In my time playing blackjack in casinos, I thought I'd seen just about
every ill-conceived strategy imaginable.
I've seen players stand on Ace-4--a soft 15. Doesn't matter what the
dealer's up card is, there's never any reason to stand on a soft total
of 17 or less.
I've seen players double down on hard 6 when the dealer showed a 6,
thinking the dealer was nearly certain to bust. Actually, the dealer
makes 17 or better 58 percent of the time when the up card is a 6.
I've seen loads of players make more common mistakes, such as splitting
5s, splitting 10s and standing on 16 when the dealer shows a 7.
Despite all the strange plays I've seen, I was taken aback not long ago
when a fellow in his 30s signaled to hit his hard 17--a 9 and an 8--with
the dealer showing a 10.
The dealer certainly wasn't expecting it. "You have 17," he pointed out
to the player, who insisted he wanted another card.
Other players at the table groaned. One woman tried to tell the man he
should never hit hard 17. He wouldn't budge. The dealer called out
"Hitting hard 17!" and a pit supervisor strolled over to watch the
strange play.
Out of the shoe came a 6--the player busted, the dealer rolled his eyes,
the supervisor shrugged and walked way. And, as it happened, the dealer
had a 3 face down, drew a 9 and busted. The last draw before the dealer
was a 10, so he'd have busted regardless of whether the fellow with the
17 had decided to hit or stand. Nevertheless, that the dealer did bust
and the rest of the table won probably saved one poor player from a
tongue-lashing from the less tolerant folks at the game.
That would have been that had it been an isolated case of poor
judgement. It wasn't. A few minutes later, he hit hard 18 against a 10.
And a few hands after that, he hit hard 17 against a 9.
By now the table was restless, the dealer was puzzled and the pit
supervisor was half piqued, half curious as to why he was being called
over so often for these odd decisions.
Pressed to explain, the player detailed a method behind all this madness.
"You have to assume the dealer has a 10 down, right? That's what he'll
have most of the time," he said. "When he has a 10 up, then that's a 20,
and I'd better hit 17, or I'm going to lose it most of the time."
At that point, the others at the table did get on his case, trying to
explain that he was costing himself a lot of money. The dealer told him
the face down card wasn't a 10 as often as he thought, and the pit boss
said there was a lot of good advice at the table, and the fellow would
do well to follow it.
I kept silent through the episode. The last thing the guy needed was one
more voice telling him his plays were awful. But if he'd come to me
later on, I'd have explained that there was a fault in his basic
assumption. It is more likely that the dealer will have a 10-value card
face down than a card of any other denomination. After all, there are
four 10-values--King, Queen, Jack and 10--for every card of any other
denomination.
But it's quite a leap to say the dealer will have a 10 down "most of the
time." There are nine denominations of cards that are not 10-values, and
only four that are. The dealer will have a 10 face down 4/13--or 30.8
percent--of the time. That's nowhere near enough to base a strategy on
the assumption that the dealer will have a 10 down.
One of the basics of basic strategy in blackjack is that we stand on
hard totals of 17 or higher, regardless of what the dealer has face up.
And those who play basic strategy face a house edge of only about half a
percent in a six-deck game, a few tenths more or less, depending on
house rules.
What about a player who assumes the dealer always has a 10 down, and
bets accordingly? I connected to Michael Shackelford's outstanding Web
site, www.wizardofodds.com, and found that he listed a 10.03 percent
house edge against a player who assumes the dealer has a 10 in the hole.
Think about that. If you play basic strategy, your average loss is 50
cents for every $100 wagered. Assume a 10 down and play accordingly, and
the average loss soars to $10 per $100 wagered.
That's even worse than the average $5.50 in losses per $100 wagered if
you follow the dealer's rules of always hitting 16 and below, and always
standing on 17 or above, with no double downs or pair splits. It's more
than three times as bad as playing a never-bust strategy, with average
losses of about $3.90 per $100.
It's natural enough to be wary that the dealer might have a 10 down. But
there's a 69.2 percent chance it will be something else. Make no
assumptions.
