Is peek equivalent to ENHC OBO?

[NotEnoughHeat]

Most of you are probably more familiar playing blackjack with a hole card, and immediately losing the hand if the dealer's peek reveals a blackjack but are also aware of blackjack games that do not deal a hole card (European No Hole Card). I am fortunate enough that the only two casinos in my city have ENHC while you lose the Original Bet Only (OBO) on a dealer blackjack. A lot of house edge and basic strategy calculators assume dealer blackjack wins all.

I've always assumed that in terms of edge and playing strategy that the real difference between blackjack with a holecard and ENHC is whether or not is OBO. If the dealer peeks and reveals and blackjack, you immediately lose without the opportunity to double or split. If the dealer deals his second card after the players receive their cards, then losing only the original bets (and not the double or split bets) appears to have the same affect.

So I have a few questions:

1. If a ENHC game had surrender, would this be equivalent to late surrender in a game with a hole card?

2. Is there any relevant difference between a game with a hole card and ENHC with OBO to a counter/blackjack advantage players?
The only thing I can think of when it comes to counting is that with a hole card and peek, since the players immediately lose, less cards are eaten compared to ENHC where the player would hit and split before losing.
So good counts may last more rounds due to less cards being eaten up (at all counts).
Also, it should be quite obvious that hole carding isn't possible in a ENHC game.

Please reply any other answers to the question. Also lets use this thread to discuss other issues surrounding hole cards/peek/ENHC/OBO that I haven't explicitly mentioned.

[bjarg]

ENHC assumes that BJ takes all.
A no hole card game with obo is equivalent to a hole card game (all things equal).
If a NHC game has surrender it's usually early surrender.
The most common form of this is ES10, where you can surrender against everything except a dealers ace.
However, I know a couple of places where LS is in place with NHC.
What they do is leave the players bet in the table after surrendering.
If the dealer makes a bj they will take the full bet, if they dont they will take half.

[Freightman]

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Most of you are probably more familiar playing blackjack with a hole card, and immediately losing the hand if the dealer's peek reveals a blackjack but are also aware of blackjack games that do not deal a hole card (European No Hole Card). I am fortunate enough that the only two casinos in my city have ENHC while you lose the Original Bet Only (OBO) on a dealer blackjack. A lot of house edge and basic strategy calculators assume dealer blackjack wins all.

I've always assumed that in terms of edge and playing strategy that the real difference between blackjack with a holecard and ENHC is whether or not is OBO. If the dealer peeks and reveals and blackjack, you immediately lose without the opportunity to double or split. If the dealer deals his second card after the players receive their cards, then losing only the original bets (and not the double or split bets) appears to have the same affect.

So I have a few questions:

1. If a ENHC game had surrender, would this be equivalent to late surrender in a game with a hole card?

2. Is there any relevant difference between a game with a hole card and ENHC with OBO to a counter/blackjack advantage players?
The only thing I can think of when it comes to counting is that with a hole card and peek, since the players immediately lose, less cards are eaten compared to ENHC where the player would hit and split before losing.
So good counts may last more rounds due to less cards being eaten up (at all counts).
Also, it should be quite obvious that hole carding isn't possible in a ENHC game.

Please reply any other answers to the question. Also lets use this thread to discuss other issues surrounding hole cards/peek/ENHC/OBO that I haven't explicitly mentioned.

True ENHC means losing all bets, so, losing original bets only is a variant, and not true ENHC. Surrender in this game would be ES10 only, which is actually a nicety. Please note that surrender indices against ES10 are slightly different than late surrender.There is a significant difference between true ENHC and hole card, but very minimal, neglible difference between hole card and OBO you are describing. You are correct about the card eating aspect you described. If you have a choice between these 2 no hole card games, then clearly the OBO game is superior. The other important issue between these 2 no hole card games is to understand the different indices that apply. For example, in true ENHC, you would not double 11v10, 11vA,10V10. In no surrender games, you would not split 88V10 or A.

[NotEnoughHeat]

Ah, forgive my misuse of terminology. I didn't know what other acronym to use for no hold card in general (I guess NHC is the proper term). Assume any of my uses of ENHC in the original post refer to no-hole-card only.

