Anyone's Game

gronbog

gronbog

Top Member
This situation came up on the final hand of my semi-final round at

https://www.blackjacktournaments.com/tournaments/blackjack-blowout.1310/

Three players remain, 1 advances, max 500, min 50, betting unit 10. Rules 4 decks, S17, BJ 2/1, early surrender only vs a dealer's ace, no late surrender, DOA, DAS, double for less allowed, double or stand after splitting aces. Bankrolls and bets in order as follows:

BR2: bankroll: 1550, bet 500
BR3: bankroll: 1300, bet 500
BR1(me): bankroll 1960, bet 500

My bet is reasonable, but I could have done better. Can anyone see a better bet? This situation is somewhat basic, so how about we let a few of the newer members give it a shot before the regulars chime in.

The cards then came as follows:

BR2: 7,7
BR3: T,T
Me: T,3
Dealer 6

BR2 split and got another 7. He then hit them out to totals of 17, 15, and 16.
BR3 considered splitting his tens, but ended up standing. Probably a wise choice, considering he had a good chance for a full swing on me and would still have to double one of his splits to take me high.

It's now my turn to act and, as it stands, it's anyone's game. What should I do to maximize my chances and why?
 
Yep, I see the obvious and much better bet.
But, as requested, I'll keep my trap shut about that & the play of the hand to give any newbies a shot at it first!
 
Feel free to comment on the play of the hand. I don't think that it's a basic decision at all.

With regard to the bet, since all I'm hearing is the crickets chirping, I think I'll be lifting that restriction very soon.

Newbies -- don't be shy! Give it a shot!
 
Ok, I will take a shot. 100 (technically 95) would be a better bet, although in the heat of the moment I am pretty sure I would have bet 500 as well. 100 is better because you still advance if you win, BR2 wins and BR3 gets a natural. You also advance if you lose and BR3 wins or if you lose and BR2 pushes.
 
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The_Professional said:
100 is better because you still advance if you win, BR2 wins and BR3 gets a natural.
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The rules say BJ pays 2:1, so a BR3 natural is not covered by a bet of 100.
But even if BJs pay 3:2, it is still more valuable to cover the high side (i.e. possible double downs from BR3 and BR2)
 
Regarding the play of the hand (having bet 500), it looks like hitting is the way to go -
  • BR2 has got 3 max bets out, so there is no point in doubling.
  • With BR2's totals of 17, 15, and 16, we have to rely on the dealer to make a hand in order to stay ahead of BR2.
  • So we have to focus on BR3's total of 20 and - working under the assumption that the dealer is not going to bust - ensure that if BR3 wins the hand we can still advance. A total of 19 or more guarantees that we stay ahead of BR3, whereas if we were to reach 18 and stand, then a dealer total of 19 would cause BR3 to overtake us, and if we were to stand on 17, then dealer totals of 18 or 19 would cause BR3 to overtake us.
So the choice seems to be between hitting to 17, 18, or 19. Without going through the arithmetic, I would guess we should stop at 17.
 
A classic free hit scenario.

I looked at Ken's dealer outcome charts for 4D, S17. It appears that standing on 17 gains 16.58% and if I hit 17, I only gain 14.16% on average so 17 seems to be the stopping point. I would have done this at the table.

However, supposed dealer had a 5 instead of a 6, thus lowering the incidence of 17. It would appear that I would gain 12.16% standing on 17, but if I hit it I would gain 14.34% on average. So I should hit to at least 18. This is all assuming that I did the calculations correctly. I would not have done this at the table.

As for the bet. I would guess that 400 would be a better bet, because it keeps BR2 from getting a push vrs my lost and advancing. But with limited time I would probably have just pushed out the 500.
 
IMHO, Colin and Larry are both correct.

The 500 bet was definitely not optimal as the 400 would yield the half-swing over BR2 with virtually no penalty when compared with 500.

Free hit, indeed! Can't touch BR2 for the high side since he's got three bets out (making DD about the worst thing you could do), so the dealer bust is out of consideration. If I stand on the 13, dealer must make 20 or 21 for me to advance. If I hit and bust, I'm still the winner with dealer 20/21. Might as well hit and hope to add a couple more dealer results to the list of positive outcomes - everything at or below my resulting hand is added to the list and if I get lucky & end up with 19/20/21 then it's only a matter of whether the dealer breaks or not.

P.S. All this assumes the 400 bet although I'd still play it the same with 500.
 
