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Playing
Blackjack
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First an interesting note about playing blackjack in a casino; If blackjack is played on luck the dealer (casino) has an advantage of 7% over the players, and so if the players use basic strategy the casino has an advantage of less than 1% but if the players 'count cards' they have an upper hand of 1% over the dealer i.e the casino. Therefore by counting cards the player has a better chance of winning the deal than the dealer. Blackjack is one of the easiest for the player to manipulate in this way. |
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A brief look into the rules and the 'enviroment variables' which define the game; The dealer deals two cards to the player both face up and for the dealer two cards one face down. Faces and tens have a value of 10, aces 1 or 11 and the rest as is. The player asks for hits and stands when his total is as close to 21 as possible, then the dealer hits his cards. Over 21 is a bust and is a lose, winner is the set of cards closest to 21. An ace and a 10 is a blackjack and results in a win of one and one-half instead of a one to one normal win. If both dealer and player have a black jack or the same total it is a push (a draw). |
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| There are variants to the game which affect the player's advantage, significantly being the number of decks used to draw the cards. 2,4,6 or 8 decks can be used, the less the number of decks the better the player's advantage. 2 decks are used in Las Vegas, 4 decks in Antlantic City and 6 or 8 applied to other locations with 6 being the standard. Considering a 6 deck draw there are 56 cards per deck, of these 4 Aces, 16 faces and tens and 4 of each number from 2 to 9, multiplying by 6 we have 24 Aces, 84 faces and tens and 24 of each number 2 to 9, the total number of cards being 56x6=336. The advantage the player gains by counting is due to the fact that dealt cards expire leaving the rest in the 'shoe' (from where the cards are dealt) and so keeping track of the expired cards gives the player an edge. Eg the probablity of dealing an ace is 24/336, but the simple probability of dealing another ace after the first has expired and two more cards are dealth is (24-1)/(336-1-2)=23/333. The bottom part of the fraction changes as is seen next in the Blackjack Tool. |
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