Surrender 14 against a 10?

C

CalgaryBlackJack

Member
I use to surrender my 14 against my 10's as thats what the basic strategy calculator on this site says but thinking about it. It doesn't make sense as theres 13 cards and I have 7 cards that won't bust my hand.

Rules at the table I play at
Dealer Hits Soft 17
Double Any 2 Cards
Double After Split Allowed
Early Surrender
No peek (European style)
If someone can explain to me why the chart says that I would really appreciate it.
 
L

London Colin

Well-Known Member
nybroker said:
Basic strategy says to hit 14 vs 10 surrender only on 15 and 16 vs 10.
Click to expand...
Not for Early Surrender.

CalgaryBlackJack said:
If someone can explain to me why the chart says that I would really appreciate it.
Click to expand...
Because busting is not the only way to lose a hand.

If you want to reason about why BS says to take a particular action, you have to consider all the possible outcomes. That's what the computer programs that generate the BS tables do.
 
N

neversplit5s

Active Member
You're probably confused between the BS for Early and Late Surrender; with the former you surrender 14 vs. 10, with the latter you don't.
 
C

CalgaryBlackJack

Member
London Colin said:
Not for Early Surrender.


Because busting is not the only way to lose a hand.

If you want to reason about why BS says to take a particular action, you have to consider all the possible outcomes. That's what the computer programs that generate the BS tables do.
Click to expand...


Yeah but busting is the only conclusion that I can come up with if someone can answer the why your suppose to surrender. It would be appreciated, until then I will continue to hit my 14's against a 10.
 
L

London Colin

Well-Known Member
CalgaryBlackJack said:
Yeah but busting is the only conclusion that I can come up with if someone can answer the why your suppose to surrender. It would be appreciated, until then I will continue to hit my 14's against a 10.
Click to expand...
The reason is that the expected value of surrender (-0.5) is higher than the expected value of any other action. There's no point in trying to second-guess how that result arises. It is the net sum of a myriad of possibilities.

If you really don't trust all the published BS tables, then the only choice is to write your own computer program to produce such a table.

Having said that, the one thing that can of course be said is that the reason Early Surrender tips the balance in favour of surrendering more hands than late surrender is the possibility of a dealer blackjack, giving you more ways to lose if you do not surrender.
 
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