Another Soft hand deviation idea

[Ferretnparrot]

Ok first off i just wanna say, that in know this idea is probibly going to be looked at as stupid, or is probibly not going to work, or was already thought of and tried, or even more likely, all of the above.

I am however an outside the box thinker, which is partly why i pursue gambling as a source of income.



Ok you ready for this? cause this is a pretty crazy idea.

You double down on totals of 10 and 11 because many cards can be drawn to give you a good soldi hand and you cant bust in doing so.

What if there is and extremely negetive count (maybe not so extreme) where doubling on soft hands in the teens where if you pulled from a pool of mostly smaller cards youd be left with a good hand most of the time. Thers already a number for negetive hands on when to stop doubling, but is there maybe a much lower negetive count at which you should revert back to doubling? assigning two index number to soft hands as some aim for a dealer bust and some aim for good final hand, and the ones in between are basic strategy?

I really dont think this would matter in real life as the number is NUMBER 1 negetive so were probibly not even gogin to be at the table to see it, and number 2 so negetive that wed never see it anyways but its food for thought and since were here to discuss blackjack i propose charts be made and inovation be attemted!:whip:

 

[zengrifter]

I am however an outside the box thinker,,,

Ferret, get back in the box! zg

 

[k_c]

Ok first off i just wanna say, that in know this idea is probibly going to be looked at as stupid, or is probibly not going to work, or was already thought of and tried, or even more likely, all of the above.

I am however an outside the box thinker, which is partly why i pursue gambling as a source of income.



Ok you ready for this? cause this is a pretty crazy idea.

You double down on totals of 10 and 11 because many cards can be drawn to give you a good soldi hand and you cant bust in doing so.

What if there is and extremely negetive count (maybe not so extreme) where doubling on soft hands in the teens where if you pulled from a pool of mostly smaller cards youd be left with a good hand most of the time. Thers already a number for negetive hands on when to stop doubling, but is there maybe a much lower negetive count at which you should revert back to doubling? assigning two index number to soft hands as some aim for a dealer bust and some aim for good final hand, and the ones in between are basic strategy?

I really dont think this would matter in real life as the number is NUMBER 1 negetive so were probibly not even gogin to be at the table to see it, and number 2 so negetive that wed never see it anyways but its food for thought and since were here to discuss blackjack i propose charts be made and inovation be attemted!:whip:

I can relate to where you're coming from. Those very thoughts started me on a path to find some answers to some of these possibilites.

I can tell you there are far out shoe compositions where some unorthodox strategies rule. Depending on the counting system, there are systems that would call for unorthodox strategies at negative counts.

The craziest system I ever tried was the most interesting experience I ever had playing blackjack. Before I ever had access to a computer I determined that if a deck consisted of all (6.7,8,9) in an equal number, a player would have a substantial advantage (~18%) as long as he played correct strategy. Correct strategy is to double hard 13 v 7, stand on H(14-16) v 7 among other unorthodox plays. If all (6-9) are simply removed and best strategy played, I was pretty sure player had a nice advantage, but I couldn't exactly prove it. (Turns out I was right: ~7% advantage.) I thought this seems too good to be true. Removing (6-9) and adding (6-9) both seem to lead to an advantage. Anyway I spent a lot of time formulating what I hoped would be a good approximation of playing strategy. I lived in Vegas at the time. When I was ready I went downtown to the Golden Nugget. I had almost no bankroll. My assumption was (it was wrong) that when (6-9) were either scarce or plentiful I should have an advantage an when they were neither scarce nor plentiful I would be at a slight disadvantage. I figured that if I used a system based on counting (6-9) and flat bet I should have the advantage a great portion of the time. I sat down at a 4 deck shoe on a Friday night. There was a high school football game on TV. Then came Saturday. There was a college football game on TV. Then came Sunday. There was a pro football game on TV. Then came Monday. Monday Night Football was on TV. I had played 3 straight days flat betting at the same table without sleep to test my theory. My bankroll went up and down. A few times I was down to my last money, but somehow wasn't ruined. When I left, I had the exact amount I came with!

