USA Games

May 22, 2010

Blackjack Switch lets players switch hands

Weâ€™ve all sat down at one time or another at a blackjack table and wished we could switch cards with our neighbor. Invariably, a streak of cards shows up where the guy next to you gets a face card with a 6, and you get a 5 with a face card. Youâ€™re both sitting there with very bad hands. If only you can take his 6 and give up your face card (or vice versa) and all of a sudden, youâ€™re both in the driverâ€™s seat.

Game inventor Geoff Hall decided to do something about it. He invented a game called Blackjack Switch. The premise is very simple. You play two blackjack hands (with equal wagers) and if youâ€™d like, you can switch the 2nd card dealt between the two hands. So, if youâ€™re dealt a 7 and a 9 and then a 10 and a 4, you can do a little â€˜magicâ€™ and turn your stiffs into an 11 and a 19. Of course, this benefit comes with a little bit of a cost.

In order to keep the casino making a profit, a few other rule changes had to be incorporated into the game. The biggest change is that a Dealer 22 will PUSH all Player hands except a natural blackjack. If you switch your 2nd cards, any 2-card 21â€™s are no longer considered blackjacks. Also, a natural blackjack only pays even money. When we account for all the rules changes, we have a game that has an overall payback of about 99.4+%, which makes it in the same general ballpark as regular blackjack, but with a lot more action because you get to play better hands.

Before you set out to play the game, you had best be prepared to throw out most everything you know about blackjack. The rule change that makes a Dealer 22 push all non-blackjack hands makes significant changes to our hit/stick strategy. Even if you choose to switch at all the right times, if you play standard blackjack strategy my best guess is that youâ€™ll be shaving 3-5% off the payback of the game. If you donâ€™t switch at the right times, you could easily take another 5-6% off the game. So, this is not the right game to just â€˜wing itâ€™.

Analyzing Blackjack Switch was a two-step process. The first step is to determine the hit/stick strategy as would be done for any blackjack type game. We start by figuring out the right strategy for a 20 and then work backwards. After all, we canâ€™t figure out what to do with a 12 against a Dealer 7 unless we know how to play a 13 against a Dealer 7 â€“ which we will need to know if we are dealt an Ace. This process is done for every possible hand vs. each possible Dealer up-card. When this is complete, a strategy table is built which shows a Player how to play each possible hand.

Normally, this is where the process for blackjack pretty much ends. For Blackjack Switch, however, I also had to keep track of the exact expected value of each proper strategy decision for the second part of the analysis. This part is the one that will tell us when to switch the second cards dealt to us. Unfortunately, there is no simple strategy that I can provide to the Player. Instead, the Player will have to do some quick math on the fly while sitting at the table. Along with each hit/stick decision, the Player will have the expected value for each situation. He will have to add up the expected values for the pre-switch hands and compare it to the sum of the expected values of the post-switch hands. Whichever is greater is the right way to play the hand (sounds a little like video poker, huh?). So, while some cases will be rather obvious (as those described earlier), others will be less so.

Providing the complete strategy table and expected values for Blackjack Switch in this column is not practical. I am already working on "Expert Strategy for Blackjack Switch" and it should be ready in several weeks. At that time, Iâ€™ll come back and re-visit the game and provide a bit more insight into the strategy for this hot new game. Shuffle Master is the exclusive distributor for the game and it now boasts more than 50 tables and is growing rapidly.

Posted by: vicstan at 01:26 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Get an edge at blackjack by counting cards

Casino bets are as tough to compare with one another as apples and oranges. House advantage or edge is often used to gauge alternatives. However, this criterion is really of value only to the bosses because its relevance lies in calculating long-term averages. Edge says little about the short-run bankroll swings solid citizens experience during one or a few single sessions or casino visits, absolutely or in correlating different wagers.

