Sometimes I wonder if it's better to play at the bad casinos or lower limit tables only because I see so many people who are afraid to double down especially on soft hands, thereby giving opportunities to put money on their hand and make more. Some dealers won't let you do it but most couldn't care less. I'd be curious to know how much this improves your edge on average if you had one such opportunity each shoe. Thoughts?
Taking advantage of opportunities
- Thread starter Thunder
- Start date
Sonny
Well-Known Member
Here's a recent post by Renzey about the value of hand interactions:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?p=32787#post32787
-Sonny-
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?p=32787#post32787
-Sonny-
How does this work exactly anyway at least with soft doubles?Thunder said:
So the guy next to me bets $5. He gets A,2 vs 5. He doesn't want to double so, if everybody lets you, you place an extra chip out there as if he had doubled?
Then if the next card is an Ace he gets to hit again and u get paid or not based on the total after the first card was dealt?
Or you'd only do it with an A,6 or A,7? And hope the guy doesn't want to hit the resulting 12 vs a 5 lol?
No,if the player lets you put up the money,it is treated as a double down.
There is little,if any advantage to the player with the original hand. He has 11. Dealer has 10. He has no money but you offer to put it up. You draw an Ace. You're both screwed. But had he not let you do it,he could take another hit.
There is little,if any advantage to the player with the original hand. He has 11. Dealer has 10. He has no money but you offer to put it up. You draw an Ace. You're both screwed. But had he not let you do it,he could take another hit.
Thx. That's kinda what I thought but, in that case, I imagine it's not nearly as often a player doesn't have any money left but wants to double as opposed to just not wanting to double at all. In which case you'd be unable to place a bet anyway. I'm not sure I've ever seen a guy wanting to double but down to his last penny. Usually they reach in their pocket and pull out more money to cover it.shadroch said:
Especially for soft doubles where alot of people don't seem to want to double anyway.
And stuff like this is supposed to happen a few times an hour?
people think, and i actually thought, that taking other peoples advantages doesn't really add up to much. last weekend there was a whale at a 15 min table. he was almost broke and put out $200, gets an 11 vs dealer 7. he doubles... but only has $75 left. i'm on the other side of the table, but wheels are spinning so fast in my head that i literally JUMP on this, before anyone else on the table can put up 5 bucks i've thrown a stack of greens at him. this one spot, i haven't done the math but am confident, gave me more EV than my entire 3 hours of spreading $15-$150 with little wonging and .44 HA.
keep in mind that soft doubles will never ever happen, theres a good chance he will want to hit again and won't give you a shot. what you wanna look for is exactly what happened to me, a big better down to his last bet.
keep in mind that soft doubles will never ever happen, theres a good chance he will want to hit again and won't give you a shot. what you wanna look for is exactly what happened to me, a big better down to his last bet.
I didn't think soft doubles would happen often either but that seemed to be what Thunder was wondering the most about.bluewhale said:
And I don't think they'd be worth very much if they did.
I guess there must be alot of other advantage plays because I just can't see that 1) a guy who wants to not double when he should will let you bet a double and 2)a guy who knows when to double will be down to his last dollar very often.
Anybody that knows that probably knows he's not supposed to bet more than half his remaining money anyway so that he can double.
But, sure, if you see it, go for it.
If he doubled for less with his $75, I get you might have picked up a couple $15 units. Nice going!
Other Peoples' Doubles
With doubles, be they soft or hard, many times a player will do it for less. If you take the rest, that gets you off the hook should he catch a card that would've made him want to hit again. Also, your mere encouragement and offering to go halves with him will sometimes nudge him over the line and convince him to do it.
Notice that with soft doubles, you can do the whole thing if it's A/6 or A/7 against a 4, 5 or 6, since he'll never want a second hit anyway.
With doubles, be they soft or hard, many times a player will do it for less. If you take the rest, that gets you off the hook should he catch a card that would've made him want to hit again. Also, your mere encouragement and offering to go halves with him will sometimes nudge him over the line and convince him to do it.
