one or more hands?!

**Three** · 02-02-2015, 11:26 AM

Originally Posted by hitthat16

When heads up, however, it is best to just play one hand. The goal then is to get as many rounds of positive hands in as possible.

This is true at the optimal bet of 2x73% of your single spot bet but usually the practical bet is 75% of the single spot bet.

If we assume the dealer and each player hand use the same number of cards on average they are exactly the same.

You get 1 unit bet and use up 2*X cards where X is the average cards used by each spot and the dealer individually. 1/2 unit bet for each X cards played.

You get 1.5 units bet @ 2x.75 units which is a total of 1.5 units and use 3*X cards on average. So you get 1/2 unit bet for each X cards played just like with one spot.

There are 2 differences that need to be noted.
1) Covariance when playing 2 hands.
2) the dealer will use a fraction fewer cards each round on average heads up due to not finishing hands that you busted out on or got a BJ but in 2 spots you need to bust out or get a BJ on both spots for this to occur. I think it averages about a 5th of a card per round difference on average between playing one spot or 2.

**hitthat16** · 02-02-2015, 11:37 AM

Originally Posted by moses

Why? What is the guarantee your two cards will be any better than the dealers? In a high positive deck, you would be absorbing more large cards with multiple hands.

Who said there was any guarantee. Of course we don't know the order of the remaining cards, just that they are favorable.

Each individual hand, including tve dealer's, uses 2.7 cards on average. The idea is to get as much money on the table as possible during positive situations. This has been analyzed and on average you will get more money out there with one hand heads up, and two hands of there are other players.

And yes, obviously we have to take co variance of multiple hands into account, as well as any possible heat. Lately I have been sticking to one hand. Sometimes though if I'm getting clobbered in a positive count, I'll recite some common ploppy logic. "Ok. I need to change things up here. I'm gonna try two hands."