vpFREE2 Forums

Two Questions

#21

Wizard's Charlie strategy isn't perfect either.
Doesn't address specific rules (number of decks, dealer hit/stand soft 17) and contains the usual smattering of errors and typos.

Example: Wiz says soft 18 vs 3-6 is dbl if possible, otherwise hit. It should be dbl if possible else stand, which Wong represents as dbl/s.

For hard 16 the 2- 3- and 4- card Appendix rules apply (single deck only). 5-card 16 is always a hit. 4-card 16 has no changes for the Charlie rule since the only draw that would make a 6-card winner is two consecutive aces.

TC

Why is it called a hot water heater?
Hot water doesn't need heating

···

On Aug 14, 2011, at 8:21 AM, "Bob Bartop" <bobbartop@yahoo.com> wrote:

--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Bartop" <bobbartop@...> wrote:
>
> --- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, "vegasvpplayer" <vegasvpplayer@> wrote:
> >
>
> >
> >
> > Even against a dealer 5 or 6?
> >
>
>
> I just looked again at Wizard's page and I notice he says to "defer to Wong's charlie strategy" when there are slight differences. Like I said, I have to run right now, and I don't have Wong in front of me. If you or anyone else sees something different from what I have interpreted to be correct, PLEASE point it out to me. I rely on the experts, and if I misunderstand something they say, that is not good. lol I am always open to and welcome anybody to correct something I have said that is wrong. PLEASE correct me if I am wrong. It will be a big help to me to see my mistakes. Thanks!
>

Ok, I was curious enough, I had to look at Wong's book. You were right to ask me about that, Vegasvpplayer. I see there are some differences. Now I will have to reevaluate. Oooh, MY HEAD HURTS!

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#22

I just got home from the casino, where I actually played video blackjack for about four hours. This conversation has encouraged me to reassess my previous beliefs on this subject. Interestingly, I play some machines that stand on soft 17 and offer surrender against an Ace, and other machines, IGT machines, that follow the other rules. So I have a lot of thinking to do, and juggling of ideas. Thanks for the comments from everyone, I look forward to reading more.

By the way, I hit a five-card soft-20 today. Better than sex!

···

--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, Tabbycat <tabbycat@...> wrote:

Wizard's Charlie strategy isn't perfect either.
Doesn't address specific rules (number of decks, dealer hit/stand soft 17) and contains the usual smattering of errors and typos.

Example: Wiz says soft 18 vs 3-6 is dbl if possible, otherwise hit. It should be dbl if possible else stand, which Wong represents as dbl/s.

For hard 16 the 2- 3- and 4- card Appendix rules apply (single deck only). 5-card 16 is always a hit. 4-card 16 has no changes for the Charlie rule since the only draw that would make a 6-card winner is two consecutive aces.

TC

#23

Why are you playing video bj at Atlantis? Those machines in that bank pay almost no comp points or am I mistaken? That's why the old ones were slaughtered a couple years ago.

"I met your wife some years ago when I was playing NSUD she was playing VBJ
at the Xanadu bar in the Atlantis. Perhaps you and I will meet at an
Atlantis VBJ machine sometime."

#24

wizard's charlie page is flat-out wrong, and not by "slight
differences" caused by six decks vs infinite decks as he suggests.
it's frustrating because he's usually quite reliable. to quote what i
wrote in the wizardofvegas forum:

"The easiest way to see that something is wrong is to look at 16 vs 6,
one card away from a Charlie. Wizard's chart says hit. With an
infinite deck, your chance of winning by hitting is 5/13 ~= 38.5%.
Your expectation on a hit is 5/13 - 8/13 = -3/13 ~= -0.23. Now look at
Appendix 1, where he gives the expected return for standing 16 vs 6 in
an infinite-deck S17 game as -0.15. Standing is better. The same
analysis shows that hitting 16 vs 4-5 and 17 vs 2-3 is wrong."

his strategy is *very* wrong for a single-deck game, like the game
king blackjack, because by the time you get to five cards the deck has
become heavy on big cards that will bust both you and the dealer.
stand with 16 vs 2-6, 15 vs 3-6, and 14 vs 6 in that game. hard 17 is
always a stand, unless you want to learn composition-specific
exceptions vs dealer ace.

for the same reason, i expect that the EV gain from the six-card
charlie rule in single-deck is less than the 0.16% that wizard quotes.
you just get six babies in a row less often in single-deck.

best wishes,

five

···

On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 8:01 AM, Bob Bartop <bobbartop@yahoo.com> wrote:

I just looked again at Wizard's page and I notice he says to "defer to Wong's charlie strategy" when there are slight differences.

