I'm not sure I follow.

Neb,
Maybe 1oh1 does not play where you can double after splitting.

Also which departures do you stay away from? Buying insurance and the hard 16 departures have the most ev...do you at least use those?

-pd

I split the difference: will hit hard 16s, but (almost) never take insurance.

dont split 4s facing a 6. (we determined it was 44 not 77 right). obv hit it or do what all degens do and double 44 vs 6 with TC+++

In a DAS game it is correct to split 4s against a 6 for reasonable counts.

If you're suggesting not to split for purposes of cover, I hear you. I engage in other cover plays instead of that one, because my table image lets me get away with this one.

Shocking!

exactly. most casual players will double or hit vs the 6. and in a ++++ count im happy to 2 units vs 4 units and avoid all questions.

almost every move in the book is super standard except 44 DAS/ HL single deck etc. its not the spot i would pick in a ++++ count that im probably gonna hit/double to 18 anyway.

jmho as a long time member of the proletariat hl room

Gotcha. In my case, I exercise a potent cover strategy of splitting MUCH MORE than is correct "because I like the excitement of playing two hands whenever I can." So the dealers quickly learn to pause on any pair and ask if I want to split. It only makes sense, then, that I would split 4s along with my other nonsense.

Hey Neb. I play semi-high stakes blackjack as well(around 700 a hand average bet). One thing I was wondering was:

How do you play 3 card soft-18s, especially against a dealer bust card?

The basic strategy charts don't really cover this... they only cover what to do on 2 card soft 18s.

Like... starting with 25(7 total) against a dealer 6, then you get an A.(Soft 18)

So, 25A against a dealer 6, do you hit or stand? I usually hit.

Neb and 1oh1,

So if you guys are playing slightly "less correctly" are you spreading wider? I pretty much just use the top 5 departures. But I feel I only catch heat because of my spreading. The last night I was at TI and didn't care, I spread 1-20 on double deck in their high limit room, this caused me to be watch by two pit bosses, the shift manager and her boss :-P

So I believe you guys are implying that because of the additional cover plays, you can spread wider with less heat. The additional ev picked up from the spread to make up for slight loss in ev due to cover plays. What would your spread be on regular 6 deck shoe?

POOTERS,
You should just stand on 25A vs 6.

-pd

ps Sorry for the slight tr derail :-P Always fascinated by your TR's Neb, but can never get myself to take a shot

stand is approx 33% better than hit...you can find expected win tables online..its the same as a 2 card but you cant double of course.

double 2 card soft 18 obv

expected win value is ALWAYS positive for any 1 action you take on s18 v 6 btw so this is another good COVER strat

1-20 is asking to be looked at. if you are a regular there just get known as a 100 or 200/hand player, or even at a new place

if it ends up being a "good night" you can maintain and have credibility as a 100/200 player (or whatever you want 1u to be). and you can take some "swings" with big unit bets.

you will have to put some big unit bets out in negative counts to cover properly, dont sweat it....if its 1 percent of your hands, and you still apply proper strat you will be fine.

for most of us no one cares tbh. if i walk in im gonna be up or down 3-5k everytime...at that level you just dont want to slap them in the face ( like 1-20 swings followin the TC, lol!)

Neb has bigger issues, lol

Yeah 2 card soft 18 is a double. Thus, shouldn't a 3 card soft 18 be a hit?

The average hand that a dealer makes is 18.5, shouldn't one be trying to get higher than 18?

Like.... you start with 34, and then you get an A, so 34A(soft 18) vs dealer 6.

Pooters,

Expected return of standing on 18 vs 6: 0.283444

Expected return of hitting a soft 18 vs 6: 0.190753

Expected return of doubling a soft 18 vs 6: 0.381506

The reason doubling is better is because you take your expected return from hitting 0.190753 and you multiply that by two units now.
But if you cannot double, standing is the better option.


Wizard of odds has all the expected returns for various plays:
http://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/appendix/1/

-pd

Yes, but you sometimes you wonder if anyone is actually watching. Are some casinos financially strapped enough that they really don't have enough people watching? Case in point may be Cosmo, Revel, Trump, etc. At some of those, do the employees even care any more and are they just biding there time till the casino finally shuts down.

I was amazed that TI tracked your play on paper...that doesn't sound like a casino flush with cash.

ok thanks!

As discussed in a previous one of my threads, I believe EITS will be involved by default for any large player that shows any sign of winning. It would be quite irrational for the casino not to engage someone to punch the play into some software and get an analysis of AP likelihood.

Given enough shoes, the software will definitely be able to determine that the spread is correlated enough with the deck composition to uniquely identify an AP. (In practice this should be expressed as a probability and perhaps a margin of error.)

So I believe it is just a matter of time before I get backed off.

That said, I think cover is quite valuable. It certainly confuses any human observers, and it reduces the mathematical confidence that any software may be able to calculate. I think this is even more valuable at lower betting levels, where the economics of having humans entering hours of replay into an analysis engine are impractical.

Finally, as I have said before, I think cover plays are fun, and I don't really care too much one way or the other.

Yes.

I spread as much as 16:1, but I move my bet size "slowly" and mostly in coordination with wins or losses, so it doesn't always correlate well. I suspect the effective spread is probably closer to 10 or 12:1.