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Feb. 16 2015 Rules, Counting, Nuisances and Nuances in the Game of Blackjack |
Australians must realize that in the casino game of blackjack, the players do not compete among themselves, but rather, each gambles against the house, which is represented by a 'dealer' and a 'pit boss'. The dealer distributes cards to the players and him or herself and pays and collects all wagers. The pit boss supervises the game and is responsible for correcting any procedural errors.
The game is played with from one to eight ordinary 52 card decks. If more than two decks are used it is called a multiple deck game and the cards are dealt from a shoe instead of being held in the dealer's hands.
In the play of the game, suits play no role. Aces may be valued as either one or eleven while jacks, queens, and kings count as ten points apiece in determining the players' or dealer's total. The other cards, ranked two through ten, count their face value for this purpose.
To begin the game, the player must make a wager, placing either currency or chips on the felt table in the specially marked circle corresponding to his seat. Then both the player and dealer are dealt two cards each. It is irrelevant whether the player's cards are exposed or not, but the dealer always has one card face up (the up card) and one card face down underneath (the down card). It is part of the procedure and rules of the game that the down card not be visible to the player.
If the dealer's up card is a ten valued card, he will immediately look at his down card to determine if he has a natural, which means an ace and any ten valued card. A natural for the dealer cannot be beaten by the player, who can at best tie the dealer if he too has a natural, but otherwise loses. When the player has a natural and the dealer does not, the player not only wins, but is paid a bonus of 3 to 2 odds.
When the dealer's up card is an ace he will also check underneath to see if he has a ten valued card for a natural, but only after asking the player if he wants 'insurance'. This insurance, best considered a side bet, is a wager offered to the player that the dealer does indeed have a ten valued card under the ace and hence a natural. It is paid at 2 to 1 odds and, since the player may only insure for up to half his bet, the result is that a winning insurance bet is paid by the player's own lost wager and the player appears to have gotten a tie. After any insurance bets have been decided, play continues.
When neither player nor dealer has a natural, the player resolves his hand first and then the dealer his. The general principle for determining who wins is that:
1) If the player 'breaks' (or 'busts', both of which mean to accumulate a total in excess of 21), then the dealer wins, whether the dealer breaks subsequently or not.
2) If the player doesn't bust, but the dealer does, then the player wins.
3) If the player and dealer have the same total, it is a tie (called a 'push') and no payoff is made.
4) Otherwise the hand with the higher total wins.
Now the player achieves his final total by either 'standing', which means drawing no more cards, or 'hitting' (requesting another card from the dealer). The value of this drawn card is added to the player's current total and the decision as to whether to hit or stand is made again. If, in this fashion, the player's total exceeds 21 (a bust), then the player is obliged to turn in his cards right away, at which time his losing wager is collected. Otherwise, when the player desires no further cards, he will place his two original cards underneath his wager in the betting square, the cards being put face down by custom.
The dealer, however, has no choice in his hitting and standing activity and must proceed, when his turn comes after that of the players, by house rules which always require him to stand on a total of 'hard' 17 or more. A total is called hard if either it does not contain an ace or it exceeds 11 counting any aces which may be present as one; otherwise the total is called 'soft' and is determined by counting exactly one ace as eleven, any others as one. The house rules for the dealer's' soft hitting and standing strategy will be either to 'always hit soft 17' or to 'stand on soft 17', and this will be posted on the table. Thus an ace and a three would be soft 14 and the dealer would draw again, but an ace and a seven would be soft 18 and the dealer would stand. Similarly the dealer would draw a card to a hard 16 which consisted of a ten, five, and an ace but stand with a ten, six, and an ace since this would be hard 17. When the dealer finishes he usually announces his total if he didn't bust and says 'over' or 'too many'* if he did break.
Okay then, so the player, but not the dealer, has the right to 'split' his original two cards if they are of the same denomination, such as a pair of eights. If he chooses to do this (he is not obliged to), he separates the two cards in front of him and puts up another, matching, wager. Then he proceeds to play two separate hands according to the previous prescription, even to the point of usually being able to split any subsequent pair achieved by receiving another card of the same denomination directly on one of the original paired cards. If this re-splitting occurs, he must again match his original wager. An exception occurs with split aces, to which can be drawn only one card each.
And if the player so chooses after observing his original two cards, he may double his bet and receive exactly one more card. By custom the player turns his original cards face up, puts out a matching bet, and receives another card face down, which explains the term 'doubling down.' When the player doubles down he forfeits the right to draw more than once.
