shadroch said:
I once had a dealer explain to me how any other player at the table effects your EV.
His thinking- Two people at the table, you each get 50% of the blackjacks.
But with four people at the table, you only get 25% of the blackjacks.
You'll never read that in a book,eh?:devil:
This is why I never listen to dealers...there's something not quite right about this. First, what matters is the number of BJs per unit of time, and that number will be greater for heads up play by a factor of 2 to 3 times.
Then we have to think about the long run. (I get all excited when I think about the long run.
)
In the long run, the dealer is, in effect, dealing out of an infinite shoe. Everyone sitting at the table sees, in effect, an infinite shoe. Since the number of cards in an infinite shoe is, well, infinite, it doesn't matter how many players are at the table. There could be, I dare say, an infinite number of players at the table, and each would all see the infinite shoe.
The dealer is right that, out of a finite shoe, we'd be sharing the BJs, but as we approach the long run, our results approach the results from an infinite shoe, i.e., where the number of players don't matter.