#25

You're right, Bob. Nothing better than recounting your 5 cards that total a soft 21. Then making that next 'hit' to give you the automatic winner....

Mike in Little Rock

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--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Bartop" <bobbartop@...> wrote:

--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, "Rick and Becky Groff" <rbgroff@> wrote:
>
> The Game King style machines with their decent rules are the only BJ
> machines that I play. Thanks for your comments. I do make adjustments
> based on how many cards I have drawn using Wong's book Basic Strategy. Do
> you use anything beyond that? Maybe I just am in long term losing streak.
>

That's a pretty fair game as far as video blackjack goes. Actually, as far as any blackjack goes. You've run a little bad perhaps, but trust the game, and learn some more refinements. Another poster or two in this thread mentioned the 6-card Charlie. Refine that! It's worth more than you might think. Then it sounds like you're using composition-dependent strategy. That's good. I've studied Wizard of Odds' charts and simplified a couple rules for myself.

3-card 16 v T, stand if there's a 5 in the hand, hit if there's a 6 in the hand.

3-card 16 v 9, stand if no 7s are out, hit if there is.

But learn the Charlie rules.

Speaking of Charlie, is there anything more FUN in the world than hitting a 5-card 21 on these machines?

#26

Every time I visit Atlantis, I double check the comp points earned on VB machines. They have been (around) .31% earned comps......I do remember reading a post a month or so ago mentioning the VB games at Peppermill giving almost no comp points earned....

Mike

···

--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, "Don parks" <donparks21@...> wrote:

Why are you playing video bj at Atlantis? Those machines in that bank pay almost no comp points or am I mistaken? That's why the old ones were slaughtered a couple years ago.

"I met your wife some years ago when I was playing NSUD she was playing VBJ
at the Xanadu bar in the Atlantis. Perhaps you and I will meet at an
Atlantis VBJ machine sometime."

#27

I might be wrong maybe things have changed, I know those machines in that "100% payback" bank paid 2.5 times less points when they were put there in 2008. I've been in there a few times since they always slow paid points for me. Not that I'm an expert on Atlantis anymore, since I got my offers cut off 3 years ago.

···

--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, "MikeA" <aclinml@...> wrote:

Every time I visit Atlantis, I double check the comp points earned on VB machines. They have been (around) .31% earned comps......I do remember reading a post a month or so ago mentioning the VB games at Peppermill giving almost no comp points earned....

Mike

--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, "Don parks" <donparks21@> wrote:
>
> Why are you playing video bj at Atlantis? Those machines in that bank pay almost no comp points or am I mistaken? That's why the old ones were slaughtered a couple years ago.
>
> "I met your wife some years ago when I was playing NSUD she was playing VBJ
> at the Xanadu bar in the Atlantis. Perhaps you and I will meet at an
> Atlantis VBJ machine sometime."
>

#28

You're right, Fivespot, this is frustrating. I thought I had this pretty much down pat, but since this thread started I am questioning myself. By the way, I have some machines in California that stand on soft 17. They are also single deck, like the Game Kings, but what do you think would be some obvious changes I need to make regarding the Charlie adjustments? Any ideas?

···

--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, fivespot <fivespot55@...> wrote:

wizard's charlie page is flat-out wrong, and not by "slight
differences" caused by six decks vs infinite decks as he suggests.
it's frustrating because he's usually quite reliable.

#29

You're right, Fivespot, this is frustrating. I thought I had this pretty much down pat, but since this thread started I am questioning myself. By the way, I have some machines in California that stand on soft 17.

wish i knew where those were :wink: not that i get to california much.

They are also single deck, like the Game Kings, but what do you think would be some obvious changes I need to make regarding the Charlie adjustments? Any ideas?

dealer is slightly less likely to bust in a S17 game, especially with
a 6 up, but my numbers show that there aren't any changes for when to
hit a five-card hand. hard 14 vs 6 goes from a clear stand in H17 to
almost a tossup in S17, but it's still a stand.

i haven't done computations for four cards or less, but my intuition
is that hitting four-card hard 12s vs 4-6 or hard 13s vs 2-3 is
probably wrong, while hitting four-card soft 19 vs 10 is probably
right, regardless of S17 vs H17. for initial split decisions i'm using
standard single-deck strategy except i don't split 2,2 vs 2-3 or 3,3
vs 2. again, these are informed guesses, unlike the five-card
recommendations which i've actually computed.

best wishes,

five

···

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 8:23 AM, Bob Bartop <bobbartop@yahoo.com> wrote:

#30

This is a lot of food for thought, my head is already starting to hurt again. I will save this and review it more later, after I take a couple aspirin. In the meanwhile, shoot me a personal message about the other subject.

thx

···

--- In vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com, fivespot <fivespot55@...> wrote:

wish i knew where those were :wink: not that i get to california much.

