Taking advantage of a dealer error

Im playing BJ today and get dealt 2 sevens in a nuteral count
The dealer has an ace, some clown takes even money and then the dealer flip his hole card over which is a 4.
So I decide to split my sevens. Is this a correct play?
Addtonally do you think making this play will draw any heat to me?

um....no. The dealer will only bust an ace about 1 out of 7 times. Splitting 7's won't yield you much of a hand most of the time and you can only double if you should be so lucky as to catch a 4 (S17 tables you aren't supposed to double at all against an ace). Even a very high count, you would be better off just taking your chances by just hitting it. If you're not comfortable with doing anything then surrender if you can.

The bust probability of the dealer with soft 15 is over 30% and you are certainly better off with twice 7 than with hard 14 once.Also you can double if you get a 3 or a 4 on one of the sevens.
I don't think it would draw heat because many amateurs would split the sevens against the ace anyway.

Francis Salmon

He saw the dealer's hole card. It was a four.

I have seen this happen once to me. Two of us at the table, didn't know the other player, possibly a counter. I have a $100 (max bet) out in a $5 min shoe game. Other player has something above the min out. Count was +5, dealer deals himself an Ace up, asks for insurance and we both take it. He flips over his hole card without thinking, and didn't have a 10. He took our insurance bets, then realized that he had screwed up. Called the pit boss over. Pit decides to void the round, gives us our insurance bets back, and we play on... So I didn't get the chance to use the hole-card info to make a strategy decision. But since he flipped over a 9, I was more than happy to get out of the entire round with no loss...

bjocto,

According to Table 6.1 on page 90 of Edward Thorp's classic Beat the Dealer, against a dealer's soft 15 you should split A's, 2's, and 6's through 9's, double down on 10 or 11, and hit to a hard 13 or a soft 18.

Thus, splitting 7's vs. a soft 15 is the correct play.

Dog Hand

That was lucky, considering the fact the dealer didn't have the BJ. Most casinos would have you play it out with the advantage of knowing what the dealer had.

Also to Shaggy18VW....are you using another name because bjocto posted the original message about the "Taking advantage of a dealer error".

I was allowed to play the hand knowing that he had ace 4

I've seen lots of variations. In this case the pit boss just said "return all bets and insurance" which I would not want to complain about. :) I have seen other decisions on the other extreme of logic, such as the dealer skipping player X with an A-7 against the dealer's 6, hitting player X+1 with a 3, player X saying "wait a minute, I wanted to double" and the pit boss took the three from X+1 and moved it over to X...

Nothing really surprises me, so I try to avoid trouble by always being ready with a playing decision when it is my turn, I've already done the TC conversion, made up my mind on the play, and don't give the dealer a chance to skip me...

No Richard, I was simply chiming in, correcting your interpretation of bjocto's statement.

Also...didn't realize the A/4 had been exposed. My mistake on that one.