Calculating "Basic Strategy?"

This is very much a more advanced question, but im hoping some of the senior guys could help me out here.

I want to calculate my own "Basic Strategy".

Now, i researched around and found that there are 2 ways of doing it.
1. Millions of rounds of simulation to come up with the best play.
2. Using probability of your hand and the dealers to come up with the best move.



I was wondering if anyone knew the math on the second(2) option, using probability. I know alot about maths, and manage to get the probabilities of both dealer and player, but how is the perfect way to compare them? What about splitting?

I linked a picture as to wot i found as a reference.
Hopefully some of the senior guys can help me out here.

-Thanx

(Dead link: http://www.eatingit.com.au/bs.jpg) _Flow-Chart of Basic Strategy_

You'll find a lot of info, and some free software at
http://www.bjmath.com (Archive copy)

already did

yep, already searched my way thru the articles and forums etc.....

got alot of good info, never the EXACT information tho, more summerised, but ill have another read and see if i can work it out properly.

-Cheers

Math for Basic Strategy

Here are three papers that have discussion of the math of basic strategy.

1)A Statiscal analysis of Casino Blackjack, Martin H. Millman
2)A favorable strategy for Twenty-One, Edward Thorp
3)The Optimun Strategy in Blackjack, Roger R. Baldwin;Wilbert E Cantey;Herbert Maisel;james P McDermott

Hope these are helpful to you

Combinatorial analysis can be fun to figure out, but expect it to be tougher than you think at first. There are plenty of difficulties, especially when it comes to pair splitting. You'll find thread after thread of discussion about the really technical issues that arise when you try to calculate pair splits over at BJMath.

The basics aren't too bad. I would recommend starting with a simple hand, like say (Ten,6) vs 9. Make sure you can match the published EV figures for hitting and standing exactly before moving on. Once you get to dealer upcards of Ten and Ace, you have to weight the dealer's hole card differently for a US hole-card game, since you know the dealer does not have an Ace under the ten, or a ten under the Ace.

Getting all the pieces put together correctly is a tricky bit of work. I will say this: After you work with it for a while, if your numbers disagree with Cacarulo's over at BJMath, the error is yours. :laugh:

That statement may sound contrite, but I'll lay pretty good odds that it will save you time before you're done!

I wrote code for all of this stuff back when I first created the strategy engine, and foolishly lost a portion of my source code a couple of years back. Apparently, my backup copy was corrupted at some point, and I lost the original in a hard drive failure. I still have some custom versions that I used for some consulting work, but every time I need something new in it, it's really tough to work on now.

thanx

thanx alot guys, im hard away at work on it right now.

thanx for ya help!