Here's a new game that I recently played in AC. I liked it very much, mainly because I did well. I was wondering from the "numbers" guys (and ladies) what they would compute the house edge to be Minimum Bet 15 Maximum Bet 500 6 deck shoe with 70% (estimated) penetration Players place their bet as normal. The first card is to the dealer face up. At this point players are given the option to "Attack". This is a box directly under the initial bet box. You can "Attack" for any dollar amount up to the initial bet. All cards are dealt to the players face up. You may double down at any time. You may surrender at any time, including after a double down or after hitting (assuming you don't bust). You can split up to 4 times, however, if you have an attack bet it must be split also. Finally there is a side (sucker) bet. You place anywhere from 1 to 100 in a circle betting that the dealer will bust in 3 cards ONLY. If the dealer busts on the 3rd card the side bet is paid as following: face card 3:1 4 4:1 5 5:1 6 6:1 7 8:1 8 10:1 9 15:1 If the dealer busts with 8,8,8 it pays 250 to 1! I played and watched as a 25 side bet was paid off at 15:1! I didn't contribute to the side bets and only played the attack portion. It is amazing how quickly the size of the bets grow. For example betting 50 and dealer shows a 6. Attack bet 50 (now 100 bet). Get dealt an 8, 9, 10 or 11 - double down so now have 200 bet. What really adds up was the split and DD hands! The 500 max was hit a few times when the numbers added up. Has anyone else played this or heard of this game?
Other Rules? What does a player BJ get paid? 3:2? 6:5? 1:1? You say that you may surrender at any time, how about against a dealer's Ace? Or only after dealer checks for BJ? Any other rule changes? Dan
Thanks for pointing out some of my oversights Dan. 1. BJ pays 1:1 - even money. I balked at this one at first until the time the dealer turned a 6 and I was able to double my initial 50 bet. Then I got BJ with 100 instead of the 50. 2. Surrender. Yes they have early surrender. You can do it before the dealer checks for BJ. You can do it after your first hit. You can do it after a double down. etc. I can calculate the percentages that you give up and gain for the 6-deck and what you gain from being able to dd after a split. Howevere, nowhere did I see a percentage "gain" from being able to double your bet once you've seen the dealers up card.
You Won't Find Me At This Table. FGK42, I think you would be hard pressed to gain what you lose for that BJ payout. In a 6 deck shoe game, if BJ only pays 1:1 the house gains about 2.3% against you. Even with Early Surrender Against Dealer Ace (ESA) you only gain 0.386% to 0.472% depending on S17 or H17. Although I have never seen a number for being able to double down and still take additional cards, which is what you have, I cannot imagine that you would be making up anything close to what you loose from BJ paying only 1:1. This must be why so many people play the terrible 6:5 games. Most people don't realize just how much that one rule change hurts you. House gains almost 1.4% with that one change. Dan :gun: 6:5 BJ
Fgk, how can a dealer bust on a 4 or 5? The 4:1 and 5:1 payouts you have posted. The game sounds a lot like Super-Fun 21, but with additional betting options. I have had very good success playing Super-Fun 21 so if I came across Blackjack Attack I would probally try it. About the dealer busting side bet, but I see how you could beat it.
I apologize for my confusing post. In order for the side bet to pay the dealer has to bust in 3 cards and 3 cards only. Dealer busts with 4 or more tough luck. The payout is based on the value of the 3rd card that the dealer busts on. So if the dealer has a 10 up, turns a 6 then another 6 you get paid on the last 6 at that rate. I went back and looked at my post there is not payout for 4 or 5 as the dealer can't bust in 3 cards with a 4 or 5! I know that you give up a lot with the BJ paying 1:1 vs the normal 3:2 in a 6-deck shoe. I know that you get back from the anytime surrender a percentage. The only thing I wasn't sure about was the ability to double you bet after seeing the dealers up card. My natural instinct is that you gain some percentage from that - but then again my instinct vs. the numbers have been wrong in the past. TX what is SuperFun and where is it played?
Blackjack Variations I have had moderate sucess playing blackjack switch, which is available at the Casino Royal, in Vegas. Actually, I have never lost a playing session, although the rate of return has never been that great. In this game, you are allowed to switch the second card dealt to you on two hands. Two caveats are 1- blackjack pays 1to 1 2- everything pushes if the dealer gets 22 except you win your blackjack. Imperically, I believe you get more than 50% more blackacks, because if either hand has an ace, and the other hand has a 10, you can create a blackjack Consequently, the player comes out ahead. One assumes that the inventor of these variations have simulated the games before releasing them to the casinos, so that the casino edge is maintianed. However, that does not mean the simulations were mathimatically valid, or some very important points were overlooked.
Most Las Vegas casino offer Super-Fun 21. Very simular rules as BJ attack. BJ pay 1-1 except suit diamond BJ which pays 2 - 1. DD anytime after 2nd, 3rd, 4th, even 5th card and you have surrebder option after DD. All 5 card 21;s are auto win, also all BJ's. No extra side bets, your bet can only be increased by a split or DD.