Even-money equivalents offer an intuitively satisfactory yardstick to measure alternative wagers. These hypothetical propositions have two parts, amounts at risk and corresponding chances of 1-to-1 payoffs having the same edge and volatility as actual bets. For the mathematically minded, these statistical components are calculated as follows: a)Amount equals the actual average bet times the square root of (the sum of the variance plus the edge squared). b)Chance of winning is 0.5 plus (half the edge â€“ negative if it favors the house â€“ divided by (the square root of the sum of the variance plus the edge squared

The utility of even-money equivalents can be illustrated in terms of a Blackjack buff thinking about advancing from Basic Strategy to card counting. The essence of card counting is that players have an edge when more low than high ranks are gone from a shoe so prospects have become above average of drawing nines, 10s, or aces. Systematically profiting from this information requires raising bets as conditions improve. But, chances of winning particular hands don't necessarily increase enough to keep high wagers from exposing players to bankroll-busting downswings.

The even-money equivalent of $25 blackjack bets in every round following Basic Strategy is a $28.17 wager with 49.78 percent chance of winning and the complementary 50.22 percent chance of losing. The excess over $25 accounts for splits and doubles as well as 3-to-2 black-jacks. The 0.44 percent negative offset between chances of losing and winning represents the house edge.

To obtain corresponding figures for card counting, suppose that a player achieves a 1 percent edge over the house by betting the amounts indicated, at the frequencies shown, in the accompa-nying somewhat contrived table. The data would presumably be based on the likelihood of counts reaching the appropriate betting levels.

Representative amounts and frequency of bets for an aggressive card counting strategy
amountf requency $10 51.08%
$25 27.78%
$50 12.28%
$75 8.19%
$100 0.67%

The average bet for this card counter is $25. The even-money equivalent is a flat wager of $162.70 per round, having 50.08 percent chance of winning and 49.92 percent chance of losing.

The whopping increase from $28.17 to $162.70 for the same $25 average pre-round wager results mainly from the wide spread of bets made by the counter. And, although a situation may be so promising as to warrant a $100 bet, it's no guarantee of a winning hand. Further, the counter's net favorable 0.06 percent probability margin is numerically smaller than the adverse difference in chances for the Basic Strategy player.

Over, say, 100,000 hands, the $25 Basic Strategy bettor would have a gross wager of $2,500,000 and expected loss of $12,500. The card counter under the stated circumstances would have the same handle and expected profits of $25,000. But the even-money equivalents of $162 versus $28 suggest that the counter would need a considerably larger stake than the Basic Strategy player to outride the normal downswings of typical sessions. This, along with the mettle to push out the big bucks when the probability of a winning hand goes above 50-50, but not by much. Which explains why urban myths about card counting success tend to involve investor-backed teams and not individual players. Here's how the virtuoso of verse, Sumner A Ingmark, depicted the dilemma:
The betting schemes you live in fear of,
Despite successes you may hear of,
Are strategies you should steer clear of.

Posted by: vicstan at 01:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Online Casino Baccarat for Newbies

If you've been dying to try online casino baccarat but are worried that your lack of skills will lose you money or embarrass you in front of your fellow players, then our online casino baccarat guide for dummies will help you to play and bet smart from the very first baccarat hand you try. Here's the bare minimum of what you should know before playing online baccarat.

Know the Bets.
Whereas some casino games â€“ like roulette and craps â€“ have complex betting tables, betting at baccarat is very straightforward because players have only three wagering options: banker, player or tie. The meaning of these bets is pretty obvious too â€“ a banker bet predicts that the banker's hand will win, a player bet predicts that the player bet will win, and a tie bet pays only if the banker and player hands are equal. There are no side bets or prop bets at baccarat, so this game's wagering system is probably the quickest read in the casino.

Know the Games
It's important to know that there are three different baccarat variations: punto banco, baccarat banque and chemin de fer. More often than not the tables are simply designated as "baccarat," so it's up to you to be able to differentiate between the games. Punto banco, which is favored in North America, is the easiest variation to recognize because a casino employee controls the cards and the action at all times. Chemin de fer is characterized by a round table and a rotating banker/dealer position. Baccarat banque is characterized by a more permanent, highest-bidder banker system and three separate hands (vs the two used in punto banco and chemin de fer).

