Insurance at =>3 even on bad hands?

[qwerty]

I have recently aquired the skill of counting (Hi/Lo) and have recently discovered indexes and how to use them (mainly studying illustrious 18) but I am confused about the idea of buying insurance at =>3. Am I supposed to do this every time no matter what my hand is or only when I have a decent hand? I tried this procedure the other night and lost both my insurance and my crappy hands over and over it seemed like. I know one night is no way to base anything off of, but it just seems odd to insure a cruddy hand against and Ace. Any info would be appreciated.

[sabre]

What does the value of your hand have to do with the insurance bet?

[Count]

The value of your hand has nothing to do with taking insurence. If your hand is 9 or 15 and he pulls out the X card, you still lose the same amount of money. One thing you have to realize about using hi/lo is that you IC (insurence correlation) is only .76. This means that you are not always going to correctly take or not take insurence even if your count calls for the bet. With that said though... Always take insurence if your count calls for it. In the long run, this is a safe bet and the count will help you. If you are not satisfied with it, I say learn a new system. Hi-OptI is a safe bet (no pun intended). The IC of the Hi-Opt is .85 and if you add in the Ace count, you're looking at a fairly close BC and a better PE than hi/lo in SD and 2D games. The only difference between Hi/lo and Hi-Opt is Aces and Dueces are neutral and you keep an Ace side count. Almost as easy as Hi/lo (only a .5 difference in ease of use) and gives you a much more accurate count. Think about it and I hope your future insurence bets go better for you.

[EasyRhino]

If the count calls for insurance, take insurance. (Or even money if you're lucky enough to have a BJ... same thing).

In fact, if you have a crappy hand, it might even drive down the count high enough to where you should take insurance. For instance, if you get a pair of 6s, that extra 2 points to the running count might put you over the threshold to take insurance.

The other thing to remember is that insurance is a somewhat "risky" bet because it pays 2:1. So the dealer is only going to have a blackjack about a third of the time.

Since it doesn't come up that often, you can go through hot and cold streaks on insurance bets.

[callipygian]

I'd actually recommend not taking insurance on any hand you're going to surrender, unless you've got a huge bet out and plan to leave the table imminently.

The problem with insuring surrender hands is that it's suspicious. You insure, lose, and then surrender. It's absolutely the right play to make, but it's suspicious as hell. It's a big flag that says to the dealer, "I either know exactly what I'm doing or I have no clue what I'm doing."

If you plan on leaving before any possible heat arrives, then you shouldn't care what the dealer thinks of you.

[Cardcounter]

Well ploppy insurance is when you only insure good hands. First of all when you take inurance you are not betting on your hand you are betting on the dealers hand your hand has nothing to do with it other than to give you the count. A lot of times you will be better off insuring a bad hand such as 5-8 rather than a good hand such as 10-10. Even if you insure correctly you will still lose the bet the majority of the time you get a 2 to 1 payout so if you win it more than once for every 3 times played you will win more money. The key to winning insurance is to figure out when there is a surplus of 10's left in the deck greater than a 2 to 1 ratio to other cards.

[EasyRhino]

For the record, I really enjoy having dealers and other players explain to me why I should only insure 20s.

I just never seem to understand.

[callipygian]

Originally Posted by EasyRhino

For the record, I really enjoy having dealers and other players explain to me why I should only insure 20s.

I just never seem to understand.

What, I can't insure this hand versus a dealer 10?

[Diver]

on a low count with one unit out just to establish that I'm not of the "never take insurance" persuasion.

[qwerty]

Diver,
I doubt that is really neccessary, most dealers just think you are insuring because you are betting more than usual (since you are only doing it when the count is high).

I appreciate the responses to my original post, I played today and won a couple of insurance bets and it all made sense. It feels weird to be rooting for the dealer to have a blackjack though. :-)