Hi everyone,
I am a beginner in blackjack and i bought "professional blackjack" from Stanford Wong and i just learned the basic strategy tables but something appears to me very odd, for instance why should i stand if i have a hard 12 and the dealer has a 4 ? (intuitively i would rather hit...)
Hope i made myself clear (i am french)
Bye
Jean
Basic Strategy is the best way to play the hands if all you know is your two cards and the dealer's upcard. The 12 vs 4 decision is a close one and if you are counting it is best to hit if the count is negative. It is important to thoroughly learn Basic Strategy before learning strategy variations based on the count.
I dont think thats a good answer for the OP Flash.Originally Posted by ZenMaster_Flash
Independantly of the 12v4 thing, what he needs to understand is that second guessing basic strategy on account of "intuition" is not a smart thing to do.
JEAN, if you are serious about playing blackjack you should start by erasing the word intuition from your dictionary.
Theres no room for that when playing this game.
If you keep reading and studying Im sure you are going to realize why.
Cher Jean,
Si vous tirez avec 12 v 4, vous perdez un peu plus de 21 pour cent de vos mises. Si vous tenez, vous perdez, dans l'ensemble, un petit peu moins de 21 pour cent. Donc, vous ne tirez pas !
Toutes les decisions de la strategie de base se chiffrent ainsi. Il ne s'agit donc pas d'intuition. Vous faites le jeu qui vous remporte le plus ou qui perd le moins, selon les maths.
Un point, c'est tout !
Don
TRANSLATION ~ furnished by Google/translate:
If you shoot with 12 v 4, you lose a little more than 21 percent of your bets. If you hold, you lose on the whole, a little less than 21 percent. So you do not shoot!
All decisions of the basic strategy and totaled. It is therefore not intuition. You make the game that wins you over or loses less, depending on the math.
A point, that's all!
Not trying to pick on anybody because I envy the multilingual but it makes more sense than many posts. It is funny, those to whom English is a second language and apologize for their English usually have nothing to apologize for especially compared to those that make no apology or many Americans to whom English is their primary language. To the OP your English was great. If you are playing basic strategy you can count the cards up on the table for this near coin flip type decisions. If there are more face cards than 5, 6, 7, and 9 combined visible on the table then you should hit.
as bjarg said, any intuition that we have concerning a play is always flawed. that's why basic strategy and the indices were generated through billions of simulations and not through formulas and equations. just too many variables (which are all dependent on the other variables) to calculate.
big dog in charge
Regarding anyone and everyone providing "explanations" for why Basic Strategy says to do something, and in answer to OP's question, I quote the venerable Grosjean:
Jean, si vous avez besoin que je traduise ce message en Français, je peux le faire via conversation privée. Par contre, vous êtes au moment dans un forum de discussion qui se conduit en Anglais, donc j'utiliserai cette langue dans mes messages en public.Many beginners want to “understand” basic strategy. They ask questions that start with the word "why".In the search for basic strategy, they want to impose reason and structure to what is, at the end of the day, a numbers question. It does not “make sense” to hit a 12 v. 3, as opposed to standing, beyond the fact that the former option produces a higher expected return than the latter (in the absence of additional information, of course). A player could ask me four different questions: “Why do we hit 14 against a Ten?” “Why do we double A7 against a 6?” “Why do we stand on 99 against a 7?” “Why do we split 99 against a 9?” My answer would always be the same: “Because that play produces a higher expectation than any other option.”
[...]
In any case, this discussion is making me uneasy. I believe that basic strategy is something more to be memorized than “understood.” There’s nothing to understand! In “explaining” basic strategy, the sassy player Eva K. once said, “It is what it is.” Bingo.
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