Know How to Win
As a punter your primary concern is choosing the hand that will ultimately win, in which case the banker hand has a consistent edge, but in some variations â€“ chemin de fer and banque, for example â€“ if you're sitting in the banker or player position you can influence the outcome indirectly by cutting the deck or more purposefully when choosing to hit or stand.

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Best 10 ways to make online online blackjack more fun and "profitable"

Just like in every other casino game, a player at a online blackjack table is battling the house edge, so unless you're an expert card counter, you're going to end up on the short end in the long run. But there are ways to make sure that you give yourself the best chance to hold onto your bankroll, and if the cards roll your way, maybe even increase it at the online blackjack table. Here are 10 rules to follow that will make your stay at the online blackjack table more fun, and maybe even more "profitable."

10. Find a table where the stakes are comfortable
This can be hard for people with small bankrolls, but you can research casinos ahead of time to find out what their minimum stakes are. Some casinos in Las Vegas spread $5 online blackjack tables during off-peak hours. Do some research online and call casinos to find out what table stakes they spread and at what times in order to ensure that you can find the right game for you.

9. Always split Aces and Eights
Good basic strategy dictates that you split your hand whenever you have two aces or two eights. While it may seem like the wrong move to break up those eights when facing a dealer's face card in the window, it's still the right move to make.

8. Look for tables where the dealer stands on Soft 17
It may seem like a small change (how often do you run across a dealer with an ace-six, really?), but it can have a big impact on your bankroll. Playing on a table where the dealer stands on a Soft 17 will cut the house edge by about a third on most standard tables, from .66% to .44%.

7. Stand with any hand that could bust against a dealer's up card of four, five or six
Yes, your 10-2 is a weak hand, and 70% of the time you'll improve your hand. But there's also that nasty 30% of the time you'll bust, giving yourself no chance of winning, and you'll still only improve to 17 or better less than 40% of the time, leaving yourself in a position to stand. Give the dealer a chance to bust here, and if he catches cards, lick your wounds and try again.

6. Tip your dealer
Yes, this will drain your bankroll to some degree, but keeping the dealer happy is important. While the most important way you can sustain your bankroll is to know basic strategy yourself, the dealers are there to help you and if you don't know what to do, they're probably going to give you better advice than anyone else at the table â€” unless of course, you've been stingy with your tips.

5. Play on a table where you can double down with any two cards
This is another rule that can save you almost 0.2% on the house edge. While you can only double down with 10 or 11 on some online blackjack tables, others will let you double down on any two cards you like. Played correctly, those extra double downs will allow you to put more money on the table when you have a strategic edge and shave the already miniscule house edge of online blackjack even more.

4. Double down with any ace (except A-9) against a dealer's six
The best time to take advantage of those extra double downs is when you have an ace and the dealer is showing a six. You should double down in this situation every time, with the exception of when you have a soft 20 (don't get greedy â€” you already have a great hand!). You should also double against the dealer's five except when you have a soft 19 or 20.

3. Play with friends â€” and let the biggest winner buy dinner
Playing online blackjack with a group of friends is always more fun. The camaraderie at the table lightens the atmosphere and makes the sting of losing a little easier to take. And if your group agrees that anyone who posts a big win will pay for dinner, drinks, a cab, or any other shared expense you may incur, it allows anyone who suffered a loss to recover a bit before you head back to the tables.

2. Bring a strategy card â€” and play by the book!
If you don't know basic strategy like the back of your hand, tape a card with the strategy to the back of your hand. Casinos will allow you to reference the card at the table, and looking at it will reinforce the correct play and keep you from making mistakes as you play.

1. Never play at a table where online blackjack pays 6/5
The standard payout for online blackjack at most tables is 3/2, so $10 bet will win $15 when a player hits online blackjack. At a table where online blackjack pays 6/5 (typically a table played with a single-deck), the same $10 will net just $12 on a online blackjack payout. Even when every other rule is set in the player's favor, the house edge on 6/5 tables is still over 1%, almost twice as large as it is at most standard six-deck tables. Avoid these tables at all costs and your bankroll will thank you.

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May 22, 2010

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