The Correct Play was to Stand on 5

Just wanted to share this odd play I made. It was near the end of the shoe. The cut card was coming up soon. Before the deal, the count was 0 and I had my minimum bet out. I was the last of three players. When the dealer got to me, the count was up to +5. Dealer showed a 6. I had 2,3. I could hit and very likely not improve my hand and possibly bring out the cut card. Or I could stand, slightly decreasing my EV on a minimum bet, but doubling my chance of getting out a big bet in a positive deck.

I stood. The dealer busted with 26. Dealt the first card of the next round and then came the cut card.

I got a few odd stares, but it worked. I won the hand AND I got out an extra big bet.

You say you were "near the end of the shoe," so I'm going to assume i deck was remaining. From Cacarulo's Ev tables, standing instead of hitting 2,3 v 6 costs you 0.15 units on your bet. (I used 6d S17 DAS, but the other tables are comparable.) You got a +3 TC on the following round. the value of this is normally about 1%. If you put out a 10 unit bet on the last round, you got 0.1 units of +EV on that round. So it really didn't pay off, in this case.

On the positive side, you could say you *expected* a +5 TC on the next round, giving you +0.2 units of EV. But say you weren't sure of the exact position of the cut card. I'm afraid that dilutes your expected edge even more.

ETF

There are times when it is actually correct to stand on 5. I did it once myself. However the scenario that you describe is NOT one of those times.

Just because the count is high, there is no guarantee that the next car would be a 10. There is an exception if , for example, you kept a 10 count, you know that all the remaining cards were 10s But even here, there is no advantage to standing over hitting; indeed the best play would be to double down. *This would not occur with modern shuffling practices.)

The time that I stood on 10 was when the next card was exposed. It either went to me or the dealer. With your data, the choice would be standing ( and holding 5 vs. dealer 16) or hitting (and holding 15 vs 6). In either case, your only chance of winning is for the dealer to bust, and that is more likely to occur with a dealer 16.

BTW, in my case the dealers busted and everyone on the table was grateful.

Scooter admits that his play costed some EV but he just wanted to increase his chances to get an additional round.
As ETF points out,the impact of positive rounds tends to be overestimated but for a final call we would have to know Scooter's spread.
Personally,I find Scooters play very interesting and I often make similar considerations.

Francis Salmon

So he was willing to "pay" his small bet in order to get one more round.

Yes, but as ETfan's analysis shows, he was paying way too much in expectation by misplaying the hand than he was gaining by increasing the chances of a subsequent round in a positive count.

Additional curio: the result of the one hand is not independent of the other-that is, multiple small cards for the dealer would have likely resulted in both a lost hand and no extra round, conversely two tens would give the player a winning hand and and extra round. In addition to this not being the correct decision in term of EV (really, the only practical consideration) the player increased his fluctuations a little.

The type of play Scooter is talking about is covered in BJA (don't have the reference to hand). Schlesinger determines that there is too much information to process to make it a viable strategy. He has a point: that said, if you have a marginal hit/stand decision, and the extra card is likely to make the dealer shuffle away a positive count, then it is wise to stand (or split, surrender whatever). As a general rule of thumb, it is wise to do this when a play is right on the index. Even then, other considerations eg the reduced variance by creating the possibility of a push, time, and so on, can make this sub-optimal.

I wrote:
But say you weren't sure of the exact position of the cut card. I'm afraid that dilutes your expected edge even more.

Meant to write:
But you say you weren't sure of the exact position of the cut card. I'm afraid that dilutes your expected edge even more.

(sigh)

He had a min bet out so in a neutral count the dealer will bust about 42% (44% H17) of the time vs 5 (or any stiff hand).
As we have a +5 count we can assume a slight increase in bust probability BUT.......... its anti-correlated to the EV of the next round.
(ie Dealer busting is likley to make the count/EV drop)

Assuming a good cut of the shoe, the two high cards will drop the true count by more than +2.

If for example the count were +10 instead of +5 this play would be a no brainer as the count is almost certainly likely to be high on the next round and a slight loss of EV on a min bet is worth the EV of a max bet assuming at least 1 to 20 spread.
I am a certain there is sweet spot in this play especially moving from min to max bet.

D.

I was actually at a true count of +4 which is where I make my big bet. There were 1.5 decks left and I round to the next highest deck (2). I was spreading and do spread 1-20 with no heat what-so-ever (to answer Snapper's question). I am very regular (3-4 6+ hour sessions a week) and very obvious about my play. I have never had any problems at this casino. They seem to think I am kind of kooky, splitting tens, hitting 17s, so this fit right in.

You can create the situation to come out anyway you want it to. I wanted to spark just the discussion that has occurred. While this is a real event, I think it is good for APs consider the very unusual situations that can come up before they do. It took me more time than I would have liked making this decision because I hadn't considered it before it came up.

I wanted to spark just the discussion that has occurred.

Yes, thanx its interesting.
You make a good point about establishing a kooky image, I hadn't considered that.

Yes, I didn�t fully understand that his main point was about buying the extra round. I had thought that ET Fan gave a good answer for that. I missed the fact that Scooter recognized that Standing was negative EV. Sorry.

ET Fan�s �Rough Calculation� indicated that cost of Standing was 0.15 units, and the value of another round was about .1 units.

But I would caution people against directly comparing them. If you had 100% Probability that Standing get you another round, and a 0% probability that hitting would cost you a round, then you could compare them. Another way to say this is that you have to multiply the .1% times the �expected number of extra rounds�. (I will call that ENER)

However, ENER is going ot be less than 1. Even if you knew that there was exactly 1 cut left in the Shoe (before the cut card), you still have the possibility that the dealer will draw twice, pulling out the cut card and ending the shoe. So that even if you Stand, you can�t guarantee getting another round.

Also, if there are several cards left, then there is a good possibility that you would get 1 more round regardless of whether you stood or hit, so that Standing gives 0 extra rounds.

And then we have to question whether you �know� that there is exactly 1 more card that can be dealt. Personally, I can not estimate the cut card position that accurately, and I only know that the end of the shoe is near. But even if you are better than me, do you know with 100% probability that there is exactly 1 more card? Maybe there is an 80% prob of 1 more, 10% prob of 2 more, 5% of 3 more, etc.

In short, the expected gain from these types of strategies are quite small. If you have a borderline decision, within 1 point or so of the index, then this type of play may make sense. But plays like 5v6 are so lopsided that card-eating isn�t going to offset it.