Black Jack question.. And typing from handheld so I may sound short/curt

I read that house BJack advantage is bigger with 6 deck shoe vs. Single deck

I understand card counting and how it can make you a very small winner (with tons of caveats)

But this article didn't mention card counting

My question is: ex-card counting, do more extreme card distributions favour the player? I.e. Lots of 10's or lot's of small cards (note that there are far more large cards than small)

Follow-up question: pretty similar Q but ex-card count should you adjust BJ strategy slightly for single deck?

Thanks in advance

i should elaborate.

i think that one of the two extreme card distributions benefits the player, and one benefits the dealer........ not sure that's correct and if it is, not sure which is which.

and maybe one of the extreme card distributions is more common.................. so many more high cards than low cards. but i'm thinking that wouldn't affect which is more prevalant, but i'm not sure.

but my original question is simply this: one deck games are going to have far far more extreme card distributions occur. and assuming you know there is a extreme event (but you don't know which), should you change your play.

obviously if you count cards or shuffle track effectively, then my questions/observations are moot...... just take advantage of situation

and MODERATOR, thank you so much for moving this for me

ok, i eventually just googled the answer.

it looks like single deck is better for player (vs. casino) than multi-deck, independent of card counting..... seems like single deck vs. 6 deck changes the EV% by .35% or so. house advantage generally i think is 0.5% or something like that.

BUT... if you get a single deck black jack table, they almost always pay a "black jack" hand at 6 to 5 instead of 2 to 1.. and that is much bigger differnce in EV%.... doing this from memory, but i think it was 1.3% or something like that.

the other thing they change is dealer having option to hit "soft 17"... not sure how much that changes the number.

if you do find a single deck game without them changing the payouts/rules, then it'll probably be some very small betting limit ($2?) and be only at very limited times. like a teaser to get people to come to casino early in morning (and then stay all day)

so i found the answer by alot of googling...

https://wizardofodds.com/games/black...-decks-matter/

# of decks vs. house advantage (and i believe this doesn't take account of card-counting.. just how the cards tend to flow)

1 0.014%
2 0.341%
4 0.499%
6 0.551%
8 0.577%

looks like the advantage has to do with double down, splitting and folding most 12-16 hard hands.... these are all more valuable to play with shorter decks.

lastly, there seems to be 270 or so unique decision points for black jack... it looks like playing short deck game (again, no card counting) vs. 8 deck game changes about 12 or 13 of these decisions.... so not much change as to how you should play. most of the 12-13 changes arose from dd, split and soft aces NOT what i'd call standard situations.