Notice that with soft doubles, you can do the whole thing if it's A/6 or A/7 against a 4, 5 or 6, since he'll never want a second hit anyway.
zengrifter
Banned
See bold below (scavenger). zg
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Hole-carding + Scavenger play
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=847
POSTED BY PERMISSION OF HENRY TAMBURIN,
PUBLISHER OF THE BLACKJACK INSIDER NEWSLETTER
--Excerpt from Barfarkel's February TR, BJI Issue #63
http://bjinsider.com/newsletter_63.shtml
....
Heading for the Western downtown, I hooked up with The Grifter. After a short session during which I recouped the $50 I had lost earlier at the Plaza, we headed over to another casino where Grif had spotted a dealer who flashes his hole card.
Since The Grifter knew the hole card strategy from Grosjean’s Beyond Counting, I’d angle each hand so he could see them and then he’d signal me the play, while I’d just flat bet quarters at first to see how it went. According to Grosjean, if you use an optimized hole-card playing strategy without any overtly revealing plays, like hitting hard seventeen or higher, or splitting tens against a dealer ten upcard, the edge is 8%-10%, assuming you can see the hole card every time. However, Grif was seeing the hole card maybe two out of three times, so we figured our edge to have been more like 6%-7%. Grif felt that my initial bet-sizing was way too conservative, but hey, I'm risk-averse by nature. Initially I wanted to see how we would do before raising my bets, and I figured I'd have the best of both worlds - high EV and low variance.
At one point I was surprised to see the “split” sign when I wanted to stand on a pair of tens vs. a dealer five. Now understand that in my whole long blackjack career, I had never ever split tens. That is, until today. I had my hand already tucked, but Grif’s agitated body language was adamant that I split them, so I pulled them out and put out another greenie. I got a seven on the first one and a ten on the second. I wanted to stand with my 17 and 20, but again got the “split” signal from Grif plus some subdued verbal urging, challenging me that since I'd already "screwed up the cards" I should continue with my “folly.” The other players were starting to get noticeably agitated as well. I split once more and got paint on both the second and third hands. Now content, I waved off the dealer, but again Grif was insistent that I re-split to a fourth hand. Because I had already given the stand signal the dealer indicated that I could not split again, but Grif verbally challenged me to re-split again as the pit critter approached and told the dealer that I was allowed to split up to four times. Sighing, I did so and wound up with a seventeen on the first hand, and three twenties. The dealer flipped the anticipated ten card in the hole and slapped the table with a seven for a sweet bust to the jubilation of the other players, who had been following this little drama and, getting caught up in it, had even started cheering me on.
I wound up winning $270 at this hour-long session before our flashing dealer rotated back to the roulette table. this was a real first for me – not just splitting tens, but re-splitting them to four hands. Hey, this is fun!
When our flashing dealer ended his stint the table was still filled to capacity, but The Grifter wanted to continue playing anyway, and indicated that I should watch. This table was filled with some of the worst players I’ve ever seen, but Grif had been giving them solid advice. He swung into action when the ploppy at first base picked up hard eleven. The Grifter boldly asserted, "Flip it over - we're going partners on that." He tossed the player the other half of the double down amount as the ploppy replied "Let’s ride!" They won the hand when the dealer busted.
Grif worked the table for the next hour, getting a slew of partner-doubles and splits (including tens), demonstrating what Grosjean calls "scavenger blackjack." More often than not the others he was exploiting would thank him for "sharing the risk." I wandered off to another table for awhile and played solo, breaking even. Returning to The Grifter’s table towards the end of the hour, I watched the master in action as he advised everyone - the life of the party as always, as he took advantage of one of his new "table partners who was declining insurance. The Grifter took the insurance bet and won and when the table partner asked how much he owed Grif he was told by a smiling Grifter, "all of it," whereupon the happless accomplice just shrugged and said, "better you then them because, Dude, your my advisor!" Shortly thereafter Grif colored up another 20 unit win at an otherwise unplayable table by any expert's evaluation - his style and outgoing personality allowing him to get away with things that I and most other counters would never even consider trying.
