Automatic Monkey
Banned
Two basic strategies for this game can be found on Arnold Snyder's Blackjack Forum Online site:
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/blackjackswitchbasicstrategy.htm
And another one by "The Wizard of Odds" Mike Shackleford can be found here:
http://wizardofodds.com/blackjackswitch
Both differ from standard H17 strategy, and there are minor disagreements between the two. Time to monkey around with it.
The reason BJ Switch strategy differs from standard BS is the push-on-dealer-22 rule. It's hard to visualize how this would make a difference, but apparently it does. So I used my CVData simulator to find an ideal basic strategy.
Methodology:
First, I programmed the push-on-22 rule into a CVData sim, by calling it a negative bonus, where if the player doesn't bust and the dealer busts with 22, the player pays his win back to the house. What an ugly rule! Then I applied the brute-force method of deducing plays. It works like this- you start with the hit-or-stand 16 plays, have two players playing agains the dealer, with the only difference being one always hits on 16, and one always stands on 16. By subtracting the resulting win rates for each player on the 16 plays, you can determine against what dealer upcard it is better to hit or to stand. Then you run another sim for the 15's and the 14's, down to the 12's. This is arduous but necessary.
Once you have the correct basic strategy for hit-or-stand, you do the same thing with the hard and soft doubles. You can do these all at once, just one sim. Finally, you run another sim for the splits. At this point you have enough information to provide a complete basic strategy for the game.
Note: these results do not take into account the benefit of switching! That's a whole different topic, but it should be independent of the way you play each hand after you have switched, which is the purpose of a basic strategy. I ran a sim comparing the Monkey Basic Strategy vs. the Bishop Basic Strategy, the Wizard Basic Strategy, and standard H17 multideck Basic Strategy.
Here are the results:
The actual strategy does make some changes for the push-22 rule but not as many as the other two strategies do. Here is it:
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/blackjackswitchbasicstrategy.htm
And another one by "The Wizard of Odds" Mike Shackleford can be found here:
http://wizardofodds.com/blackjackswitch
Both differ from standard H17 strategy, and there are minor disagreements between the two. Time to monkey around with it.
The reason BJ Switch strategy differs from standard BS is the push-on-dealer-22 rule. It's hard to visualize how this would make a difference, but apparently it does. So I used my CVData simulator to find an ideal basic strategy.
Methodology:
First, I programmed the push-on-22 rule into a CVData sim, by calling it a negative bonus, where if the player doesn't bust and the dealer busts with 22, the player pays his win back to the house. What an ugly rule! Then I applied the brute-force method of deducing plays. It works like this- you start with the hit-or-stand 16 plays, have two players playing agains the dealer, with the only difference being one always hits on 16, and one always stands on 16. By subtracting the resulting win rates for each player on the 16 plays, you can determine against what dealer upcard it is better to hit or to stand. Then you run another sim for the 15's and the 14's, down to the 12's. This is arduous but necessary.
Once you have the correct basic strategy for hit-or-stand, you do the same thing with the hard and soft doubles. You can do these all at once, just one sim. Finally, you run another sim for the splits. At this point you have enough information to provide a complete basic strategy for the game.
Note: these results do not take into account the benefit of switching! That's a whole different topic, but it should be independent of the way you play each hand after you have switched, which is the purpose of a basic strategy. I ran a sim comparing the Monkey Basic Strategy vs. the Bishop Basic Strategy, the Wizard Basic Strategy, and standard H17 multideck Basic Strategy.
Here are the results:
Code:
Strategy Advantage SD/100 hands Effect of dealer push-22 rule
Monkey BS -9.170% 10.70 -6.111%
Wizard BS -9.337% 10.24 -6.090%
Bishop BS -9.370% 10.21 -6.035%
Straight H17 BS -9.246% 10.83 -6.267%
Code:
Blackjack Switch- LV rules- 8D
Hard Hit/Stand- Dealer’s Card
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A
16 S S S S S H H H H H
15 S S S S S H H H H H
14 S S S S S H H H H H
13 H S S S S H H H H H
12 H H H S S H H H H H
Always hit on 11 or less, always stand on 17 or more.H= Hit S= Stand
Hard Double- Dealer’s Card
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A
11 D D D D D D D D D H
10 D D D D D D D D H H
9 H D D D D H H H H H
8 H H H H H H H H H H
Never double on 12 or more, never double on 7 or less.D= Double H= Hit
Soft Double and Soft Hit/Stand- Dealer’s Card
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A
A9 S S S S S S S S S S
A8 S S S S D S S S S S
A7 S D D D D S S H H H
A6 H D D D D H H H H H
A5 H H D D D H H H H H
A4 H H D D D H H H H H
A3 H H H D D H H H H H
A2 H H H H D H H H H H
D= Double H=Hit S= Stand
Split- Dealer’s Card
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A
A,A S S S S S S S S S S
10,10 X X X X X X X X X X
9,9 X X S S S X S S X X
8,8 S S S S S S S S X X
7,7 X S S S S S X X X X
6,6 X X S S S X X X X X
5,5 X X X X X X X X X X
4,4 X X X X X X X X X X
3,3 X X X S S S X X X X
2,2 X X X S S S X X X X
S= Split X= Don’t split
