So I was watching this video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NjEikekg7a0 and he says you should always surrender hard 16 vs a shown face card.

He says the reason is that whatever else you do, you still lose slightly more than 50% of the time. However this seems flawed to me but I think I may be looking at the math a bit too abstractly, would appreciate any responses to correct or confirm my assumption.

Let's say you play 10 hands in a row with 16 vs a face and are betting 10 units. By surrendering you're losing 5 units per hand for a total loss of 50.

Now let's say we do something else instead of surrendering. In order to lose 50 units it would require losing 75% of the time (25% winning cancel out 25% losing for remaining 50% of hands of 5 hands of 10 units to go into loss column).

Now assuming that's true and I haven't screwed up so far, is he either over simplifying with "a little worse than 50%" or this blackjack author actually doesn't fully comprehend his subject.

As a follow up, in a vacuum (ie no card counting) when is surrender the optimal play?

Here is the flaw: in general, the chance of winning with a hard 16 vs a ten is 23.4%, so surrender is the better option. Obviously this doesn't account for any count that might increase the odds of the hard 16 being a winner.

You always surrender 16 v T regardless of the count. 88 v T you will surrender in positive counts and split in negative counts for late surrender. For Early Surrender you would always surrender 88 v T.

Basic strategy for late surrender w/ H17 is

16 v T, A, 9
15 v T, A
17 v A

Surrender is a great deal for the skilled player; high EV and less variance too.

thanks guys, really appreciate the feedback

Doesn't surrendering 17vA generate heat?

It did when H17 first became popular so I have not done it for a long time.