So you see, I'm a bit crazy too! :laugh:

Anyway, I made a post in the Announcement Forum that you can download a 15 day trial of a program I've written. In the program you can input any shoe composition you want for any number of decks 1-41,297,762. You can see for yourself some of the unorthodox decisions that turn out to be right using best strategy.

k_c

 

[Dopple]

I find this concept very exciting but wonder why no one has ever come across this yet if it is favorable.

I can think of few field that have numbers crunched as much as in blackjack.

If this is true it is like you have found gold.

I will be one of your first disciples.

 

[sagefr0g]

outside the box

what ever you guys are discussing is going right over my head. i just have a fuzzy sense (lol) of what the discussion is all about. i tryed to read Griffin's Theory of Blackjack and couldn't understand most of it. so what i'm going to say is maybe not correct from the understood mathematics. but anyway as far as i know what we know or anyone else knows about how it is we get an advantage with card counting is summarized by the simple QUALITATIVE fact that the players realize more blackjacks, more successful doubledowns than unsuccessful and more successful insurance bets than unsuccessful as the ratio of tens, faces and aces increases relative to the small cards (2,3,4,5,6). that being understood we also realize that for the advantage to yeild results the ratio actually decreases lol.... and from that point we can start pouring on the maths and come up with a statisically based way to beat the house lol. if this is wrong that the whole premise is based up this qualitative fact i'd be interested to see a referance or hear a explaination.

and too i don't really understand or know how or what the underlying premise is that was used to develope basic strategy. is it based on the same qualitative fact mentioned above? i should think not as it also gives us plays that have nothing to do with blackjacks or doubledowns or how much to bet but often the plays just offer lowest loss to win prospects for some dealer upcard ect or it can tell you when the prospects are best for double downs, splits ect.

but i'm thinking that what you guys are discussing would maybe be dependent on some QUALITATIVE fact that maybe we don't know but would be in the same sense as the one mentioned above for how a counter understands when some advantage exists.
the point maybe being that since we know we actually do win sometimes durring negative counts being is there some QUALITATIVE reason for that?
in other words could there be a hidden advantage lurking in the negative advantage realm of negative counts?

 

[zengrifter]

Sims show that extreme negative soft doubling doesn't win because the dealer is too likely not to bust. zg

 

[Ferretnparrot]

sagefrog, basic strategy comes from simulating billions of hands of one type by playing each option; hitting, doubling etc another billion times, and seeing which one wins the most hands/dollars. Or by playing out every possible combination of cards and seeing which one wins the most. Further refinement is done by simulating counts and seeing if the values at each count change enough so that one play becomes the better one.

 

[sagefr0g]

sagefrog, basic strategy comes from simulating billions of hands of one type by playing each option; hitting, doubling etc another billion times, and seeing which one wins the most hands/dollars. Or by playing out every possible combination of cards and seeing which one wins the most. Further refinement is done by simulating counts and seeing if the values at each count change enough so that one play becomes the better one.

appreciate the information about basic strategy and i can imagine that as a viable option. thing is i read that two guys on an army base back in the fifties figured out basic strategy on hand calculators. couldn't imagine them able to play out every possible combination of cards ect or what ever on a hand calculator lol.
i guess they must have used some sort of shortcut combinational math to get the task down to a manageable size. what ever. i'd just wonder what sort of assumptions and shortcuts they might have reasoned out if any....

 

[Ferretnparrot]

I am pretty sure blackjack back then was ONLY single deck, I once did all the permustation for the bust it side bet based on two decks, and found that it took me only a few hours

also, in reply to zen "oh poopy"

 

[sagefr0g]

kind of hard to make sense of

well anyway here is something about all this stuff lol.......
they do mention some of that qualitative stuff i was going on about such as:
"the player's disadvantage comes entirely from the rule that if both the player and the dealer bust the dealer wins" sort of thing.
guess it's worth a read to just find some of those things even if a lot of it is hard to understand.
also interesting to note how they say, "practical considerations required that the optimum strategy be developed under the above major assumption and several less important assumptions ..... because of the need for these simplifiing assumptions the strategy presented in this section could more precisely be described as 'practical' optimun strategy."
interesting......

http://www.bjmath.com/bjmath/basic/cantey.pdf (Archive copy)

or here is a good one where they seem to almost stumble onto indices with card counting....... i mean i don't think they knew about card counting and indices back then....... see snippet below:

 

