Blackjack strategy help!?

[Josh2143]

Hello, I've recently started playing blackjack more serious, so i looked up strategies, however the one i looked at (and tried out) seems to me that they would be unsuccessful, for example, if the dealer has a 4-6 and I have a hard hand with the total of 12 im told to stick, however it seems to me that there would be more chance of me winning that kind if hand if I hit?, when I tried that hand I lost it instantly, alsi i trued this with 2 decks dealer won 15 I won 2, when I just played my way I won 5 dealer won 10

[Shoofly]

There are many questions to try to answer when learning BJ. One of the few absolutes is basic strategy. Don't try to figure it out. Just learn it and trust it. Apply your energies to other areas.

[Dieter]

If you bust before the dealer busts, the house wins.
If you stick on 12 and the dealer busts, you win.

There is more than one variant of basic strategy. Find the appropriate basic strategy for the table rules you play, learn it and follow it. There are differences for H17/S17, number of decks, and DAS/nDAS.

[Josh2143]

I know what you mean however I may have picked an ineffective strategy, I can only practice some more but i keep the strategy table by me while playing and it seems ive lost more than usual using this, and maybe if I had abit more insight of how they came across sticking on a 12 against 4-6 id have abit more faith in the method,

[Josh2143]

Thats one way to put it, but I have not learned counting cards yet and dont plan on making serious bets till I do, my example would be if the dealer has a 6 the next card if it anything over a 7 will beat me, if he gets a 6 it would be a push and a 10 he would hit again with certainty of not going bust, in which then anything iver 3 would be a loss and a 2 would be push, ace would be 21

[Josh2143]

Thinking about it really if he has a 6 and I have a 12, im from the UK so the casino does not get very busy until really late so assuming its just me and the dealer the dealer would always win that hand or atleast be a push, maybe the strategy depends on other peoplebeing at the table too?

[Josh2143]

You cannot bust until your hand reaches atleast 12 is my point

[Skull]

Hey!

If you want to know exactly how much you are supposed to win or lose in every situation, get Blackjack Attack III and check out Appendix A.
For 2 decks S17, for instance, when you have the dealer showing a 6 and you have, say, 7,5, your E.V. (expected value or how much of your bet you are "supposed" to win) is:

-0.147796 for Stand
-0.174154 for Hit

This means that it is a losing proposition altogether, but you lose less by standing (around 2.6% less).

What you need to have in mind though, is that E.V. only realizes itself in the long run, i.e., if you are allowed to repeat thousands or millions of times this exact same situation, that's the best estimate of the amount you will have lost on average.

If you flip a coin 17 times (like in your example), you expect to get around 8 tails and 9 heads, but in reality, you may just as easily get 15 heads and 2 tails. Well, not just as easily, but there is a non-negligible probability that it might happen, just as there is a non-negligible probability that you will lose 15 out 17 times when facing a 6 with a total of 12.

If you want to further understand the Math behind it, get The Theory of Blackjack, otherwise, just do as Shoofly advised and trust the Math. You are in good hands.

(of course, if you don't trust the source of the strategy you got, again, buy BJAIII and you will have the most trustworthy ones)

I hope that helped.

Best!

[Bodarc]

Hi Josh2143

Go to this link and look your hand up. With your 12 v dealer 16, the loss on standing is -.153 and the loss for hitting is -.173 so you will lose less if you stand than you lose if you hit. All strategy is not to determine what you win. Some are to take the smaller of two losses.

Anything can happen on one hand or one day so what you observe is not the way to build a strategy. It is based on simulations of millions of hands dealt by a computer.

http://wizardofodds.com/games/blackj...dix/9/6ds17r4/

[Three]

if I had abit more insight of how they came across sticking on a 12 against 4-6 id have abit more faith in the method,

They run a simulation of millions of hands for the hand or use combinatorial analysis. In the short term anything can happen but if you get enough repetitions of the situation your results will approach expectation. As a player you will probably never reach the long run but the more you play the closer your results should be to the long run. That is because even if you start with a bizarrely biased result the more total hands in the sample the less the affect of the weird run has on the whole. With a standing EV of -0.147796 you should win about 7.25 hands out of 17. You infinitesimal sample has you winning 2. That difference of 5.25 seems large compared to a sample of 17 because your sample size is insignificant. If you had played 17,000,000 hands and should have won 7,250,000 but only won 7,249,994 you probably be amazed how close to expectation you came because those 5 or 6 hands were huge in a 17 hand sample but tiny in a 17,000,000 hand sample. That is how they determined the BS. They ran exhaustive simulation until the standard error was insignificant for the sample size.

[muffdiver]

I've always found it amusing the number of ploppies that double down twelves. Casinos love them.

[Pierce]

They run a simulation of millions of hands for the hand or use combinatorial analysis. In the short term anything can happen but if you get enough repetitions of the situation your results will approach expectation. As a player you will probably never reach the long run but the more you play the closer your results should be to the long run. That is because even if you start with a bizarrely biased result the more total hands in the sample the less the affect of the weird run has on the whole. With a standing EV of -0.147796 you should win about 7.25 hands out of 17. You infinitesimal sample has you winning 2. That difference of 5.25 seems large compared to a sample of 17 because your sample size is insignificant. If you had played 17,000,000 hands and should have won 7,250,000 but only won 7,249,994 you probably be amazed how close to expectation you came because those 5 or 6 hands were huge in a 17 hand sample but tiny in a 17,000,000 hand sample. That is how they determined the BS. They ran exhaustive simulation until the standard error was insignificant for the sample size.

= Its better to stand.

[Dieter]

I have not learned counting cards yet and dont plan on making serious bets till I do

That's well and good, but... what are the table rules? How many packs in the deck? Dealer hits soft 17, or dealer stands on soft 17? Double after split allowed? You said UK; are you facing a no-hole-card deal? Do you lose all bets to a dealer natural, or lose original bets only? Ties push, or ties lose?

When do they shuffle?

The answers to these questions inform which basic strategy applies, and if it's worth playing.