I have a question that has bugged me for years from time to time and no one has ever given me a satisfactory answer/explanation. I know you’re my man, so here goes:
Whenever I'm sitting at a blackjack table at a casino in nearby Atlantic City, there is inevitably one gambler who fails to follow the conventional rules regarding hitting and sticking (i.e., takes a card with 14 when dealer shows 6, etc.) This always infuriates other players at the table who claim their bets are adversely affected by such arbitrary play. Of course, the cards selected by each player, and therefore the outcomes of the bets of the other gamblers bets are affected by the number of cards chosen by the other players, but wouldn't there be an equal chance of a misplay benefitting the other players? Do these complainers have a gripe?? Please explain!!!!! Thank you!!!!
For Basic Blackjack, the answer is “NO”. So, a table full of chumps shouldn’t care who has a clue…more or less.
However, BJ wherein you are counting cards and hedging/boosting bets accordingly - YES - it matters!!!
WHY??? Because counting cards is about betting heavier when there are more “bust” or bad (10+ e.g.) cards for the dealer. A card counter doesn’t need a table full of dopes who are hitting when they don’t need to. If so, then the dumb hitters are taking some bust cards that are in the decks. Those bust cards that are sitting in the deck are the reason said counter is increasing his bet.
A card counter wants everyone playing basic strategy blackjack around him (or he wants no one around really). That is a good table - if people have to be there, as a counter, you want them all playing like robots according to basic strategy guidelines.
The notion that the poor player “f***s the deck” (gamblers have such lovely slang, don’t they?) comes from superstition and from selective memory. If a poor play causes another player to receive a losing card that he wouldn’t have otherwise received, the loser blames the other guy’s bad strategy. The loser’s belief that other people’s bad strategies hurt him is thus reinforced.
On the other hand, if the poor play winds up helping the other player, the bad player won’t be thanked fot it; the winning player will generally attribute it to good luck. The notion that bad play hurts everyone at the table is so ingrained that someone who benefits from it won’t even notice. The counterexample to the superstition goes unnoticed, and the idea of “f***ing the deck” remains in the gamblers’ minds.
Heh, I was thoroughly yelled at by two people at a blackjack table once. I was “playing wrong” (not bad, just wrong) and ruining their game. Funny, but I went from $40 in chips to over 500. If that’s playing wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
the whole thing is bunk no matter how you look at it. A good better who can play the odds can compensate for a bad player if he can compensate for any player at all. Anyone who can’t is lying through their teeth, spending too much money on gambling, and needs to reassess their counting methods.
Sorry, Philster, gotta side with the Dog! I taught myself to count when I was dealing about 4 years ago. While it is possible for a “bad” player to harm the outcome of a single hand with bad play (listen carefully to this next part), it is JUST AS LIKELY that “bad” play will benefit the table. What’s more, good play sometimes harms the outcome of a SINGLE HAND. Professionals aren’t concerned with single hands, however. The litmus test for success in gambling is “Hourly Expectation”. This is the average profit (or loss:( ) for an hour’s play computed over the course of hundreds of hours. No other players at the table, no matter how “good” or “bad” can influence this.
BTW, if anyone lives near Lake Charles, LA, I teach card-counting and poker.
I just re-read Philster’s post. From a PURELY MATHMATIC standpoint he is correct. I the count is high, the maniac who hits until he busts is slightly more likely to reduce the count before the dealer draws. However, I stand my my original answer for the following reasons.
With a stiff hand (12-16) the fish cannot draw more than one T b/c only one is neccessary to bust him. This only reduces the count by one (with one deck) and only reduces the true-count in a multiple deck shoe by a fraction of one. This would only become relevant in a statistical sense if there were 2 or 3 maniacs at the table and they played like this consistantly.
Counting is grounds for being barred from the casino and if there were “bad” players causing arguments at the table, that will only draw casino heat away from me. The negligible impact of the above is well worth the security of having the pit boss distracted and thus not looking for counters.
Yes, Opal, you can split 10’s against a six if the true count is above +4. It is profitable in the long run and is such a “stupid move” that it will deflect heat from the floor.
Tr8rjake - a card counter would absolutley have to concede my point: If you have people at a table who take hits when basic strategy says not to take a hit, then the meat of the counters philosophy is being eaten away.
A card counter wants the decks loaded with cards that will bust a dealer as he hits up to 17. When his +/- count says the decks are “heavy” with these cards, the counter increases his bet am’ts. That is a fact. And, if the table has a few hacks who hit when they don’t need it, they are taking away cards that could harm the dealer and the very delicate betting strategy the counter is using is getting skewed.
