would you bet half of your entire session bankroll

Half my session BR is about 5% of my total BR. Since there is a strong chance that this Ace could lead to a double down situation, that would be 10% of my BR on one wager. Thats way too much for me (unreplenishable BR)...just too big of a gamble, even with the 50% advantage that first card Ace brings, so I would have to say no. I probably would go about a quarter of my trip BR tops. That would be about 5 x my usual top wager. I would rather be ultra conservative and miss some oportunity, than risk losing my BR, which would put me out of business.
 
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I would think that it would be risk-averse not to double down if you are betting big into an ace, because the initial advantage would be so much bigger than the advantage of whatever soft-double you would be making.
 
kewljason said:
Half my session BR is about 5% of my total BR. Since there is a strong chance that this Ace could lead to a double down situation, that would be 10% of my BR on one wager. Thats way too much for me (unreplenishable BR)...just too big of a gamble, even with the 50% advantage that first card Ace brings, so I would have to say no.
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You don't have to double down, just because you get a BS double situation.

Ordinarily you probably would never have so much of your BR invested in a single hand for it to make sense to deviate from BS by refusing to double. But in a situation where you know you have an excessive advantage for the coming hand, if you are happy to risk 5% of your BR at that advantage then it can't make sense not to do so.

Of course you might get a pair of aces, which would make a mockery of what I just said. You probably would be compelled to split them, risking 10% of your BR.

Edit: BMDD beat me to the punch. :)
 
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You guys both make a good point about not doubling down. I hadn't thought of that. :o However, making that decision on the fly, I would probably still be much more conservative than most, for reasons already stated, but that's just me.
 
London Colin said:
if you are happy to risk 5% of your BR at that advantage then it can't make sense not to do so.
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To backtrack a little further on what I said :) ...

The advantage is of course a function of the strategy you plan to use when playing the hand. I suppose the way to work out in advance how best to handle this kind of situation would be to compare the EVs and variances of the different strategies -
  • Play (count-adjusted) Basic Strategy, as normal.
  • Never double or split.
  • Never double, but split (Once? Multiply?) if BS calls for it.
That would give you the Kelly fraction of your BR appropriate to each strategy.

Calculate the amounts to bet if you are, say, a 1/4 Kelly bettor. Then multiply by the respective EVs to see which gives the greatest win-rate.

The more the normal, BS EV depends upon the ability to double and/or split, the more incentive there must be to be conservative with your initial bet, so that you can stick with BS.

With a guaranteed ace, I imagine the chance of getting a natural must be the dominating factor, so you wouldn't lose much by following at least a no-doubling strategy.
 
Sucker said:
I would bet my ENTIRE session bankroll; IRREGARDLESS of the count.
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1. I would never say "irregardless." :whip:

2. If you bet all of the money you have in your pocket, your advantage is now a bit less than 52% because you can no longer double or split. Most of those with large bankrolls bring more than 2X table limit to the table so it's moot anyway, but that has to be considered in this calculation.

Even if you can double, the proper risk-averse play is to avoid many of the soft doubles.
 
Automatic Monkey said:
1. I would never say "irregardless." :whip:

2. If you bet all of the money you have in your pocket, your advantage is now a bit less than 52% because you can no longer double or split. Most of those with large bankrolls bring more than 2X table limit to the table so it's moot anyway, but that has to be considered in this calculation.

Even if you can double, the proper risk-averse play is to avoid many of the soft doubles.
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for those inclined to study up on deciding whether to double or not:
http://www.beyondcounting.com/pdfs/ACEbjfo1.pdf (Archive copy)
 
As the article mentions, at times the correct play wrt to bankroll management is to double for less. At times, with say A7 vs 6 or A8 for that matter, you might want to avoid this double because you might not want to take a card with such a large wager already attached to your hand (relative to the size of your bankroll and the size of the double).
 
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