Midnight, It would be interesting to have people rank all four. 1,2,3,4

Grifter said:

Midnite – Unfortunately it appears you are incorrect, so there can be no right answer. Three of the four you have listed are actually the CORRECT play as determined by the number of decks in the game and the composition of the remaining cards.

Grifter

Yes, Grifter, but of those four, only standing on 12 vs 2 becomes correct in counts that have a reasonable possibility of happening, ie a remaining deck or shoe rich, but not extremely rich, in 10's. I'll defer to your greater experience, but I'm guessing that the circumstances must be really extreme to make correct whatever two of the other three you say are sometimes correct. When the poll's over, let us know what you mean.

I cast my vote and then the results to date showed I was in the majority.

Grifter, Midnight and I went through the cards played problem last night.
You did not see Midnights post where he said assume each to be the first
hand off the top. In other words forget about index numbers/count, etc.

We both deleted these post so as to avoid telling people what we thought.
Giving the question away,etc

Ray

Grifter, It was late, and I was on the same track as you were. The
updated assumption some how did not get posted.

Ray

Dog, on A7 vs 9 you will need to consider the odds rather than index.
To save you some trouble, if you hit you win 9 of 20, staying is 8 of 20.
Unexpected huh!!! I might also add that A7 vs A is part of
the "NIFTY" 15 because it cost you very little, how about that........

Ray

Thanks, Fred.
But, I was going to wait until Friday (11/7) to give the answers.
I was trying to show that some bad plays, are not as bad as they seem. Standing with A-7 vs the dealers Ace and hitting 10-2 vs 4, for example. Both are very close plays.

MIDNITE: I'm really sorry to have jumped the gun like that. Your post said the answers would be posted on 7/11 and I didn't think long enough to realize that it probably meant 11/7.
By the way, although A/7 vs. 9 is the biggest mistake of the four "when you have the hand", it's NOT the mistake that will take the most percentage off your overall game. That's because some hands come up much more often than others. Did you want to forestall "those" rankings while everybody guesses how they shake out at the bottom line? Afterwards, you/we can post the "quantified" percentage cost of each mistake. Taken by themselves, they're all quite small.

Fred- No sweat about posting the answers. It had a lot of "views", but not a lot voted in the poll and my thanks to those who did. My thinking and the reason for the poll was, IF more players new how close some plays are, they would be less likely to get upset at the "dumb" plays of others at the table. Also they may be more inclined to, play the board, at times and not just "always" play basic strategy, like your Magnificent 7 hands. Of course, most of your hands will still be played with basic strategy, even the close ones, unless there is an imbalance of cards on the table.
I will give one example, Just incase someone hasn't bought Blackjack Bluebook II, yet....
You have 10-2 and the dealer has a 4 up. You look at the board (table) and see a Lot of high cards. You now ask yourself, is my chance of winning "this" hand better by standing (like BS says) or by taking a hit. If you knew that hitting a 10-2 vs 4, is an almost dead even play anyway, but now there are several high cards on the table, it would appear that hitting would be the right choise, in this case. I think most readers would be interested in the ranking of hands and they sure should be interested in the mistake that takes the most percentage off your game.

15 ways to get 12v2 out of 13x13x13=2197 hands
100 hands/hour
$20/hand
cost of standing on 12v2=.04x$20=$0.80

(15/2197)x100x$20x4%=$0.54 per hour

Ed - I'm on my way out and don't have time to check your math, but that number for 12 vs 2 looks very high. Your EV per hour with the $20 bet is -$10/hr. If you add 0.54 to that loss, that is an increase of 5.4%....for just misplaying the 12 vs 2????? :?:

I did that very quickly in my head.....I might be way, way wrong...If so, sorry.

Grifter, the math is right? Think about a 0.5% house advantage: You loose 100 hands, win 99 and push one hand. Misplaying 12v2 costs you 5.4% of 1 out of two hundred hands.

Think of what 6:5 BJ costs you:

(8x13/2197)(100)($20)(.3)=$28.40/hour (a little less due to dealer BJs). $0.54 now seems like peanuts, right?

Ray, good question about indices - I hope this answer helps:

It's not so straightfoward to calculate indices. Think about what extra 10's do to 12v2 versus 10v10.

Say there are only 10's left. With 12v2, if you hit, you loose. If you stand, dealer busts and you win. With 10v10, you push if you double or not. This extreme example shows that there's more impact to changing your strategy with 12v2 versus 10v10.

In fact, the only reason you double 10v10 at high counts is because you know the dealer doesn't have BJ, and you have a chance to get an Ace. It's still a very risky move - at +5, you have about 40% chance of loosing, 17% chance of pushing and 43% chance of winning.

I saw an article about 6:5 blackjack. It seems that even the Casino personnel don't like this game. Makes the place look cheap(which is true).
I was wondering where you folks think this is going and can we expect
more such greed in the future?

Mr Ed, I know your numbers are necessary for the calculations that you
were doing. I should have given it more thought........

Ray

You talk too much.