Now, for a bunch of shmoes sitting around a table, none of it matters, but for the guy who has a count running +/- for bust cards, players taking those bust cards unnecessarily take away the tiny advantage the counter has.
I place my higher bet because the +/- count says the bust cards are on the ‘up’ count in the deck. Then three bozos take hits (on counts in the teens!! Ah!) when the dealer has a four showing! Two of them get face cards. The “plus” count is not as specatacular as it should be now. My card counting strategy is affected…the power of my bet has dwindled. Card counters want as few cards taken as the strategy allows, especially when the count is in his favor and HE ALREADY PLACED HIS BEt accordingly.
What are you talking about, Tr8rJake? If the deck is favorable to a counter, the bad player is more likely to draw a favorable card, thus reducing the number of favorable cards in the deck and lowering your odds.
Yes, this may balance out when the deck is unfavorable, and the bad player is likely to draw an unfavorable card. But it certainly harms you towards the end of a deck or a shoe.
Sorry, can’t waffle on this. The maniac isn’t going to know the count, so he is going to draw extra cards when the count is negative as well. That will cause the deck to have downswings that are artificially shortened. Also, his actions in doing so may cause the count to increase thus turning a situation in which you had the worst of it going in to one in which the house is a dog (though very slightly). In any case, like I said before, this person is only capable of making a VERY SLIGHT impact. There is also the matter of drawing away heat from the floor. Given a choice, I would prefer to play with “Hitting Harry” than have to leave or make a “sucker play” if front of the PB to keep the heat off.
One of my favorite things to do is sit at third base and be a “stupid” player. I don’t do this at high-stakes table, can’t afford those. But if I’m at a two or five dollar table, I split tens, I’ll take stupid hits if I’m feeling lucky. Then I get to watch the other players throw their cards down in disgust. Hey, it’s my money, I’ll play like I want.
Given:
*Deck contains 25 cards, ergo deck depletion is just over 50%
*True count is +5 (a monster, I know but, bear with me)
*Deck consists of 6 neutrals, 7 lows and 12 high cards.
Now, if Harry draws a card there is a 48% chance he will draw a T or A, a 24% chance of a neutral and a 28% chance of a low.
So, in this extreme example (and a true count of +10 IS extreme) the “bad” player has less than a 50-50 chance of “harming” you. Of course, its not really harming you because you were such a big favorite in the first place. You simply run a 48% chance of being downgraded from a HUGE favorite to a simply, very big favorite.
Basically, in situations in which you are such a big favorite to begin with, there’s no point in worrying about such an infinitisimal erosion of your edge.
In situations where the count is lower, the compulsive drawer is less of a threat because with the lower count there are fewer T’s for him to draw. Even with the true count of +10, there was less than a 50-50 chance of him drawing a high card.
So, I can’t budge unless someone has a more compelling analysis.
BTW, this is great, I don’t have anyone around here to discuss game theory (or practice) with. Thanks for posting guys!
Oops! the given above should have said running count of +5. That would yeild a true-count of +10 factoring in deck depletion.
If the “bad” players are not taking extra cards, it has the same potential to “mess up the table” when small cards like 3 or 4 are next up and the dealer turns 16 into 19-20.
Fellow players have not appreciable impact on expectation even IF they do have a theoretical impact which if extant is all but imperceptable.
It can hurt if the players at the table are taking hits when they are not “supposed” to. If they are avoiding hits, that’s different…but most players who aren’t knowledgable take hits trying to get close to 21 (or just 17)…not realizing that when the dealer has a bad (for him) card showing, you DON"T hit. Most players hit too much. Now, a car counter would bail on a table like that - of course…or might try to battle the house mano a mano.
But, it is possible to sit at a table, count cards in the +/- routine…increase your bets according to the shoe having lots of bad (high) cards waiting to bust the dealer (who has to hit up to 17 ) and find that some novices or others have taken to hitting too often. In such a scenario, they are stealing some amount of high cards from the shoe.
This hurts the counter. It can happen.
Now, realistically, it’s a group of schmoes and then it doesn’t matter. But anyone making an attempt to count (even casually) can be hurt by the folks who hit unecessarily.
