Basic Strategy Beyond 3 Cards
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Automatic Monkey
Banned
No, Basic Strategy is strategy for only the dealer's upcard, the total of your hand, and whether your hand is hard of soft. Example: if your hand is 3,A,2,2 and the dealer has a 9 showing, you would treat it just like you had A,7 and hit it. If you had 4,4,2,3 and the dealer has a 3, you would play it like 13 vs. 3 and stand.
Strategy for 3 or more player cards is Composition-Dependent Strategy. It's a tiny improvement over Basic Strategy, but counters usually don't bother with it because we are making our strategy decisions based on the count and not just what we have in front of us.
Beyond the first two cards, I will typically use my judgement as to how I play my cards. If I have a four-card 16 on the table and I'm not seeing a lot of 10s out, then I typically will not hit it. In fact, I'm always wary of taking another card beyond 4 and will think hard before doing it.
positiveEV
Well-Known Member
If you have 2 cards vs a 10 on a new shoe, it means you either have 10,6 or 9,7. In either case, counting the dealer's 10, the true count would be under 0, therefore you would have to hit. If you have a 3 cards 16, you will always have an amount of low cards equal or superior to the amount of high cards in play, therefore the true count would be 0+ but this can be done by counting.
Automatic Monkey
Banned
I would hardly call it superstitious. More like common sense. If I have 4/3/5/2 and I look around the table and see a bunch of 9s and 7s and 5s and whatever else . . . then I don't KNOW a 10-value card is coming but I know it's pretty damn likely. Especially if the dealer is showing a 7 and I know that the ONLY card the dealer is standing on is a 10 or Ace, then I'll hope the dealer is needing to take a hit and will promptly bust. It's happens just that way quite a bit as well.
You can't automate the entire game and eliminate any need for intelligent decisions.
jack.jackson
Well-Known Member
Whats your take?
On borderline counts, in multiple decks, especially early in the game im definetly more apt to hitting close calls 12v2 12v3 13v2 13v3 13v4 15vT 16vT than i would be in a one or two deck game. I will stay 16vT @ 2d or less @ r.c of 0, but would hit a 4 card 16 early on in multiple deck @ r.c of 0.
In other words, the fewer the decks. The greater the effect the cards that compromise your own hand has.
Kinda like why the dealer draws to more pat hands, and H17 has more of an effect as the number of decks increases. But then again everybody has their own technique. To each their own.
___________________
Somethings just defy description
On borderline counts, in multiple decks, especially early in the game im definetly more apt to hitting close calls 12v2 12v3 13v2 13v3 13v4 15vT 16vT than i would be in a one or two deck game. I will stay 16vT @ 2d or less @ r.c of 0, but would hit a 4 card 16 early on in multiple deck @ r.c of 0.
In other words, the fewer the decks. The greater the effect the cards that compromise your own hand has.
Kinda like why the dealer draws to more pat hands, and H17 has more of an effect as the number of decks increases. But then again everybody has their own technique. To each their own.
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Somethings just defy description
Automatic Monkey
Banned
No, it is not damned likely. Your chances of getting a 10 are equal to the number of 10's left in the shoe divided by the number of cards left in the shoe. It is a very rare situation when there are more 10's left than non-10's.
Now, if you had been counting cards all along you would have some practical approximation of what that ratio would be, but looking around the table for that round just doesn't do it. It only takes 1 or 2 extra 10's per shoe to make standing on 16 vs. 10 a good decision, but standing on 16 vs. 7 is something you never want to do.
I wouldn't say that I got the "look around the table" method from Fred Renzey as it has been part of my strategy from the beginning, but since I know he's a respected counter then I'll reference him. In Bluebook II he cites a handful of hands in which the number of 10s laid out influences your decision to depart from basic strategy. But I think this goes back to that "composition dependent" strategy that most counters don't concern themselves with.
Say what you will, but in my observation shoes GENERALLY remain relatively balanced. Granted, cards do sometimes get clumped together and you'll see round after round of small cards come out with nary a 10 in sight, but when this happens it's distinctly odd and it's almost always followed by a round that is disproportionately rich in 10s.
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I've heard it works particularly well for single and double deck games. Not sure if Avery Cardoza gets any respect around here, but he advocates it as a betting method as an alternative to counting--i.e. when you see a round come out that has few to no 10s, bet high the next go around--though in a sense that is counting in its crudest form.
That's tier two of the four tier hand playing methodology. However, each tier supersedes the last, since it knows more.
Tier 1: Total Dependent Basic Strategy
Tier 2: Composition Dependent Basic Strategy
Tier 3: Board Composition Hand Playing Strategy
Tier 4: Deck/Shoe Composition Hand Playing Strategy
Excuse me. The "look around the table" method is tier 3.
NDN21
Well-Known Member
But is this intelligent? Or is it the infamous "go with guts" strategy?
Suppose that the count had been going down for several rounds prior and was in fact negative (let's say -4 TC and six decks, 3 left in shoe). That means alot of high cards were coming out. This "4/3/5/2" total of 16 would only be the pack correcting back towards zero. In this case there would still be a better chance of a low card coming out than a ten. It would not be pretty damn likely but might appear to be to the uninformed.
And if you say you were paying attention to these preceding rounds then that would be card counting, a level four activity, and would take precedence over board composition decisions.
In this case, 16 vs. 10, making the incorrect hit/stand decision isn't that big of a mistake but on a 16 vs. 7 making the incorrect hit/stand decision is a big mistake.
Why can't you "automate" the entire game?
I play Casino Verite with a player profile on "automatic pilot", making every decision as it it outlined in my strategy and not one outside the parameters. With this profile I played several thousand hands (over 15,000) and my profit % is very close to the 2% advantage that is given in the books. My profit per hour is also very close to the "2 basic unit bets" that is given. While it wouldn't be realistic to play this way in a casino due to heat why not practice it so I know I can play in an optimal fashion?
It seems this "there has not been a card of this value in awhile so that means than one must be coming next" strategy could work if you had been memorizing the cards for the current segment but is otherwise pretty meaningless. I used to think the same way. Shuffle-tracking is definitely next on my "to do" list.
As for me I think I will trust the math. I am not calling you down but rather just giving a different opinion than yours.
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One thing you must remember is that I don't count, at least not yet. And I am only saying that even for the non-counter, there are times when deviating from BS can be an intelligent move. I always follow BS on my initial two-card total and TYPICALLY on three cards also, but not always, and definitely not always on 4 cards. One thing we must remember is that BS was designed to take into account the dealer's UP card and your initial two cards. As Renzey mentions in his book, it is after this that you move beyond robotic automation and become something of a card player in your own right.
Why do I play this way? Because it is what has worked for me.
iwantblackjack
Well-Known Member
I'm confused. I thought there is an instance (based on tc) when you would stand on the 3,A,2,2 hand against dealer 9; or, am i totally making up an index bs variation rule??
Whether the game is H17, S17, single deck or shoe, I'm nearly certain there is no index number for standing with A/7 vs. 9.
EasyRhino
Well-Known Member
SPX, Fred has the hierarchy down pat.
There are times, if you are counting, when you will see the entire layout full of baby cards, and yet the count will still be stupidly-negative. However, if you're not counting, there's nothing wrong with looking around at the table to see what's going on in those marginal cases.
There are times, if you are counting, when you will see the entire layout full of baby cards, and yet the count will still be stupidly-negative. However, if you're not counting, there's nothing wrong with looking around at the table to see what's going on in those marginal cases.