weird rules

[E-town-guy]

I've only been playing for a short while but got basic strategy down (at least I though) and almost got counting down. I just realized a potential flaw with the basic strategy card I generated on this website as I just learned about a small rule variance. Here's the basic rules:
4 decks, dealer hits soft 17, double any 2 cards, double after split, european no hole card, early surrender. Though you are NOT allowed to surrender if the dealer is showing an ace. Unfortunately I'm not able to plug in this variation of surrender into the basic strategy engine but have a feeling it takes the house edge from 0.07% (if early surrender was allowed on all cards) to about 0.50% approximately with no surrender on aces. If someone has a better way to figure out the casino edge, rather than just by my guess that would be much appreciated.

Anyway the point of my post is this, normally if the dealer is showing an ace I would never double or split, as per the basic strategy card I generated. BUT today I found out that if a player splits or doubles on the dealers ace and the dealer hits blackjack you only loose your original bet, you don't loose the double/split portion of your bet.

So with the rule changed I mentioned first, no surrender on aces, I just modified the strategy card I generated from saying surrender on aces to hit. But I honestly have no idea how to modify my strategy based on the second rule variance I mentioned above. If I had to guess I'd enter my rules in the strategy generator and change the rules from no hole card to the standard US system with a hole card. Any changes I see regarding what to do on aces based on the hole card/no hole card system I could use to modify "my personal strategy card".

Any advice, suggestions, or comments would be very helpful.

 

[BAMA21]

Your approach is probably workable. To me, this game behaves more like a hole card game with late surrender than a European game with early surrender, excepting of course that you will be able to surrender stiffs against face cards before they are determined to be blackjacks. One example play comes to mind. I would double an 11 against an ace, according to basic strategy. The reason for this is that by the time I get to make that decision, the dealer has already determined that he does not have a blackjack. In a traditional European game, you don't know that he doesn't have 21 already, so you can't risk doubling the wager if you'd lose all to a dealer blackjack. However, if you lose your original bet only, doubling on 11 against an ace is functionally the same for you as it is for me.

 

[SecurityRisk]

NOT European no hole card

The game you describe does NOT have the European no hole card rule. European no hole card means that the dealer does not deal a second card to himself until after everyone has played, and if the dealer has a blackjack, the players lose all bets including doubles and splits. Losing all the doubles and splits is part of the definition of European no hole card. The game you describe is equivalent to the American hole card rule. Even if the dealer doesn't check for a blackjack, if he takes only the original bet if he has a blackjack, it's the same result as if he checked before hand. Select American hole card rule for this game.

 

[Mikeaber]

Agree with SecurityRisk. The true European hole card rule yields about a .11% house advantage. The American "no peek" or delayed deal of the final card yields the house only a .01% advantage.

 

[BAMA21]

The only thing is that he can apparently surrender against a ten prior to the dealer peeking. That could certianly save half a bet from time to time that can't be saved with the hole card game and late surrender. I can't count the number of times I'd have liked to have surrendered but didn't get the chance because the dealer ad an ace in the hole. So even if you can't surrender against an ace, being able to surrender against a ten before the dealer peeks is valuable.

 

[E-town-guy]

NO hole card

I just wanted to clear one thing up that was probably a bit confusing. The reason I said it was european rules with no hole card is simply because the dealer does not deal a hole card, i.e. they only deal the one card face up.

The option to surrender on all dealer hands except ace and the option double/split vs. dealers ace and only loose your original bet if its BJ make the rules more complicated to determine the perfect strategy card or the actual casino edge.

To figure out what to do against the dealer's ace I'll enter it as american rules with no surrender. That way I can see when to double/split.

I'm wondering though, and this mostly for determining the casino's edge, would you consider this game early or late surrender? Remember I can't surrender on a dealer's ace and there's no hole card.

Thanks

 

[BAMA21]

It is somewhere in the middle. It is better than late surrender, because you can early surrender against the tens. However, it is not as good as early surrender, because you can't surrender at all against the ace. To come up with a strategy chart, I'd use Early Surrender to see what the strategy is for all dealer upcards except the ace (where you can't surrender anyway). Then I'd run it as no surrender, lose original bet only, to see how to play against the ace. Short of finding someone who has number on this game or setting up your own simulation, I have no idea how to compute the house edge without guestimating.

 

[E-town-guy]

I learned a bit more today, this time from another dealer. He said, the player only looses there original bet on BOTH 10s and aces if the player splits and/or doubles. To be sure this time I confirmed with the pit boss.

Therefore this game sounds like its american standard rules, even though no hole card is actually dealt. Still no surrender on aces but you're allowed to surrender on all other cards. Its probably closer to late surrender than early but a bit better than late.