[k_c]

what ever you guys are discussing is going right over my head. i just have a fuzzy sense (lol) of what the discussion is all about. i tryed to read Griffin's Theory of Blackjack and couldn't understand most of it. so what i'm going to say is maybe not correct from the understood mathematics. but anyway as far as i know what we know or anyone else knows about how it is we get an advantage with card counting is summarized by the simple QUALITATIVE fact that the players realize more blackjacks, more successful doubledowns than unsuccessful and more successful insurance bets than unsuccessful as the ratio of tens, faces and aces increases relative to the small cards (2,3,4,5,6). that being understood we also realize that for the advantage to yeild results the ratio actually decreases lol.... and from that point we can start pouring on the maths and come up with a statisically based way to beat the house lol. if this is wrong that the whole premise is based up this qualitative fact i'd be interested to see a referance or hear a explaination.

and too i don't really understand or know how or what the underlying premise is that was used to develope basic strategy. is it based on the same qualitative fact mentioned above? i should think not as it also gives us plays that have nothing to do with blackjacks or doubledowns or how much to bet but often the plays just offer lowest loss to win prospects for some dealer upcard ect or it can tell you when the prospects are best for double downs, splits ect.

but i'm thinking that what you guys are discussing would maybe be dependent on some QUALITATIVE fact that maybe we don't know but would be in the same sense as the one mentioned above for how a counter understands when some advantage exists.
the point maybe being that since we know we actually do win sometimes durring negative counts being is there some QUALITATIVE reason for that?
in other words could there be a hidden advantage lurking in the negative advantage realm of negative counts?

The best way to derive basic strategy is by using combinatorial analysis. This takes into account all of the possibilities for a full shoe state.

The same thing can be done for ANY shoe state. I'll use an example created out of the blue so don't say it can't happen. It's possible but unlikely. Let's say remaining cards consisted of 4 each (2,3,4,5) and 2 aces. Best strategy for this slug of cards is to double A-5 vs (2,3,4) but hit vs 5 assuming dealer stands on soft 17. 5-5 wouldn't be doubled vs anything. That would be disastrous. Playing best strategy for this slug (aka 'slug basic' ) yields an EV of +43.4%. Playing full shoe total dependent basic strategy yields an EV of -68.0%. (Of course a wonger will have been long gone.)

The special thing about a full shoe state is that it always occurs once per shuffle. As penetration increases, more and more deviation from the mean is possible. A card counter relies on an average or mean expected result in determining his strategy but that is not to say that 'outside the box' strategies that are better don't sometimes exist. The problem is that it is probably not humanly possible to know exactly what each shoe state is let alone how to play it perfectly except for the case of a full shoe state. That is what basic strategy is: how to play perfectly versus a full shoe.

I hope I haven't muddled the waters for you :grin:.

k_c

 

[sagefr0g]

The best way to derive basic strategy is by using combinatorial analysis. This takes into account all of the possibilities for a full shoe state.

The same thing can be done for ANY shoe state. I'll use an example created out of the blue so don't say it can't happen. It's possible but unlikely. Let's say remaining cards consisted of 4 each (2,3,4,5) and 2 aces. Best strategy for this slug of cards is to double A-5 vs (2,3,4) but hit vs 5 assuming dealer stands on soft 17. 5-5 wouldn't be doubled vs anything. That would be disastrous. Playing best strategy for this slug (aka 'slug basic' ) yields an EV of +43.4%. Playing full shoe total dependent basic strategy yields an EV of -68.0%. (Of course a wonger will have been long gone.)

The special thing about a full shoe state is that it always occurs once per shuffle. As penetration increases, more and more deviation from the mean is possible. A card counter relies on an average or mean expected result in determining his strategy but that is not to say that 'outside the box' strategies that are better don't sometimes exist. The problem is that it is probably not humanly possible to know exactly what each shoe state is let alone how to play it perfectly except for the case of a full shoe state. That is what basic strategy is: how to play perfectly versus a full shoe.

I hope I haven't muddled the waters for you :grin:.

k_c

thanks k_c. much of what your saying is how i suspected things were.
and well i think thats what a lot of basic strategy departures are supposed to be all about.
but well if your not counting (which of course means no departures) and you are playing basic strategy only, uhmm well i guess this all means that potentially as your playing through a shoe that the optimality of your play becomes well, less optimal as you work your way through the shoe. uhmm guessing further i suppose the further the true count strays from zero then the less optimal the basic strategy plays may be as you work your way through the shoe. would that be correct? i've never thought much about all this. so that where if you are counting then you can kind of repair basic strategy with departures as the count varies. yes?

