OMG!, this ia good one!! for real this time!

[Ferretnparrot]

Alright so last night, while laying in bed thinking about blackjack, i came up with yet another idea, except this time, i realy think its one thats never been thought of before, it totally outside the box, but totaly sound in theory, and may very well change somewhat dramatically the way we count cards forever! As long as there are plays where it is possible to take action upon by the change in EV being small enough

It works like this, when your playing head up against the dealer, or perhaps with only one player, the number of undealt cards that will be dealt before the cut card comes is of value to you, it means that you will get X number of hands, if you increase it by one card, on average it will score you about 1/5th of a hand dealt, particularly, on dealt deeper into the deck than normal, if on average every hand at an advantage is worth say 1.5%, that means that every extra card you keep from being dealt is worth 0.3% in terms of the extra hands it will give you, this suddenly leaves you a choice when making actions on your hands.

Lets say on a particular hand, you have the choice to hit or stand, however, the difference in EV between both options is only 0.2% less if you stand, this means now that it is IN YOUR INTEREST as a counter to stand even though the ev for the incorrect play is 0.2% less because now there is one less card dealt from the shoe.

I beleive that this concept may create a whole new window for advananced player strategy, and forever redefine what the "correct" play is for a card counter.

The problem is i dont know if there are very many if ANY plays where the EV from hitting vs standing is so tiny for it to work properly, again ill say, that i dont have software, and im asking you guys for help.

I think in adition to possibly modifiing basic strategy slightly if there are hands where it is applicable, you could definately use it to change index values.

And yes, i am proposing that the long exhisting always trusted "basic strategy" be modified according to this logic, I know I am goign to torn apart for making such a bold move, however, i call shotgun on nameing the new modified strategy.

 

[Sonny]

...if on average every hand at an advantage is worth say 1.5%, that means that every extra card you keep from being dealt is worth 0.3% in terms of the extra hands it will give you, this suddenly leaves you a choice when making actions on your hands.

But you also have to factor in how much you are hurting yourself by not taking that extra card on your current hand. I think you'll find that violating basic strategy will cost you more than you might gain from potentially playing an extra hand later on (which may or may not be at an advantage). It will also force you to bet smaller at the beginning of the shoe since you will be misplaying many hands. Between the smaller overall avantage and the smaller amount of action it could be very costly.

-Sonny-

 

[blackjack avenger]

On Names

If there is nothing to this strategy:
Ferret's Folly
Ferret's Fantasy

If there is something to this strategy:
Ferret's BS

None sound appealing:joker::whip:

I looked at the cost of misplays for basic strategy. All of them were above .3% and most much higher.

This idea has also been thought of before, not much if anything here.

 

[ihate17]

.3 is alot

If you look at your positive count indices you will notice that as the count gets higher many times you will not take a hit but the higher the count the more often to stay on a stiff. You also surrender more often, taking less cards.
Where your theory may get interesting is on doubles and splits. Is it worth it to split 9,9 vs 7 when the indice says to do so if it will cost you an additional hand? Is it worth it to double A,7 vs 2, when the indice calls for it?

Are you gaining more EV by splitting/doubling that it is worth playing one less hand?
Since I am away from perhaps a book or two that might give me EV numbers to work with, I can only go with what my gut tells me here:

1. On a hand where you have the edge, like these two above examples, you play the hand correctly with an edge and perhaps play one less hand at a high count. Remember the casino is still favored to win the next hand.

2. On a hand where the casino has the edge, you take less cards giving yourself a better chance of getting additional hands.

Not so amazingly, our indices seem to often work that way for us.

ihate17

 

[Percy]

Where this strategy is particularly valuable is just before the cut card is about to come out; where by taking one less card (contrary to basic strategy) you allow for an extra hand to be dealt. In this extra hand you then open up an extra 3/4/5 boxes with an advantage of 1.5% (say) on each. In this case you could argue that the strategy is worth anything from about 4%-7% of your current bet.

Unfortunately I have already heard of players using this strategy, so (this slight modification) on what you're proposing is not new.

However, i have not heard of it being used in more general play nor do I know if it has already been incorporated into the calculation of index values.

Percy

 

[blackjack avenger]

Real World Application

There are a couple of problems with this strategy.

One must consider that they are going to have an immediate cost for the misplay in order to save cards.

This strategy only works if you get it to one card before the cut card. Otherwise, there was no need to misplay your orginal hand. If more then one card before the cut card the round was going to be dealt anyway and you misplayed a hand. If you misjudge and go beyond the cut card you will not get another round and you misplayed a hand.

