I’ve been playing blackjack at the casino recently, and I hear this all of the time. An inexperienced player hits on a hand that he/she should not have hit on and busts, taking a high card (a 10,J,Q,K,A) and then the dealer does not bust on his/her low hand.
Then a player complains that the inexperienced player “took” the dealer’s bust card.
My thoughts: First, blackjack is not a game against other players, but against the dealer/house.
Second, any card has an equal chance of coming out of the deck. So, the inexperienced player could just as easily have taken a lower card and then left the dealer’s bust card to come up next.
My question: Is there any validity at all to the suggestion that an inexperienced player can hurt another player by making a foolish hit/stand choice at a casino blackjack table? I say no, none, not at all.
No validity at all. It’s been proven over and over again. Those complaining are dumb players thinking they are smart players, or simply miserable losers. Truly smart players know better.
I have had sort of the opposite happen to me - I hit a hard 16 with the dealer showing a 10 (which, in a game with 3 or more decks, is the correct move), got a 2, and the dealer turned over a 5 and drew a 3, which pushed not only my 18 but the 18 of the person next to me, who then commented to the woman he was with that my “mistake” had just cost him.
Along the same lines are poker players who want to hold the dealer responsible for the cards that appear. Phil Hellmuth (among the most experienced and successful players ever) is notable for this.
Think of it this way: Casino gambling is an activity where considerable to tremendous sums of money are continually at sake, the players don’t know each other personally, there’s a big luck element, and every move has the potential to alter the course of the game. OF COURSE people are going to get irrational. It happened with Island flippin’ Fruit, for crying out loud. (I’ll remember that epic “Last call for drinking beer, last call for Follow Me!” rant for the rest of my days.) Heck, why do you think baseball has so many superstitions?
I’ve never personally witnessed anyone gripe about “taking the dealer’s bust card”, but it’s completely plausible. I imagine any experienced dealer could tell you more than a few stories.
Add another huge factor: You’re playing a game where the odds are against you.
The normal outcome of any casino game is that you lose. Obviously, the people who are playing in casinos don’t accept this; they imagine they’re going to win. So when they lose they don’t want to accept the reality that the reason they lost at Blackjack was because they chose to play Blackjack. They want something or someone they can blame besides themselves.
After the fact it is certain that a players actions can have an impact on other players. Over a great many trials, no. But for a specific given hand, yes. To a casual gambler the odds over time are less important than the hand they just won or lost.
That is also incorrect. A truly smart player can play perfect strategy an lose only a little bit, while taking advantage of the casino bonuses and freebies, and thus come out ahead of the game.
Wouldn’t one person’s choice (I’m feelin’ lucky so I hit on 19) effect the other ‘downstream players’, but whether positively or negatively is not forseeable unless you are the best ever card counter?
yes I heard whining and bitching when I was in Laughlin a couple of years ago …… I told the dealer I played for me and screw anyone else who didn’t like it because I was 500 a ahead before the other asses showed up
I didn’t stay that was cause I didn’t quit when I knew the cards were going to go the other way …….but I was smashed and it was fun ……
In the long run 3rd baseman’s play will normally[sup]*[/sup] help as often it hurts, but it may be human nature to look at actual results. Even I, playing backgammon may see the opponent roll 6-6 and think “Drat! If I’d hit him he’d have fanned!” Since it can be annoying to be criticized by the other players, I recommend not sitting at 3rd base at a Twenty-One table.
I write “normally” because, believe it or don’t, many Vegas dealers know whether or not the top card is a ten, and are quite capable of dealing the second card instead of the top card. If 3rd baseman takes a hit, the dealer gets his choice of three cards instead of two. (IIRC some cheating dealers will have a confederate at 3rd base just for this reason.) Obviously you should avoid tables where the dealer appears to be “expert.”
It’s flatly stupid is what it is. Of course it’s all random. A weird play is as likely to hurt the house as help it.
I find this behaviour immensely irritating; I play perfect strategy but even then I get shit for some things (e.g. hitting a 12 against a 2, which is correct in most games) and hate it when other players are given flak no matter how they play. My standard reply is “My cards, my chips.”
It is NOT incorrect, and can be demonstrated by the simple fact that there are times when the decisions of the downstream players results in a loss for upstream players.
What would be incorrect is an assertion that, before a downstream player acts, his choice of actions will be guaranteed to have a negative impact on the upstream players if he/she doesn’t play “perfectly”. After all, you rarely hear the upstream players congratulate the downstream player for hitting when he shouldn’t have, taking a small card, and then the dealer busts, when the dealer would have won with the small card taken by the “bad” play. Yet that happens at least as often in the case of downstream players utilizing less-than-optimal strategy, as noted upthread.
If you really want to annoy other players at a blackjack table, find one that has the “push” side bet (where a push pays 10:1) and play with the proper strategy for it, which works to maximize your chance of pushing. Be prepared for a torrent of abuse the first time you hit a 16 against a 4, or any other “wrong” play. The house edge is actually decent for a side bet (something like 0.24%) if you play it correctly, but boy does it anger other players.
Exactly as many times as someone “takes the dealer’s bust card”, they would also take a card that ultimately hurts the dealer and benefits the players. But no one notices when that happens, but they always notice when the opposite happens.
Additionally, no one gets angry at a player for hitting on 9, getting 19, and “taking the dealer’s bust card” - they only get angry when a player makes a borderline or incorrect decision, which doesn’t make any sense itself. How does the player playing well or badly affect whether you can blame them for taking the dealer’s bust card? It makes just as much sense to blame the player for taking a bust card when he hits on a 9.
It’s purely superstitious and unfounded.
One time I was on a long waiting list for a poker game and decided to sit down at a $5-500 blackjack table to kill time. I just bet $5 each hand, but I was playing in the last seat. The guy next to me was betting $200-500 a hand, and was being an asshole. I noticed once that I made a marginal decision (maybe hitting a 16 against a 7 or something), then I “took the dealer’s bust card” and the guy went nuts about it. I then proceeded to make moderately wrong plays on purpose - and every time the guy ranted to the rest of the table about how I lost him $300 over my $5 bet.
I wasn’t actually harming him, so the only harm he was going through was self-inflicted based on his irrational view of the situation, which amused me. He was basically beating himself up. And since he was an asshole, it was worth the $30 or 40 I lost making him go nuts.
