Doubling down on BJs

[newyorkbear]

The casino ship closest to me now offers oly 6/5 blackjack.
Since BS says to always double down on 11,should you treat the natural as an 11? I'm thinking maybe against a
5 or a 6,but not sure about the others. Anyone have charts showing expected return for 11 vs every upcard,and do those charts already take into account the doubled bet?

[E-town-guy]

Two problems with your post:
1. You cannot double a blackjack, once you get a BJ or just 21 you cannot do any more to your hand
2. If BJ pays 6:5 DON'T PLAY. The 6:5 means the house edge is now around -1.5%. There's absoultely no point playing. And by playing you only let the casinos know its ok to screw over the customers with such ridiculous odds.

[rookie789]

E-town-guy,
I'm not sure where you play but in Nevada a blackjack is also 11 and can be doubled. I agree with you never play a 6/5 BJ game and in Nevada most single deck games are 6/5 BJ but double deck games pay 3/2. I would never double a BJ unless in a tournament and needed to get more chips on the table but some tournaments pay 2/1 for blackjack so that would make a DD senseless.

[newyorkbear]

While I would never play 6/5 if there was another choice,there realy isn't,unless I feel like driving three hours to Atlantic City.
I've found that not playing for extended periods tends to make me lose my edge so I need to get some playing in.Will be looking into some of the local "charity" LV nights,but the last one I went to-you could only double on 10/11,dealer didn't take his hole card until everyone finished, and no doubles after splits.Plus they had a $15 limit on bets.
I've never seen a casino that wouldn't let you double on a ace/ten.

[tedloc]

Originally Posted by newyorkbear

The casino ship closest to me now offers oly 6/5 blackjack.
Since BS says to always double down on 11,should you treat the natural as an 11? I'm thinking maybe against a
5 or a 6,but not sure about the others. Anyone have charts showing expected return for 11 vs every upcard,and do those charts already take into account the doubled bet?

I play at the Indian casinos in San Diego. They all have some single deck games and most of them pay 6/5. If I was to going toplay on them, I think I would double down on A/10 vs. a 5/6.

[KenSmith]

Doubling your blackjack is a bad idea, even when keeping it pays only 6:5. You're still much better off standing.

In single deck, S17, if you double your blackjack, even in the best case vs a dealer 6, your expected profit is only 0.68 of a bet. Standing gets you 6:5, or 1.20.

Not anywhere close.

[newyorkbear]

Yet you would double your bet everytime on an 11 vs. 6,please explain how the math translates.

[KenSmith]

11v6 is a pretty simple case. Since you know you will not want more than one card, doubling does not reduce your chance of winning the hand at all. Thus, by doubling, your expected win is exactly double the expected win by just hitting the 11 instead of doubling.

You certainly can't win twice as much by doubling a blackjack instead of hitting it.

The key is that doubling 11, risking 2 bets, will only win you about 0.70 of a single bet. While that's great compared to the 0.35 you'll win by hitting instead, it's nowhere close to the sure thing that blackjack is, whether that blackjack pays 3:2 or 6:5, or even 1:1.

[E-town-guy]

Originally Posted by rookie789

E-town-guy,
I'm not sure where you play but in Nevada a blackjack is also 11 and can be doubled. I agree with you never play a 6/5 BJ game and in Nevada most single deck games are 6/5 BJ but double deck games pay 3/2. I would never double a BJ unless in a tournament and needed to get more chips on the table but some tournaments pay 2/1 for blackjack so that would make a DD senseless.

In Alberta, Canada you're not allowed to do anything with a blackjack so I assumed that was the rule everywhere.