In the most extreme examples (true count of +10) the impact of the compulsive hitters is still not going to put the counters expectation into the negative and ,as demonstrated by the above example, in less extreme cases, the hitters have thier teeth pulled by the fact that they are more likely to improve a ten-poor deck than make it worse.
Also, someone pulling a neutral card has a slightly beneficial impact on the counter b/c the running count remains the same while the deck depletion increases thus driving up the true or adjusted count. Therfore, in the above example Harry has a 48% chance of hurting the counter (slightly), 28% chance of helping him and a 24% chance of (very slightly) drawing neutral.
Also, let me reiterate that the impact in any of these cases is on a scale so small that it doesn’t even register one increment on the true-count.
I’m not much of a card player here, so bear with me.
Tell me if I’m right summing up what’s been said before:
In blackjack, counting cards allows you to note if there is a higher (than random) percent of 10’s and 10-point cards yet to flip.
Knowing when this is true gives more confidence that when a dealer is showing, say, a 3, that the dealer will then flip two tens, allowing players to win without themselves engaging in dangerous hits.
But if so, why do people flip when you take extra cards? Won’t the extra cards, statistically (and over time and many decks) not change the ratio of 10’s to others? Example, if there are 50/50 10’s and non-10’s, and unskilled player hihts twice and gets a 10 and a non-10, the chances for the next player really haven’t changed. Or am I missing something?
I could see how if you did see this card advantage, you’d want it to last, and the more extra cards being used, the shorter it will.
However, I think most casino bozos haven’t put this much thought into it. Their rationale is more on the lines of, “Yew fuken retard. I woulda had that card if’n you wuz as smart at kards as me,” from the arguments I’ve heard.
Gilly, your last sentence sums it up. However, there are times when a card counter would be aggravated by others taking hits that aren’t needed.
Counting cards: counting up and down a counting line as cards come out…when cards of ( I’m recalling) 7-face come out, the +/- count goes down. When in the + count (many cards in shoe to bust the dealer) you bet more money.
Taking a hit plays a small role in counting cards (hit or not?)…but counting cards is all about knowing that you should jack up your bets because the shoe is “loaded” (loaded being soooo relative)with cards that will bust the dealer. You still play basic strategy (give or take a trick or two)…but the card counters get a slight edge because if the dealer shows five and you have 15…you don’t hit…but he has to…so you want the cards to come out of the shoe that will bust him more often than not and more often than not you will have your bet jacked up when the dealers odds are terrible…and it’d be nice if when you are up to a plus 5 or 6 in the shoe that three or four other dopes don’t hit when the dealer is sitting like a dead duck (assumed) with a five showing.
The overall effect of these guys hitting is absolutely zero. Let do the math.
Random deck of cards with a irrelavent distribution of cards that will bust the dealer and not bust the dealer.
X bust cards for dealer
Y good cards for dealer
Total X+Y cards left in the deck.
I’m at the end of the table and want to know if hitting or not will change the odds in the dealer busting.
If I hit:
I take a card first and one of two things happens:
X/X+Y% chance I get an X leaving dealer with X-1/X+Y-1% chance of getting an X
Y/X+Y% chance I get a Y leaving dealer with X/X+Y-1% chance of getting an X
Multiply the chance of me getting each type of card with the resulting chance the dealer gets an X and add. This accounts for all possible plays.
(X (X-1) + XY) / (X+Y) (X+Y-1) = X (X-1+Y) / X+Y (X+Y-1) = X / (X+Y)% chance getting an X for the dealer if I hit.
If I stay:
Dealer takes a card with X / X+Y% chance getting an X for the dealer if I stay.
Short example:
Dealer is showing 16, only three cards left in the deck:
2 bust cards for the dealer
1 Five card
I’m the guy at the end of the table, and one of the following happens:
I hit,
33% chance I get the Five card and dealer gets 0% chance at it.
66% chance I get a bust card, and dealer gets 50% chance at Five card
Multiply and add
0.330.0 + 0.660.5 = 0.33 = 33% chance at the Five for the dealer.
I stay.
66% chance dealer takes a bust card, or 33% chance at the Five card for the dealer.
Whether I hit or not will have an affect on what the dealer gets but it will not change the odds of him busting. Me hitting will either help or hurt him, but to exactly the same degree so has no real effect.
What you are seeing as the counter, as the hands are played out, is that this time, it ain’t working. You don’t pay attention when it does.
All these theories are meaningless if you can’t back them up with the math. If someone can prove this math inaccuract, please do, I’m having the same arguement with someone at work and more important than winning, is being correct.
