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November 19, 2000
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[ Click here to Ask the Wizard of Odds a question ]
Love your site. I've even taken your blackjack data
and made it into a full-color pocket-sized page that I carry
in my briefcase for those unexpected trips to Vegas. I've
memorized and follow your rules and generally do well (but
of course there are times when I lose.) Two questions, you
said in a previous answer that you don't cap your winnings.
How do you determine when to stop? When have you "won
enough" so you avoid regression toward the mean and lose it
back? Second question, does the number of hits one takes
effect the outcome? For example, if I have five cards that
total 15 against a dealer's 10, am I pressing my luck by
taking a sixth card? In other words, are the odds of busting
on a 5-card 15 the same as busting on a 2-card 15? ñ
Chris from Gaithersburg, USA
Thank for the compliment and I'm happy to help
your bankroll last longer. When I gamble for fun I keep
playing until it isn't fun any longer. Usually the fun
ends when I have lost too much or have played too long.
With the ups and downs of blackjack it takes hundreds of
hours before regression toward the mean will cause actual
results to look like expected results. Furthermore the
player who puts a conservative cap on their winnings is
never going to experience the fun of a long hot winning
streak. Keep in mind this is just what works for me. You
should do what you are comfortable with. Everything I
have to say about money management can be summarized by
the following two rules (1) don't gamble with money you
can't afford to lose, and (2) don't gamble if it isn't
fun.
Regarding your second question there is something to
be said about the composition of a hand. The fewer the
decks the more this is true. My blackjack appendix
3A and appendix
3B show the exceptions to single and double deck
blackjack based on the composition of the hand. These
appendices show that the more cards that are in your hand
the more inclined you should be to stand. Regarding your
15 against a 10 example there are two situations in
single deck blackjack where you should stand when the 15
is composed of 5 cards, A+A+A+6+6 and A+A+3+5+5. Note
that in both of these situations either two fives or two
sixes have left the deck which are the two most helpful
cards for the player. The two situations where you should
be the most inclined to stand if you have a multiple card
hand are 16 against a 10 and a 12 against a 3.
I just got to your site and like it a lot. Is there a
table for hits and splits when playing European blackjack?
It seems like there should be some remedy for the house
taking all the doubles and splits on blackjack. ñ Jim of Widdleton, Wisconsin
Since you asked I added a blackjack strategy for
European
blackjack to my site. I also discussed this topic in
one of my recent newsletters.
When playing online blackjack, how do you tell when
the deck is shuffled? I play Microgaming casinos (which you
report as using 1 deck), but I do not know if each time I
play if it is a new deck, and there are no signs of knowing
when the deck is shuffled. ñ Brian of State College,
USA
Most online casinos shuffle after every hand.
Others shuffle at random times but do not indicate
exactly when to the player. I have noticed Microgaming
casinos flash the word "shuffling" about one hand in
four. However if you track the cards between these
announcements you will sometimes see the same card twice,
which is impossible in a single deck game, assuming you
believe them about when they shuffle. As far as I know
they actually shuffle after every hand but for reasons I
do not understand only indicate a shuffle occasionally.
If I remember correctly Cryptologic casinos do indeed
indicate when they are shuffling their eight deck shoe.
Is there a way of combining bets in roulette to
maximize one's odds? For example, a dozen bet pays out 2 to
1. If I place two dozen bets, say the first and second set
of 12, I have a 63.16% chance of having it pay off. These
are better odds then a simple red/black, even/odd, or
high/low bet. Although I really only gain 1 to 1 rather than
2 to 1(if I win, since part of my bet has to lose since the
winning number cannot be in both the first and second set of
twelves), the odds have been slightly shifted in my favor by
combining two bets. Have the odds on these sorts of
combinations been determined? If they have been, where might
I be able to find them? K from USA
As long as you stay away from the 0-00-1-2-3
combination the house edge on any combination of bets is
always exactly 1/19, or 5.26%. There are ways to increase
your probability of winning but at the cost of winning
less relative to your total wager.
In a six deck shoe what is the percentage of times
that a blackjack (ace face card or ten)will come up?
ñ Ed of Lynnwood, USA
Let n be the number of decks. The probability of
a blackjack is 2*(4/13)*(4n/(52*n-1)). If n=6 the
probability is 192/4043 = 4.75%.
Enjoy your site more than any other gambling site. I
am curious about how realistic the randomness of your Java
baccarat game is. I've played it for many hours and have
been using a strategy that appears to win every time now. I
am fearful to try my strategy at a casino though, because
I'm unsure of how random your game is. The strategy is to
begin with a $5 bet on Banker and with each loss bet one
more unit and with every win subtract one more unit. I've
only been down about $300 at the most, but usually will get
to $1,100 or $1,500 within about 200 hands. What are your
thoughts? ñ Michael of Fort Worth,
Texas
My Java games are based on the random number
generator that comes with Visual J++. For personal play
it should be quite fair. I speculate that any bias would
only show up over millions of hands. Your results are not
the result of a biased random number generator but of
both luck and a progressive betting system.
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