theoretically there is no player advantage when there are multiple players playing without any collusion among them. It's hard to find even one teammate. 

aceside: I appreciate the comment. If all the players are teammates and have others on the bench who can substitute as needed, then the table can force the dealer to play out his hand every time. The major house edge comes from the fact that if a player busts, or in this case, if all the players bust, the dealer does not need to hit a crappy hand.

Take that away and allow teammates to surrender on crappy hands and not hit on many low percentage situations and the table of players should beat the house every time. An indivudual player might be at a slight disadvatage but the team will not.

DK

I’m not understanding your theory but I need a teammate myself. Can you explain your second paragraph a little more? Suppose you and 5 other teammates are playing against a dealer. You team hold a crapy 16 hand each and thus surrender all 6 hands against a dealer ace upcard. How would you beat the house this time? Please give me a real hand situation for me to understand. 

First, I appreciate the discussion. Thank you. It is not impossible but nearly so that all teammates woiuld have crappy hands. I like to imagine full tables of 5 or 7 players against one dealer. Now, the true count gets high - say +4 - indicating a good probability of getting a 10 card whether you are the dealer or the player. As an example the dealer has a 10 card showing and the team holds - before any hits –

10-6 (normally this would surrender but now has the option to stand since the 10-9 forces the dealer)
10-9 (stand and force the dealer to play)
10-2 (surrender or stand – team rules apply)
10-3 (surrender or stand – team rules apply)
10-4 (surrender or stand – team rules apply)

As individuals the play would be as follows:

10-6 (surrender saves ½ his bet)
10-9 (stand and force the dealer to play)
10-2 (Hit and probably bust)
10-3 (Hit and probably bust)
10-4 (Hit and probably bust)

Depending on whether the dealer busts, the table – against the dealer – makes more money.

DK

This is something way off from basic strategy. I still have a hard time to understand this but I’d like to meet you.

It's not really. Basic strategy guides the decisions but the idea is that the five or seven players are working together and adjusting their play and bets based on what happens as a table.

Player 1 - to the far right as you face the dealer - can observe the cards dealt to the other players and, based on the count, the hands in play, and the dealer's up card, and team strategy, know whether to hit, stand, double, split or surrender. His decision will be based on what is most profitable for the team. He can make confident decisions because he knows what the other players will do.

Having bench players serves to dissipate the heat. No one wins too much, too fast. The team manager relaces players and needed to cool the heat.

The players who deviate from basic strategy and/or index strategy will lose more or win less than they otherwise would and as a result the table as a whole will lose more or win less than it otherwise would.

I disagree. The party line that the house has a difinative edge is in error. The simulations and statistics that support that assertion are based on one player and one dealer. The proof lies in a simple card switch thought experiment. If I deal two card to you, the player, two to me, the house, do I have a mathmatical advantage? If you answer, yes, I can simply switch out the hands and ask again.

I would love to go into detail but I beleive my effort would be wasted.

DK

Respectfully, you have absolutely no idea whatsoever what you are talking about.

Don

Cdkinard3, your theory appears to be a table-wide version of the well known no-bust strategy, which is also based on forcing the dealer to play by never busting. While based on the correct principle that the main advantage of the dealer over the player is that the player loses if they bust first, even when the dealer goes on to bust, the strategy is flawed because it assumes the optimal counter measure is to never bust.

In reality the optimal counter measure is to hit to the tipping point where the risk of busting outweighs the reward of hitting. This tipping point depends on the dealer's up card. The result is basic strategy for which we hit less aggressively against some dealer up cards than others.

If you were to quantify the expected gain for the table as a whole for all combinations of possible actions by your team of players, you would find that the table as a whole does best when everyone plays basic strategy or, if counting, if everyone plays the correct Index strategy for the counting system they are using. This is because the actions of other players at the table have no effect on the expected outcome of each individual hand. (Yes, this has been "looked into" as you asked in your first post and no, we don't only run sims using one player vs the dealer). So optimizing the expectation of each individual player (basic strategy or, if counting, index strategy) optimizes the expectation of the table as a whole.