 

[sagefr0g]

another basic strategy question

well this is sort of a basic strategy question.....
but anyway i know we have the illustrious 18 basic strategy departures. i believe that they give us about 80% the power of full indices errhh uhmm at least for the TC>=0 range of true counts.......

so what i'm wondering is if there is a illustrious 18 or illustrious whatever for the TC< 0 range of true counts?

 

[blackjack avenger]

You Guys are Twisting Yourselves in Knots!!!!

It's ok, I sometimes do it myself!

Basic strategy has been known since the 50s. It is correct and does not need to be reinvented. If you want to come up with rare strategies for rare situations you will get back very very little if anything! It seems a lot of the talk is centering around very negative situations, well you should not worry about those situations because you should not be playing them! If you are in a very negative situation I know how to improve your chances without trying to figure out obscure strategy deviations. The answer is to go to another table!

Deviations from basic strategy in "other situations" are already known, they are called indices.

Now back to more important topics. Jessica Alba wow!!!

 

[sagefr0g]

It's ok, I sometimes do it myself!

Basic strategy has been known since the 50s. It is correct and does not need to be reinvented. If you want to come up with rare strategies for rare situations you will get back very very little if anything! It seems a lot of the talk is centering around very negative situations, well you should not worry about those situations because you should not be playing them! If you are in a very negative situation I know how to improve your chances without trying to figure out obscure strategy deviations. The answer is to go to another table!

Deviations from basic strategy in "other situations" are already known, they are called indices.

Now back to more important topics. Jessica Alba wow!!!

lol i knew i was going to get this response from someone and you are absolutely correct! thank you.
and i guess i did forget about how little really better we do get from basic strategy departures but still i like to use them so.......
can anyone answer the question?
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showpost.php?p=68620&postcount=13

 

[blackjack avenger]

Some of the Ill18 are Negative

To look deeper. Probably they would be in this order:

count backwards on the number line.
-1,-2,-3
Those indices at -1 would have more value then -3 because you would get to use those more often.

These exceptions.
You would not use the ones with the dealer perhaps showing an A and to a lesser extent 10 ( so many of them ) as you get deeper because of 10 and A depletion in the deck.

Don't worry so much about soft doubles and even less about splits.

So what would they possible be?
As you get more negative you end up with your 5 thru 17 vs the dealer low cards. You need to hit more. Doubling will be far less because you will get garbage while the dealer does not break.

The indices will mostly comprise of your 12 - 16 vs dealer low cards.

ok I will actually try to come up with some:

hit and stand
13 v 2 -1
13 v 3 -2
12 v 5 -2
12 v 6 -1

doubles
10 v 9 -2
9 v 3 -1
10 v 9 -2
9 v 4 -3

Hi Low Rounded I beleive

There you go! I will dub them the "Elite Negative Eight!" Copyright! No one may reproduce without written permission! LOL

Using these when appropriate will save you a little money; you should not be betting big, but you are losing money by having to use them in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[sagefr0g]

To look deeper. Probably they would be in this order:

count backwards on the number line.
-1,-2,-3
Those indices at -1 would have more value then -3 because you would get to use those more often.

These exceptions.
You would not use the ones with the dealer perhaps showing an A and to a lesser extent 10 ( so many of them ) as you get deeper because of 10 and A depletion in the deck.

Don't worry so much about soft doubles and even less about splits.

So what would they possible be?
As you get more negative you end up with your 5 thru 17 vs the dealer low cards. You need to hit more. Doubling will be far less because you will get garbage while the dealer does not break.

The indices will mostly comprise of your 12 - 16 vs dealer low cards.

ok I will actually try to come up with some:

hit and stand
13 v 2 -1
13 v 3 -2
12 v 5 -2
12 v 6 -1

doubles
10 v 9 -2
9 v 3 -1
10 v 9 -2
9 v 4 -3

Hi Low Rounded I beleive

There you go! I will dub them the "Elite Negative Eight!" Copyright! No one may reproduce without written permission! LOL

Using these when appropriate will save you a little money; you should not be betting big, but you are losing money by having to use them in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!

thanks much avenger.... but you better add one more cause you got 10v9 in there twice or rename it to the Elite Negative Seven lol......
but any more to add would be interesting.........
how about some of those borderline soft double downs A3,A2v5,6
and some of the splits ...... i dunno AA v A 44v5,6 ?????????
or maybe i ought to get my copy of Professional Blackjack out and figure them out for myself i guess.