If you are sitting at the table with any players to your left, you have to feel confident that you know exactly how many cards they will take.

Here is the killer, you have to know how many cards the dealer will take.

If you can't get it down to the one card before the cut card, that would have allowed the extra round due to your error you are wasting your time and money.

As Ihate17 pointed out most of the positive indices conserve cards anyway.

 

[blackjack avenger]

This Would Probably Work

Given:

1. You have a small bet out.
2. Your next bets are going to be large.

In this scenario the cost of misplaying the small bet is not high compared to the big bets that follow.

Even if you were only correct in perfectly catching the extra round a small percentage of the time 10%? it would probably be worth it. One could probably easily come up with exact scenarios. However, what are we to do? Learn different scenarios under which we misplay hands?

Notice my scenario is counter to the "true count theorem". How often are we going to have a small bet out and then be able to bet very large just before the end of the shoe? Many of you would not even jump your bets in this scenario anyway.

If it's a real small bet, many of you wouldn't even be playing at this time.

 

[Ferretnparrot]

I was thinking more about it, i think now that 0.3 my be lowballing, the play you have to work with shoudl be proportional to the instantanious advanatge because according to the law of true counts, you should on average continue to play at the same advantage untill the end of the shoe, so if perhaps you are playing at a higher true count, you would have more play to work with than 0.3%

i think splits are an excelent way to use this as well, this may considerably lower the index for slitting 9s vs 7 and maybe even 9,9vs2 since it will result in a minimum gain of 2 cards on average im sure the number of cards not dealt would be higher due to drawing additional cards ontop of the split hands.

In fact i think for starters, that 99vs7 may be an ideal candidate for this play, how can we determine the adjusted true count for making this the correct play according to this strategy when playing heads up.

I think in general this suggests if anything that the indexes for strategy deviations shoudl be different for heads up play than with multiple peopel at the table

 

[Ferretnparrot]

This strategy only works if you get it to one card before the cut card. Otherwise, there was no need to misplay your orginal hand. If more then one card before the cut card the round was going to be dealt anyway and you misplayed a hand. If you misjudge and go beyond the cut card you will not get another round and you misplayed a hand.

If you are sitting at the table with any players to your left, you have to feel confident that you know exactly how many cards they will take.

Here is the killer, you have to know how many cards the dealer will take.

-It shoudlnt matter how many carda re left undealt, or how close you are to the cut card, on average if you add one card, and each play hand on average consumes 2.7 cards, about 1 out of 5 times, you will be dealt an extra round before the cut card come when you are playing heads up

-If you are playign with multiple players at the table, the strategy is less effective and becomes futile

-again with the dealer taking cards, its averages im looking at

------------------------------------------------------------------
while index plays mark the point where the profit made on that very hand becomes in your best interest by marking the point where the graphs of them intersect, i think that every index play now has the potential to be lowered to a new number that marks where ....

the EV from a play that takes additional card is equal to.......
The ev from a play that takes no additional cards, [or less additional cards] plus the (average number of cards not drawn multiplied by the instantanious player advanateg at that count divided by 5.4)

during head up play only

That would ahve to be how you figure it out, i have no idea how to go about that

 

[blackjack avenger]

Frequency Issues and Large Bet Costs

Soft doubles and especially splits happen infrequently. So this further drains on the value of this strategy.

The basic hit stand decisions already take into consideration positive situations where you stand or surrender more frequently, thereby saving cards.

If it is a positive situation where you are already betting big and you misplay your hand the immediate cost is even higher. One would still face the issue of probably needing to bet big on the following hands in order to make up for the misplay and this goes against the "true count theory" and would happen very infrequently!:joker::whip:

So the problems:
Guessing that last card before the cut card.
Problems determining what players to the left and the dealer will do.
Problems spreading enough to take advantage of situation because of true count theorem.
The hands that may draw some benefit, the splits and soft doubles don't happen frequently enough.

 

[blackjack avenger]

Must Be Precise or Waste of Money!

-It shoudlnt matter how many carda re left undealt, or how close you are to the cut card, on average if you add one card, and each play hand on average consumes 2.7 cards, about 1 out of 5 times, you will be dealt an extra round before the cut card come when you are playing heads up

-If you are playign with multiple players at the table, the strategy is less effective and becomes futile

-again with the dealer taking cards, its averages im looking at

Let's say you employ this tactic. So you are misplaying a hand and that has a cost. Now let's say there are 2 cards before the cut card. If you had played your hand correctly there would be one card before the cut card. In either scenario another round will be dealt but with 2 cards remaining before the cut card you did not have to misplay your hand for the other round to be dealt! So you misplayed your hand for no gain!:joker::whip:

On the other side if you misplayed a hand and the cut card still appeared and forced a shuffle you again misplayed a hand for no gain!:joker::whip:

The only time this is worth it is if you get it perfectly one card before the cut card and the next round will be dealt. Yes, as I have stated you could use an average of how often you get the next hand, but that is a great dilution of this strategy!