First of all, good reasoning by everyone!
The_Professional said:
Ok, I will take a shot. 100 (technically 95) would be a better bet, although in the heat of the moment I am pretty sure I would have bet 500 as well. 100 is better because you still advance if you win, BR2 wins and BR3 gets a natural. You also advance if you lose and BR3 wins or if you lose and BR2 pushes.
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This is a good start. Covering as many situation high without giving up too much is the first consideration. The bet of 100 would have accomplished these goals if BJ paid 3/2. But Colin is correct.
London Colin said:
The rules say BJ pays 2:1, so a BR3 natural is not covered by a bet of 100.
But even if BJs pay 3:2, it is still more valuable to cover the high side (i.e. possible double downs from BR3 and BR2)
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Yes, even without 2/1 BJ, it is better to cover an oponenent's double/split, even if it risks losing a 1/2 swing (us/them -- push/win, lose/push). You will find examples of this in Wong's book.
LeftNut said:
IMHO, Colin and Larry are both correct.
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And so are you!
LeftNut said:
The 500 bet was definitely not optimal as the 400 would yield the half-swing over BR2 with virtually no penalty when compared with 500.
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Even better than that. I can see absolutely no penalty to a bet between 350 and 400 over betting 500.
LeftNut said:
Free hit, indeed! Can't touch BR2 for the high side since he's got three bets out (making DD about the worst thing you could do), so the dealer bust is out of consideration. If I stand on the 13, dealer must make 20 or 21 for me to advance. If I hit and bust, I'm still the winner with dealer 20/21. Might as well hit and hope to add a couple more dealer results to the list of positive outcomes - everything at or below my resulting hand is added to the list and if I get lucky & end up with 19/20/21 then it's only a matter of whether the dealer breaks or not.
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Yes --- this is definitely a free hit situation. Although, it turns out that DD is not the worst thing you can do. Since DD does not give up the low to BR2 or BR3, it becomes equivalent to hitting once which still has value over standing. The sim results for my total of 13 are Hit: 34.18%, Double 23.21%, Stand 19.81%

LeftNut said:
P.S. All this assumes the 400 bet although I'd still play it the same with 500.
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It turns out that since BR2 cannot end up with an overall push with 17, 15 and 16 and since 500 does not give up a 1/2 swing to BR3, the bets of 500 and 400 are equivalent at this point (lucky me!)
London Colin said:
So the choice seems to be between hitting to 17, 18, or 19. Without going through the arithmetic, I would guess we should stop at 17.
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Yes! There is no value in standing on any stiff so we're hitting to at least 17. At that point, our push has value and each potentially higher total has increasing value because they reduce the risk of a swing with BR3, while the risk of hitting increases. The threshold turns out to be to stand on 17 (Stand 36.63% vs Hit 29.39%).

Everyone who commented on the play of the hand was correct about this. Nicely done!
hopinglarry said:
However, supposed dealer had a 5 instead of a 6, thus lowering the incidence of 17. It would appear that I would gain 12.16% standing on 17, but if I hit it I would gain 14.34% on average. So I should hit to at least 18. This is all assuming that I did the calculations correctly. I would not have done this at the table.
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A dealer's 5 does change the percentages for eash possible dealer total, including 17. It doesn't change the original hit-to-17 assessment, because it's still a free hit until we get to 17. The percentages at 17 are different than for a dealer 6, but not enough to change the decision: Stand 33.66%, Hit 31.13%

And now for the $12,000 - $1,000 question. What did I end up doing?

All I can say is welcome to another edition of "Learn from Gronbog's Mistakes". Not only did I miss the relatively easy optimal bet, I failed to see the free hit until thinking about it afterward. Instead, after deciding that BR2 was not a factor in my decision, I focused on BR3 and my thought was that I needed to correlate my result with his. So referencing Wong's table for win both ways in my head (20 vs 13 vs 6) I decided to stand. Of course, as we all now know, this is not the correct application of this table. I was very fortunate that the dealer drew to 21 and I advanced.
 
While not a newbee, I'm not in the league of several here when it comes to tourney play, so I'll chime in with my probable $405 bet. It covers the possible loss and push by BR2 and achieves everything else that the $500 bet does.
As for playing the hand, I double down my hard 13.

Billy C

Sorry, I had started typing my post and got interrupted without realizing gronbog posted before I got mine in.
 
Hey Billy, you're not fooling anyone here and certainly not anyone at Kewadin with respect to your tournament skills!

Ignoring my post, I'm wondering what your reasoning was for choosing to double vs to hit.
 
gronbog said:
Hey Billy, you're not fooling anyone here and certainly not anyone at Kewadin with respect to your tournament skills!

Ignoring my post, I'm wondering what your reasoning was for choosing to double vs to hit.
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Doubling instead of just hitting would be a mistake. I didn't have time to analyze properly before shooting my mouth off (not the first time I've done that!)
Again, congrats to both you and jonny21!

Billy C
 
It is interesting to note that it was BR2's hand that made this a free hit situation. If BR2 had only managed to get 1 bet down, and with 20 or less, then I would advance on a dealer 20, 21 or bust when standing and would no longer have a free hit. I'm thinking that standing might have been the right decision in that case.

With 2 bets down for BR2, I would probably have had to double for some amount to retake the high.
 
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gronbog said:
First of all, good reasoning by everyone!

A dealer's 5 does change the percentages for eash possible dealer total, including 17. It doesn't change the original hit-to-17 assessment, because it's still a free hit until we get to 17. The percentages at 17 are different than for a dealer 6, but not enough to change the decision: Stand 33.66%, Hit 31.13%
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Thanks for correcting my numbers. I was not taking into account the removal of cards from the deck to get the right numbers. Also, I checked my numbers and had made an arithmetic error.
 
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