....
--End excerpt
----------
Hole-carding + Scavenger play
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=847
POSTED BY PERMISSION OF HENRY TAMBURIN,
PUBLISHER OF THE BLACKJACK INSIDER NEWSLETTER
--Excerpt from Barfarkel's February TR, BJI Issue #63
http://bjinsider.com/newsletter_63.shtml
....
Heading for the Western downtown, I hooked up with The Grifter. After a short session during which I recouped the $50 I had lost earlier at the Plaza, we headed over to another casino where Grif had spotted a dealer who flashes his hole card.
Since The Grifter knew the hole card strategy from Grosjean’s Beyond Counting, I’d angle each hand so he could see them and then he’d signal me the play, while I’d just flat bet quarters at first to see how it went. According to Grosjean, if you use an optimized hole-card playing strategy without any overtly revealing plays, like hitting hard seventeen or higher, or splitting tens against a dealer ten upcard, the edge is 8%-10%, assuming you can see the hole card every time. However, Grif was seeing the hole card maybe two out of three times, so we figured our edge to have been more like 6%-7%. Grif felt that my initial bet-sizing was way too conservative, but hey, I'm risk-averse by nature. Initially I wanted to see how we would do before raising my bets, and I figured I'd have the best of both worlds - high EV and low variance.
At one point I was surprised to see the “split” sign when I wanted to stand on a pair of tens vs. a dealer five. Now understand that in my whole long blackjack career, I had never ever split tens. That is, until today. I had my hand already tucked, but Grif’s agitated body language was adamant that I split them, so I pulled them out and put out another greenie. I got a seven on the first one and a ten on the second. I wanted to stand with my 17 and 20, but again got the “split” signal from Grif plus some subdued verbal urging, challenging me that since I'd already "screwed up the cards" I should continue with my “folly.” The other players were starting to get noticeably agitated as well. I split once more and got paint on both the second and third hands. Now content, I waved off the dealer, but again Grif was insistent that I re-split to a fourth hand. Because I had already given the stand signal the dealer indicated that I could not split again, but Grif verbally challenged me to re-split again as the pit critter approached and told the dealer that I was allowed to split up to four times. Sighing, I did so and wound up with a seventeen on the first hand, and three twenties. The dealer flipped the anticipated ten card in the hole and slapped the table with a seven for a sweet bust to the jubilation of the other players, who had been following this little drama and, getting caught up in it, had even started cheering me on.
I wound up winning $270 at this hour-long session before our flashing dealer rotated back to the roulette table. this was a real first for me – not just splitting tens, but re-splitting them to four hands. Hey, this is fun!
When our flashing dealer ended his stint the table was still filled to capacity, but The Grifter wanted to continue playing anyway, and indicated that I should watch. This table was filled with some of the worst players I’ve ever seen, but Grif had been giving them solid advice. He swung into action when the ploppy at first base picked up hard eleven. The Grifter boldly asserted, "Flip it over - we're going partners on that." He tossed the player the other half of the double down amount as the ploppy replied "Let’s ride!" They won the hand when the dealer busted.
Grif worked the table for the next hour, getting a slew of partner-doubles and splits (including tens), demonstrating what Grosjean calls "scavenger blackjack." More often than not the others he was exploiting would thank him for "sharing the risk." I wandered off to another table for awhile and played solo, breaking even. Returning to The Grifter’s table towards the end of the hour, I watched the master in action as he advised everyone - the life of the party as always, as he took advantage of one of his new "table partners who was declining insurance. The Grifter took the insurance bet and won and when the table partner asked how much he owed Grif he was told by a smiling Grifter, "all of it," whereupon the happless accomplice just shrugged and said, "better you then them because, Dude, your my advisor!" Shortly thereafter Grif colored up another 20 unit win at an otherwise unplayable table by any expert's evaluation - his style and outgoing personality allowing him to get away with things that I and most other counters would never even consider trying.
....
--End excerpt