Winning More Hands vs More Money

Regarding multiple-deck DAS basic strategy:

It is my understanding that some basic strategy suggestions
cause you to lose more hands in certain situations but win
the most money. I believe many of the soft total double-downs
fall into this category. I don't know about splits.

And that is my question for those of you who know this off the
top of your head.

Just for the sake of curiosity ... If one is interested "strictly"
in winning the most number of hands, when does one NOT follow
basic strategy suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

Yes, whenever you double down, you give up your rights to take a fourth card. This reduces you chances of winning the hand. (An exception occurs if you wouldn�t take a 4th card anyway, such as when you double 11 v 6). So if you never doubled, you would win higher percentage of hands, but your EV would be less.

If you wanted to win the largest percentage of hands, then would not double. You would also not surrender.

Hitting/Standing is complicated by how you handle pushes. If you are interested in strictly winning, and you considered a push to be the same as a loss, then you would stand a little more often than BS; the opposite would be true if you treated as a push as win.

Just for the sake of curiosity ... If one is interested "strictly" in winning the most number of hands, when does one NOT follow basic strategy suggestions?

Here's a few:

hit instead of doubling 10v9, 10v8, 10v7, 9v6, 9v5, 9v4, 9v3, and all soft doubles except A,7, where you would stand.

Figuring out the splits/don't split is more complicated because of the two hands and the double after splits.

Go to:

http://www.bjmath.com/

and find the EV charts for the game you're interested in.

It will show the results for each option (hit, stand, double, split) for each player hand vs each dealer up card.

It's easy to compare and to figure the math on doubles & splits simply by dividing the double & split numbers by two and comparing to the stand & hit numbers.

Playing this way is also risk aversive, which is also gain aversive! smile This is often coupled with a (gasp!) progression. I have a full RA BS and a bunch of Semi RA BS, or SRA-BS. I did a paper on them here:

http://webhome.idirect.com/~blakjack/jolly.htm

Onland this is horseheet. Online we get our edge from the bonus, NOT from perfect play. As the casinos get stingy, we have to get smart, play crazy, leave our depo's in longer, but still beat the living daylights out of them.

Enjoy!

Rob