I'm not too familiar with surrender in general, but from my understanding early surrender is the option to surrender before the dealer peeks and late is just the only the option to do so after. So I was curious to learn how surrender would be applied to NHC. I suppose ES10 is better than LS with NHC (ES is better than LS in any case) since you can also surrender against a 10, whereas the LS would have you still lose your whole bet if the dealer made a BJ with a 10 showing in addition to the BJ's with an ace showing.

Thanks for the responses guys.

[Freightman]

There is Early surrender where you get to surrender against ace or ten showing, and ES10 whereby you can surrender against dealer 10 only. Since there is no hole card, there is no peek. With ES10, there is no surrender against Ace. Trust that clarifies.

[NotEnoughHeat]

It does. I haven't played at a location that offers surrender yet, but it's an interesting rule that is good to know the variations of. Have you ever heard of or encountered a NHC with ES that allows you to surrender against any dealer card? or do the variations of surrender you've already mentioned include this (with whether or not you get to surrender versus the ten and/or ace being the differences)? I'd imagine it would have little, if any, use to a counter beyond what he already receives from ES against aces and tens only. However, allowing surrender in many more cases allows players to make more bad surrender plays while not restricting the game. I would think that if a casino would be inclined to offer early surrender in the first place, they would allow it against any card not including the ten or ace.

[Freightman]

Your terminology, and thus your understanding is flawed. Some low stakes play will help season you. Insurance against Ace should only be taken when Conditions warrant, I.e. At a TC where it is profitable to do so. Insurance against Dealer 10, if allowed anywhere, would be a complete no no. Since there is no possibility of dealer bj against any non face/ace, insurance is moot.

[NotEnoughHeat]

Your terminology, and thus your understanding is flawed. Some low stakes play will help season you. Insurance against Ace should only be taken when Conditions warrant, I.e. At a TC where it is profitable to do so. Insurance against Dealer 10, if allowed anywhere, would be a complete no no. Since there is no possibility of dealer bj against any non face/ace, insurance is moot.

I don't think so. I already have a fair bit of experience at low stakes play. I accidentally wrote 'insurance' instead of 'surrender' in the last sentence (now edited). What I said had nothing to do with insurance. I'm a bit flustered that you were so quick to assume that I didn't understand insurance, however it's understandable since I actually did write insurance for whatever reason (even though the rest of the post had nothing to do with insurance).

Also, taking insurance against a 10, assuming you find a rare game that has this, is a playable option. If they were to offer it, you would reasonably think they would pay you more than 2:1, perhaps 10:1 like what was mentioned in a different thread. You would do best by side counting aces rather than relying on a ace-reckoned count.

And of course, I obviously know that the dealer can't receive a blackjack off a non-ten/ace. I don't think after pointing out the issue (accidentally typing the wrong word, but not intending to use it) I should have to explain myself any further. My understand is fine and while experience can only help me, I don't need any additional play to understand one of the basic mechanics of the game.

Excuse me if I sound a bit defensive.

[Freightman]

No worries - I made an assumption based on your typo. One thing I would suggest is to learn the game cold before evaluating oddities. Good luck.

[NotEnoughHeat]

One thing I would suggest is to learn the game cold before evaluating oddities. Good luck.

Fair enough. The oddities don't have much practical use to me most of the time but I enjoy considering them, even if my interest is academic only.
Good luck to you as well!

[bjarg]

Early surrender is not exclusive of no hole card games.
Full ES (player can surrender against ace) games still exist.
Of course, their location are very well protected secrets.

[Dieter]

Peek will (possibly) have fewer cards dealt in a round with a dealer natural.

Peek should have slightly more hands per hour than an OBO game - particularly if they peek both tens and aces.

Peek introduces some opportunities for dealer peeking mistakes.

OBO may not offer insurance. Peek almost always seems to.

[Meistro123]

I'd prefer to play a game where the dealer doesn't take a hole card but takes only the original bet in the case of a blackjack after splits or doubles. This way if I surrender or get a blackjack in a high count we'll use up only three cards, not four.