Illustrious 18

[White Guy]

Are the Illustrious 18 from Kevin Blackwoods book for SD the same for double H17 too. Besides when to insure of course. I only noticed a couple small differences even from what I played at shoe games so I am assuming yes or the differences are so small it doesn't make sense to switch them when going from SD to DD for risk of error?? Any professional input would be great!!
Thanks

 

[Sonny]

You should be able to use the same indices for just about any game. Any differences should be small and inconsequential.

-Sonny-

 

[Automatic Monkey]

Just a couple of odd things about SD though, SD indices are automatically composition dependent. My favorite example is that in a SD H17 game, DD 8 vs. 6 and 8 vs. 5 are Basic Strategy plays, but if you are counting, they're index plays. The reason is that if you are dealt an 8 vs. 5 or 8 vs. 6 off the top of the deck, you are already in a pretty high count in an SD game because that hand calls for three low cards dealt out. But if you are playing with more than 1 deck, you really want to use the indices for those plays.

 

[jack.jackson]

Just a couple of odd things about SD though, SD indices are automatically composition dependent. My favorite example is that in a SD H17 game, DD 8 vs. 6 and 8 vs. 5 are Basic Strategy plays, but if you are counting, they're index plays. The reason is that if you are dealt an 8 vs. 5 or 8 vs. 6 off the top of the deck, you are already in a pretty high count in an SD game because that hand calls for three low cards dealt out. But if you are playing with more than 1 deck, you really want to use the indices for those plays.

For awhile, when practicing a 2deck game, I would make the mistake of Doubling 8 vs 5 or 6 on 0 TC with 1 deck remaining, becuse these were BS plays, even though my playing Indexs for these hands were +5 and +7.(At first, I thought this was due to the floating advantage, but later realized it was becuse their composition dependant hands and like you said, will compromise your own hand in single deck.
Nevertheless with about 1/2 deck remaining you can push your playing Indices way beyond the limit, when hard doubling.
For example I will always double 8 vs 6 at a RC of 0 with a half deck remaining.

 

[Kasi]

Well yes and no I guess. But I'd say mostly no lol.

They are still weighted by frequency and outcomes for each of the combinations that make up that total, just like BS, etc and only mean it is better to double at that index value and hand total overall compared to hitting.

So, while both 6,2 vs 6 and 5,3 vs 6 would give rise to the same RC and TC off the top of a one deck game, if you are playing truly comp-dependent strategy you would only double the 5,3 vs 6 but hit the 6,2 vs 6 in both a H17and S17 SD game.

 

[Paradox]

The book you need is Blackjack Attack 3

Don S. is the man who came up with the I-18, SCORE and more. BJA3 is required reading in my opinion. On Pg213, he has numbers for S17 6/8 deck shoes, S17 double deck and H17 single deck. CVIndex is part of CVData and it is useful for finding indices specific to your game.