> They are also single deck, like the Game Kings, but what do you think would be some obvious changes I need to make regarding the Charlie adjustments? Any ideas?

dealer is slightly less likely to bust in a S17 game, especially with
a 6 up, but my numbers show that there aren't any changes for when to
hit a five-card hand. hard 14 vs 6 goes from a clear stand in H17 to
almost a tossup in S17, but it's still a stand.

i haven't done computations for four cards or less, but my intuition
is that hitting four-card hard 12s vs 4-6 or hard 13s vs 2-3 is
probably wrong, while hitting four-card soft 19 vs 10 is probably
right, regardless of S17 vs H17. for initial split decisions i'm using
standard single-deck strategy except i don't split 2,2 vs 2-3 or 3,3
vs 2. again, these are informed guesses, unlike the five-card
recommendations which i've actually computed.

#31

I know we are all sick to death of this topic. However, I did something
interesting that I would like to report on. All of these situations are
marginal, given the infrequency of six card winners and its overall value.

I looked in Wong's Professional Blackjack. To my surprise, there is a Hi-Lo
point count for when to hit and stand for the six-card winner with four
cards and with five cards.

He bases these decisions on the hi-low count in which

Hi-Lo Count: 2,3,4,5,6 =+1

7,8,9,=0

10, ACE = --1

There are differences between the decisions regarding standing/hitting
between Professional Blackjack and Basic Blackjack. I conjecture that the
reason is that the basic strategies are based on two assumptions. These
assumption are (1) unless otherwise stated, the basic strategy is based on
the dealer dealing from a multideck and (2) that the deck is neutral (i.e.
has a point count of 0).

In our playing situation, the point count is not neutral. In my opinion,
with four drawn cards the player would typically have a point count of 2-4
and with five drawn cards would have a point count of 3-5. The dealer would
have a point count of that is based on whatever his up-card is.

For these comparisons, I hypothesized that the player has a point count of
2.5 with four cards and 3.5 with five cards. The higher you assume this
total is, the more valid my analysis is for standing rather than hitting.

With this is mind, here are the changes that following Professional
Blackjack would make in the basic strategy.

Four cards:

stand on a hard 12 against 3-6 (standing on a hard 12 against a 3 is
close).

stand on a hard 13 against 2

Five cards:

Stand on a hard 15 against 4,5, and 6 (hitting a hard 15 against a 3 is
close).

Rick

···

From: vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com [mailto:vpFREE_R…@…com] On
Behalf Of fivespot
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 11:15 AM
To: vpFREE_Reno@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [vpFREE_Reno] Re: Two Questions

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 8:23 AM, Bob Bartop <bobbartop@yahoo.com <mailto:bobbartop%40yahoo.com> > wrote:

You're right, Fivespot, this is frustrating. I thought I had this pretty

much down pat, but since this thread started I am questioning myself. By
the way, I have some machines in California that stand on soft 17.

wish i knew where those were :wink: not that i get to california much.

They are also single deck, like the Game Kings, but what do you think

would be some obvious changes I need to make regarding the Charlie
adjustments? Any ideas?

dealer is slightly less likely to bust in a S17 game, especially with
a 6 up, but my numbers show that there aren't any changes for when to
hit a five-card hand. hard 14 vs 6 goes from a clear stand in H17 to
almost a tossup in S17, but it's still a stand.

i haven't done computations for four cards or less, but my intuition
is that hitting four-card hard 12s vs 4-6 or hard 13s vs 2-3 is
probably wrong, while hitting four-card soft 19 vs 10 is probably
right, regardless of S17 vs H17. for initial split decisions i'm using
standard single-deck strategy except i don't split 2,2 vs 2-3 or 3,3
vs 2. again, these are informed guesses, unlike the five-card
recommendations which i've actually computed.

best wishes,

five

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]