new brainteaser: blackjack deal bet.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Okay, this is one that occured to me over lunch today.

Start with a standard deck of 52 cards. You can arrange them any way you like and hand the deck to a dealer, who doesn’t shuffle or cut them, just starts dealing them from the top down, according to standard blackjack dealer rules: Hit on a soft 17 or anything lower, stand on a hard 17 or anything higher than 17.

The bet is whether or not you can arrange the deck into a pattern so that the dealer will bust every single time, and especially, that he will bust out on the 52nd card at the very bottom of the deck – ie no leftover cards, no running out with a count of 11 or whatever that, according to the usual rules, would require shuffling the deck or dealing from a fresh deck.

I’ve played around with it a bit but haven’t been able to quite work it yet. Surely you smart dopers can figure this out - I’m convinced there has to be a way. :smiley:

2

Okay, I’ve got a solution!

Ace, two (soft thirteen), three (soft sixteen), eight (hard fourteen), nine to bust
five, jack for fifteen, queen to bust.

Repeat each of the above four times.

Cards remaining at this point: all of four, six, seven, ten, king

six, king for sixteen, ten to bust

six, seven for thirteen, ten to bust

Repeat each of the above twice.

Cards remaining at this point, all fours, two kings, two sevens.

four, four for eight, seven for fifteen, king to bust.

Repeat that again.

All cards have now been used. Fourteen busts.

3

If I’d reading your solution correctly, you’re not dealing the player any cards.

4

I am a bit bored so figured that I would give this a shot not really thinking that I would get a solution before I got tired of trying, but I managed on my first try with actually just using a deck of cards and dealing. Here is my order of cards:

(I assume that the dealer deals to the player first, then that the player plays his hand, and the dealer then plays according to his rules.)

P stands for Player card and D stands for Dealer card.

A§, K(D), 2§, 5(D), 7(D) ; A§, K(D), 2§, 5(D), 7(D) ; A§, K(D), 2§, 5(D), 7(D) ; A§, K(D), 2§, 5(D), 7(D) ; Q§, Q(D), Q§, 6(D), 8(D) ; Q§, J(D), 8§, 6(D), 8(D) ; J§, J(D), 8§, 6(D), 9(D) ; J§, T(D), 6§, 3(D), T(D) ; T§, T(D), 3§, 3(D), 9(D) ; 9§, 4(D), 3§, 4(D), 4(D), 4(D), 9(D).

Certainly some strange play from the Player, but I think it works. There are any number of solutions to this problem. It would obviously be much more difficult if we add the limitation that the player must play proper blackjack based on a typical blackjack odds table.

5

Whoops - I guess I wasn’t clear on the rules.

The dealer does not deal out any cards to any other player. He deals out the entire deck to himself, over and over again. That’s the terms of the bet.

6

Sorry, my misunderstanding. Seeing as you’ve already solved it I’ll just let it go at that and go to sleep instead…