Notice how you are realizing it's not so easy.
Only works heads up.
Need to have an average of the dealers number of cards used.
These and the other things I have brought up greatly dilute this idea to probably a futile effort.

 

[Ferretnparrot]

im not talking about using this as a one time effort at scoring an extra hand when your a couple card away, im talking about always using this tactic on all plays where it is applicable when there are still many undealt cards.

if there are 100 cards left udealt and you make it 101, on average you will gain 1 eactra hand for every 5 times that you do it, assuming you bet the same every time your count is at the count you make the play at, you will get an extra hand with the same size bet with a larger advanatge ~1/5th of the time

There should be a way to modify your index number as i suggested the method above, to allow for this effect rather than simply trying to maximise the gain on the very hand you have at the moment.

Basically sacrifice 0.2% now, gain [an average of 1.5%] or (the instantanious advanatge at that particular count) 20% of the tim in the future on a bet of equal size, i am 100% confident that this can increase your winnings, im not letting up on this one

to do so woudl require a sepreat set of indexs for when you are playing head up, they would be very usable at no midshoe entry tables where once you are heads up, other players cannot join and kill the effect

 

[blackjack avenger]

This is How One Can Do It

Broaden your indices for hit/stand decisions. Then you will be standing at the correct time and saving cards!:joker::whip:

 

[EasyRhino]

If it's a close play, like 16v10 in a neutral count, it might be close enough fo r a tiebreaker

HOWEVER, if you're in a neutral count, and you extend your play by an extra hand, then all you get is one extra hand AT A NEUTRAL COUNT, which has a slight disadvantage, so what's the point?

 

[zengrifter]

I've used the one more round stand strategy for LLs side bets!
Definately worth it in that application, but not in general. zg

 

[Ferretnparrot]

Even if you know all of the indexes, they are now obsolete and need to be replaced with these when you are playing heads up, it will become beneficial to stand at lower counts, and also become beneficial to make odd plays like not splitting and doubling certain hands

the point should be that, once you are at a count that is at an advanatge, you should begin to make plays that, when possible, will give you ***more ev total for the rest of the hands in the shoe*** by buying yourself extra hands by stretegically not taking cards at minimal cost, in such a manor, that the ev lost from not taking the cards is less than the ev gained from the additional hands when you are the only player at the table. It should be possible to do this by figuring new indexes as i suggested before. This will maximise your EV, if you arnt interested in maximising your ev, why do half of you use level 2 counting systems?

This is extra money that you would not have previously had.

I dont understand why nobody sees this, once these indexes are created, all we have to do is add them to our and anybody elses arsenal, it may be a lot of work, but seriously, think of how much research went into the initial developement of card counting to begin with, once you have created them they are everybodys to use and everybody will certainly gain from them, its for the good of blackjack play as a whole

 

[actuary]

There is one issue I have with your theory and it mostly applies to counters who play positive counts only (or those who only play hands where they have the advantage). What happens if we assume a counter has access to an infinite number of hands with EV>0? Then the value of "misplaying" a hand to gain an extra (or fraction of a) hand is nil since the counter can always find another hand with EV>0.

There would be no incentive to misplay a hand to conserve cards to a counter who can always find another hand with a positive expectation.

However, for players who play at all counts, I can see some value theoretically to increasing the number of hands in a shoe at positive counts and decreasing the number at negative counts.

 

[FLASH1296]

This isn't a new idea.

The only problem with it is that one card rarely makes a difference,
and probably never makes a difference sufficient to alter one's index play.

 

[blackjack avenger]

Would Have Been Discovered

As soon as computers were able to run sims of the game. The first thing checked by the math crowd was probably BS. Now sims take into consideration the actual play of the game with players, cut cards, shoes etc. If BS changed when actually playing the game it would have been discovered.

 

[FLASH1296]

"The Floating Advantage"

Tangential, but related to this topic, is the reality of the "floating advantage".
I suggest reading the chapter by this title in "Blackjack Attack" by D. Schlesinger

To make a long story short - your POSITIVE True Count is "worth" more to you, the deeper in the shoe you go.

However, the difference is not very significant, and is mostly of academic interest only.