 

[blackjack avenger]

Few Soft Doubles in Negative counts.

Ok first off i just wanna say, that in know this idea is probibly going to be looked at as stupid, or is probibly not going to work, or was already thought of and tried, or even more likely, all of the above.

I am however an outside the box thinker, which is partly why i pursue gambling as a source of income.



Ok you ready for this? cause this is a pretty crazy idea.

You double down on totals of 10 and 11 because many cards can be drawn to give you a good soldi hand and you cant bust in doing so.

What if there is and extremely negetive count (maybe not so extreme) where doubling on soft hands in the teens where if you pulled from a pool of mostly smaller cards youd be left with a good hand most of the time. Thers already a number for negetive hands on when to stop doubling, but is there maybe a much lower negetive count at which you should revert back to doubling? assigning two index number to soft hands as some aim for a dealer bust and some aim for good final hand, and the ones in between are basic strategy?

I really dont think this would matter in real life as the number is NUMBER 1 negetive so were probibly not even gogin to be at the table to see it, and number 2 so negetive that wed never see it anyways but its food for thought and since were here to discuss blackjack i propose charts be made and inovation be attemted!:whip:

Here are some problems with your thoughts:
Soft hands do not occur that much to begin with. If the count is extremely negative where is the A to give you your soft double opportunity. Also, an A is one of the cards you would like on soft doubles but there won't be many of them. Soft doubles didn't make Sch. ILL18 and that is even when there are more in the remaining cards.

Unfortunately the hands you will get very often are 12 and 13 where you will face hitting before the dealer and breaking before the dealer does which is where the advantage for the house is. Even if you hit and don't break congrats because the dealer won't either.

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Negative, or retrograde?

To look deeper. Probably they would be in this order:

count backwards on the number line.
-1,-2,-3
Those indices at -1 would have more value then -3 because you would get to use those more often.

These exceptions.
You would not use the ones with the dealer perhaps showing an A and to a lesser extent 10 ( so many of them ) as you get deeper because of 10 and A depletion in the deck.

Don't worry so much about soft doubles and even less about splits.

So what would they possible be?
As you get more negative you end up with your 5 thru 17 vs the dealer low cards. You need to hit more. Doubling will be far less because you will get garbage while the dealer does not break.

The indices will mostly comprise of your 12 - 16 vs dealer low cards.

ok I will actually try to come up with some:

hit and stand
13 v 2 -1
13 v 3 -2
12 v 5 -2
12 v 6 -1

doubles
10 v 9 -2
9 v 3 -1
10 v 9 -2
9 v 4 -3

Hi Low Rounded I beleive

There you go! I will dub them the "Elite Negative Eight!" Copyright! No one may reproduce without written permission! LOL

Using these when appropriate will save you a little money; you should not be betting big, but you are losing money by having to use them in the first place!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that might have been what F&P was getting at. Sure there are deviations from Basic Strategy that take place at negative counts, but there are some (best example I can think of right now is surrender 17 vs. A) where the EV of the strategy deviation has a slope of a different sign as other strategy deviations in that category do. (Most surrender plays you are more likely to do in a positive count, not negative.)

It might be the case that if the deck were, say, rich in 5's that DD on A5 vs. 10 would be a good play, and that a sufficiently negative count could indeed represent such a deck composition. But I don't believe it has any practical use, except maybe as a cover play.

 

[blackjack avenger]

What's In a Name

thanks much avenger.... but you better add one more cause you got 10v9 in there twice or rename it to the Elite Negative Seven lol......
but any more to add would be interesting.........
how about some of those borderline soft double downs A3,A2v5,6
and some of the splits ...... i dunno AA v A 44v5,6 ?????????
or maybe i ought to get my copy of Professional Blackjack out and figure them out for myself i guess.

I shall name them the

Sorry Sucky Seven

Sorry Seven for short