Double-Shot side bet

T

the Stealth

Member
Mayor, I encountered this interesting little addition to a game I found yesterday. Maybe you know of it. 2 circles up front for side bets on if player bj's and/or if dealer bj's the round. Side bets from 2 - 10 for one or both spots.

I was betting both when there were a large amount of aces yet to show up from a 6D shoe and a tc of 5. I certainly made some extra $ with it. But didn't keep track of how much in proportion to investments lost. Just guess work though. Wasn't sure how much to bet (2-10). "Heat" a concern too.

I'm using the Advanced Omega II w/side c. of aces. I was hoping you had some general tc numbers we could all use to take advantage of this extra little cash cow.

15 to 1 for any unsuited
21 to 1 for any suited
50 to 1 for any match with dealer for ace-jack spades or ace-jack clubs.

If I'm not correct on the latter, somebody let me know.

Stealth
 
Usually this bet is only allowed in Single deck, and only for the first hand dealt off the top. This is certainly beatable, I may run a sim, or I may not (-- time will tell --) but if you honestly found a 16-1 payoff for BJ, then you have a bet you can beat. Too bad the max on it is only $10, I would play it for table max with sufficiently high count.

There are specialized counts that could beat this very effectively as well, as the odds of a BJ increase when ANY of the cards 2-9 are played, so each of these has an equal EOR. Clearly T,J,Q,K have equal EOR, but the EOR of an Ace is roughly 4 times that of a T,J,Q,K. So, a simple balanced count might look like:

2-9 +1
T,J,Q,K: -1
A: -4

This would be my best guess at an "optimal" count ...

Now, only a sim will tell...

--Mayor
 
Here is a simple calculation. If we have a standard single deck, and remove 8 of the cards (any 8) that are from the 2-9 range, then we have a TC of +8 with the count system above. Given that, the remainder of the deck is:

24 2's - 9's
16 T,J,Q,K
4 A

Thus, the probability of BJ with this deck is:

(16/44)*(4/43)*2 = .06765. This corresponds to odds of 13.78 to 1. So, at least in this case, you have a huge edge.

Let's compute it...

Non-suited BJ = .75*(.06765) = .0507
Suited BJ = .25*(.06765) = .0169
No Blackjack = 1 - .06765 = .9324

Now, for your 1 unit bet, your EV is:

15*(.0507) + 21*(.0169) + (-1)*(.9324) = +.1154 = +11.54%

This does not account for the very unlikely double BJ match.

So... with the count above, and a +8 TC, you have an 11.54% edge
over the house. I am not sure what the cutoff is for an edge, so
let's look at a +6 just for fun...

Calculations like the above, removing 6 low cards, gives:

BJ = (16/46)*(4/45)*2 = .06184
Non-suited BJ = .04638
Suited BJ = .01546
No BJ = .93816

EV (at +6 TC) = 15*(.04638) + 21*(.01546) + (-1)*.93816 = +.02036 = +2.036%

So, it looks like you have an edge at a +6 TC as well.

A linear interpolation shows that you gain/lose about 4.5% per TC using the count above, so at a +5 TC this has a house edge of about 2.5%.

I am sure a +6 TC gives you a similar advantage on a shoe game.

This analysis is in lieu of a sim,

--Mayor
 
Mayor, thanks for running that for me/us. Only problem now is whether or not to make the counting switch. Switching back and forth is a little harsh on the mind for me still. I can imagine I will be doing something like this: +1+2+4=?-3#@$45%,.<<>>&-1AA??????????? My point is that I finally got the Advanced Omega w/A side, up to speed and it works. However, with a little practice, I could switch just for this game. But, is worth the extra effort? We can't forget about a count for betting, play of the hand, indices etc. We still have to play bj. Given we can't do our side bets for more than $10, shouldn't we stay with our regular playing count? I'm assuming the Omega is a lot better for play of the hand. Maybe my regular count can still be successful for the side bets even though it is not perfect. I'm guessing maybe a +7 tc with some amount of extra aces over the average left in the pack. What would be best is a team of 2 or more with 2 types of counts. Right?

Your comments please.

Stealth
 
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