So that covers the main area of nuisances and nuances right? If you read through that a couple of times then it should be pretty clear to you. The next facet of the game I want to cover is that of card counting. See, learning the basic strategy for blackjack is like learning to float in water; it enables you to keep your head above water and survive. But if you want to get somewhere, REALLY get somewhere then something additional is required of you. In this sense learning to count cards is analogous to learning to swim.
Now an extraordinarily simple, slick, easy to learn and effective card counting system was proposed years ago by a man named Harvey Dubner. It is based on a categorization of the thirteen denominations into three separate groups:
Low cards; [2, 3, 4, 5 and 6], whose removal from the deck increases the basic strategist's expectation on subsequently dealt hands.
High cards; [A, 10, J, Q and K], whose removal from the deck decreases the basic strategist's expectation on subsequently dealt hands.
Middle cards; [7, 8 and 9], whose removal is really of little consequence to the basic strategy player over the course of events.
The player tracks, or counts, the cards as they are removed from tile deck by assigning the value +1 to each low card and -1 to each high card. The middle cards are treated as neutral in that they are assigned the value zero and ignored as they leave the deck.
After each shuffle the player begins with a mental count of zero. He increases his mental count by one every time he sees a low card removed and made unavailable for subsequent play.
Similarly he decreases his count by one for each high card eliminated. As an example, suppose the first three hands dealt were as follows:
Hand #1: Player’s= 5, 7. Dealer’s=6, 4, J. Count Before Hand=0. Count After Hand=+1+0+1+1-1=+2.
Hand #2: Player’s= K, 8. Dealer’s=10, A. Count Before Hand=+2. Count After Hand=-1+0-1-1=-1.
And
Hand #3: Player’s= Q, 3, 9. Dealer’s=2, 7. Count Before Hand=-1. Count After Hand=-1+1+0+1+0=0.
If the pre-deal count is positive the basic strategy player may presume an advantage in a single deck game and should try to bet more money than usual. If the pre-deal count is negative he should presume a disadvantage and bet as little as possible.
Multiple deck games usually begin with about a half per cent disadvantage for the full pack, so it may be necessary to have a pre-deal count as high as +4 before the bet is raised. How high the count must be to justify an increased wager when playing against more than one deck will depend on many things, among them, how many cards remain unobserved.
A count functions as a sort of galvanometer. Positive deflections reflect an improvement in the player's prospects; negative ones suggest the situation is worse for the player than it would be with a full deck.
The basic strategy player's change in advantage (from whatever the full deck advantage or disadvantage is) can be estimated by multiplying the "running" (or current) count by 26.50/0 and then dividing by the number of unseen cards. Thus a count of +7 with 106 cards left provides evidence that the player's expectation has increased by +7' (26.5%)/106 = 1.75%. If this were a four deck game with a full deck, first hand, disadvantage of 0.50%, then his instantaneous edge would be estimated as 1.75 -0.50 = 1.25(%) due to the +7 count with 106 cards remaining.
Although it's often complicated, and in many cases unproductive, the player can improve his playing of hands by occasionally changing the basic strategy in response to information provided by the count. Here are three of the most frequently occurring and important variations in strategy of this nature, however many others are actually possible.
1. The player should make an insurance bet after the first round of play if the average number of points per card left in the deck exceeds .026 for single deck, .046 for double deck, and .055 for four decks. The reason for this is that a high count suggests there may be enough extra tens left in the deck so that the 2 to 1 payoff for insurance will make it a profitable bet.
2. The player should stand on totals of 16 against the dealer's ten if the running count is zero or positive, regardless of the number of decks. A positive count, again, is indicative of more tens and fewer good drawing cards available. Thus the player busts his 16 more often than usual and may also not have helped himself if his resultant total is less than the dealer's increasingly probable total of 20.
3. The player should draw a card to 12 against a 4 if the running count is zero or negative. The suggestion here, with negative counts, is that there will be fewer tens to bust , the player and more small cards to help the dealer make the hand with the 4 showing.
In all three examples it is assumed that the player has already included his own cards and the dealer's up card to adjust his running count before the decision is made.
Australians should realize that if you do a lot of reading you will notice that blackjack system books usually provide more extensive advice on how to vary bets and playing strategy as the count changes. The principles underlying their recommendations are, or should be, similar to those that I have explained here.
I hope that this article has helped with a few of the nuances and nuisances inherent in blackjack.
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Feb 12 2015
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