MadHatter, if you really have that many questions about blackjack and basic strategy, you should consider checking out a web site devoted to the subject, which I’m sure you could find on most any decent search engine.
A ‘hard’ number is one in which the cards are fixed at that amount; a ‘soft’ number is made by including an Ace, which can have a value of 1 or 11.
Thus, a ‘hard 17’ would be something like King-7; a ‘soft 17’ could be Ace-6, or Ace-4-2, anything like that.
Everyone seemed to casually gloss over the point I made earlier: the object of counting cards is made largely moot when the end result as you near the end of the deck is never met. They stop and reshuffle.
Jumping in here - if counting cards gets you booted, why not play video BJ where there is no pitboss? Or are the rules of video BJ already too far in the houses’ favor?
PeeWee, there is no difference between video blackjack and a slot machine. The casino can program whatever payout it wants, and you are stuck with that percentage. True, you may buck the percentage on a short run, but not if you play on any kind of regular basis.
For example, table odds for blackjack, if you play intelligently, leave you at about a 1.5-2.5% disadvantage. A machine can be programmed to leave you at a 20% disadvantage. And machines probably shuffle up after every deal, thereby removing any card-counting strategy.
Largely moot, but not completely. With any amount of decks and with any counting system, card counting is most effective towards the end of the shoe (or deck), as you have had more information on which to base your bets. Eliminating the last cards from play certainly does serious damage to a card counter.
But it doesn’t eliminate all the benefits of counting. No counting system attempts to determine exactly what card is going to be played next - they are all about the odds of what card will come next. So, even if you can’t play the cards you “know” the most about, as the shoe progresses you information is greater and the odds of your count being an accurate predictor improves.
Most counting systems account for the “lost” cards in some way. The most basic is to start the count at a negative number, so that you only increase your bet once the shoe is “really” positive. Other, more sophisticated systems assign different values to cards based upon what point in the shoe they are played, and variations thereof.
Sua
Madhatter: Sorry about sounding so terse. It’s just that I didn’t want to see the thread devolve into a repetition of the math behind so many different plays. This stuff has really been done to death.
Both are excellent, and have good discussion boards full of professional card counters. They have good beginner’s areas where you can ask lots of questions like this and get great responses.
Video Blackjack: You can’t count at video blackjack for the simple reason that the game re-shuffles the deck after every hand.
Cards cut off the shoe: You can beat any shoe game. The question is for how much. If you play an 8-deck shoe with four decks cut off, you can still beat it by not playing at all until the count goes positive enough that you have the advantage. But that’s hard to do with the pit boss watching you, and it’s hard to make any real money that way unless you can bet very big, which attracts even more attention from the pit.
You should always hit a soft 17. You should hit a soft 18 against a dealer’s 8,9,T, or Ace, and double against a 5 or a 6, if memory serves. I actually haven’t played for quite a while, so I might be slighly off.