The casino I play at(Diamond Jo, Worth County IA) also includes 6 cards less than 21 pays automatically plus 5 Card 21's pay double. Everytime I've played there I've gotten at least 1 5 card 21 and 2 6 cards less than 21. The best was 6 2's. Pretty long odds of that on a 2 deck shoe. I've also had a guy jump up out of his chair yelling "What the f*** are you doing, hitting a 20". Dealer also asked if I was sure. My response was I can lose with 20(It was soft), but if I take a hit I can't lose. They missed the fact that I had 5 cards. So, I signaled again to take a hit. Dealer still asked one more time, I said yes and she slapped an A down on my 20 for 21. Got paid double. That was pretty good.
Can this be right? I'm not much of a mathematician, but I make the gain nearly 8%. That seems unbelievable, yet I can't see the flaw in my logic. I'm just taking the player expectations against each possible dealer card, which average out to the normal house edge, and doubling the positive expectations (since these are the ones where you should double your bet) and re-computing the average with these doubled values. So, for 6-deck DAS, I get - Any hand v A E(X) = -34.102004587% Any hand v 2 E(X) = 9.267835003% Any hand v 3 E(X) = 12.631693844% Any hand v 4 E(X) = 16.279847119% Any hand v 5 E(X) = 20.326370878% Any hand v 6 E(X) = 23.575459625% Any hand v 7 E(X) = 14.459219722% Any hand v 8 E(X) = 5.756687461% Any hand v 9 E(X) = -4.087414307% Any hand v T E(X) = -17.101044658% Ave. of hand expectations = -0.330498760% (i.e. the normal house edge) Ave. of hand expectations with doubled positives = +7.538509983% (i.e. the player now has a huge edge) The 1:1 BJ would take some of that back, but surely something must be wrong here?
If it seems too good to be true ... It seems there's an important element to the game which you missed - It's dealt from a 'Spanish' shoe (with the 10 of each suit removed, like in the game 'Spanish 21'). http://www.trumptaj.com/index.cfm/n...3f3-a40e-67525e3c23cb/fuseaction/content.page I haven't re-done the calculations, but I've no doubt that will re-establish the natural order of things; i.e. a healthy edge for the house.
My revised figures for the Spanish shoe are ... Any hand v A E(X) = -30.869635240% Any hand v 2 E(X) = 2.200422098% Any hand v 3 E(X) = 4.750290974% Any hand v 4 E(X) = 7.781203477% Any hand v 5 E(X) = 11.199698910% Any hand v 6 E(X) = 15.150084944% Any hand v 7 E(X) = 11.556379500% Any hand v 8 E(X) = 3.891670997% Any hand v 9 E(X) = -4.628347229% Any hand v T E(X) = -16.168166852% Ave. of hand expectations = -2.289394344% Ave. of hand expectations with doubled positives = 2.421418231% So that's a gain of about 4.7% on the hefty house edge that a Spanish deck would provide under normal rules. (Bear in mind also, that these figures don't relate to normal basic strategy, but are roughly equivalent to a card-counter making all the strategy variations appropriate to a true count of -4) I can't use my program to do an exact analysis of the game without a lot of work, and it may be quite inaccurate to simply add up the various +/- factors, but roughly speaking it would seem like it might be close to a break-even game, with maybe a small edge for a player who is able to make all the right strategy decisions - double attack starting point: + 2.42 1:1 BJ: -2.26 Favourable DD and Surr rules: +?.?? Also, are you sure it was six and not eight decks (as advertised on the link I posted)? I'm not sure how much difference that would make, but it could be the difference between a tiny house edge and a tiny player edge.
London, Thanks for the links to the TAJ - I play there too and didn't know that they had the game. When playing at Caesars I distinctly remember there being 10's in the deck - they didn't remove them like in Spanish 21. Reading the fine print on the TAJ site it say a 10 in a suit. Hmmmmmm...... Very interesting I will definately check it out the next time I'm in town there. Thanks for calculating the percentages and house edge portion. Good work
If it's a new game, maybe someone made a mistake. Could be an expensive one if they don't fix it soon! It says a ten of each suit, so that would be all of them! Just the J,Q,K left; 12 ten-valued cards per deck instead of 16. Well the computer did most of the work. And, thanks to the maxim "garbage in, garbage out", I can't guarantee it's error-free; the figures seem fairly plausible though.
As an example of this, it occurs to me that with 3/4 the usual number of tens, there will be 3/4 the usual number of BJs. The penalty due to the 1:1 BJ payoff presumably ought therefore to be 1.70 instead of 2.26. So that would imply an overall player edge of 2.42 - 1.70 + ?.?? = 0.72 + ?.?? That's starting to sound unlikely again, although the casinos could be relying on the complications involved in following an unusual strategy to induce enough errors (not to mention the majority of players following the wrong strategy entirely) in order to make the game profitable.
