huh ? 15% ?Originally Posted by bigplayer
That's not talking about 16 v 10, but about the concept of playing something differently in order to preserve a round (or kill a round). It's best not to play differently unless you know the cost of the play change, quite often it might be as much as the edge you're trying to preserve. If you're right near the index then you're probably talking about 10th's of a percent swing in advantage either way and in that case to preserve a round with a 2% adv is fine. I guess my point is that a player should not be just willy nilly applying the concepts of card-eating without a full understanding of how much he's giving up on the current play to preserve (or kill) the next play.
I hope you're referring to no surrender games. Surrender should always be the first priority. Of course anyone should hit 16v7 as the true count will rarely be that high to surrender 16v7, but for v8/9 one will look to surrender. Nonetheless, your argument with 16v10 is flawed. Yes the books might floor it to 0, but to say they should ALWAYS hit just because they lost the count makes no sense to me. What if they lost the count and the count is +1 or higher which can easily happen. To your point on always hitting a 16, the count will on average be 0 or less, so I can see where you're coming from if you lost the count, but it's still a flawed argument just because on avg it will be less than 0. But as Norm said, this is a losing play, pick the best way to lose, and the best way to lose is surrender.
If you can't surrender and you lose the count, I would say pick ONE way of playing it and consistently do it throughout your whole career, because the pit and surveillance will look for how you play your 16s based on the count and any change in play will be a red flag. So for me ALWAYS standing on 16 is my way of playing it, because big money is wagered in the + counts, so it will be easy to stay consistent with standing and also the correct play at the time with big money on the felt. If it goes negative, you simply stay consistent by standing and because it's a negative situation you will most likely have your minimum bet or close to your minimum bet at the time even if it was around +1 before the round started, so even though it will be the wrong play, you wont be losing much. Let's also remember that the 16v10 is as close to a 50/50 as it gets when it comes to a hit/stand matchup, but longevity should not be underestimated, which is why I advocate to pick a way to play that hand and stay consistent for as long as you play. For me, as well any other player in my opinion, if you're going to pick one way of playing that hand forever, it should obviously be SURRENDER ALL 16sv10, but if you cant surrender, STAND ON ALL 16s and yes that applies to 3+ card 16's as well.
Last edited by ZenKinG; 09-05-2015 at 04:13 PM.
Versus 10 I can't think of a more incorrect statement. It might be correct for a non-counter, but for a counter there are many many more reasons why you would want to always stand on 16 vs 10. The biggest one is the fact that you're not flat betting and standing is the correct play when you got more than your minimum bet on the table. The second biggest reason to always play this the same way (standing) is that it's one of a small handful of plays that the casinos use to decide whether your play deserves further scrutiny (or a skills check). Finally, you don't have to always stand or always hit, you can just adjust your index to something lower where you stand almost all of the time but in those situations where the count is exceedingly negative and you're not able to exit the game you can hit. For example, if you change your index from 0 to -3 you would wind up standing about 90% of the time and when you hit with that minimum bet out you'd at least be getting some small amount of value for the attempt.
Short of that, if you're counting cards and varying your bet with the count you should "almost" always stand on 16 vs 10. (or surrender). If you're not counting (i.e., completely obvious to the deck composition), I'd just play basic strategy and always hit. Obviously there is more value playing the other hands correctly on a per-play basis even though each of the other 16 vs 7,8,9, Ace plays come up far less frequently than 16 vs 10 so I'd just play those exactly as the index calls for. (not to mention, casinos don't look at those other plays at all for making an initial decision about a players "sharpness". Bill Zender has a short list in Casino-ology of plays casinos should use to make the an early decision about whether a player needs further scrutiny. (16v10, 12v4, A7vs10, A8v6, 9v2, Insurance/Even Money)
Yes, I was referring to the situation that surrender is not available. Or you have to make a hit/stand decision on 16 v 10 after you took a few cards already. Also to reply to Norm, 16 v 10 is almost a flip-coin situation. But it happens so often, even a tiny advantage will go a long way in the long run. You should know better, if you write the simulation programs yourself, not hiring some people.
Agree wholeheartedly with Bigplayer. Yes, it happens often. That's why it matters to anyone watching your play. And, stand is what you are supposed to do when you have serious money at risk.
Last edited by Norm; 09-05-2015 at 05:34 PM.
"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
BJGenius007,
Wow! You had the temerity to patronize Norm Wattenberger by saying:
"You should know better, if you write the simulation programs yourself."
Wow, you must really think that you are a BJ Genius. Grandiosity running amok.
it is always funny to me that supposed basic strategy ploppies choose 16 v 10 as the hill to die on. you'll get big glares from them if you stand, but try to get them to hit a a7 v a 10 or split 3s against a 7 and you're the one who is insane.
One of many things I have learned from my friendship with a long-time pit guy, is the importance of standing 16 vs 10. My friend shared with me a very short list of 5 things, very similar to Zender's list and I am sure that is no coincidence, that he looks for. By themselves they don't identify a counter, but they are things that indicate they might want to take a closer look. Playing 16 vs 10 differently is at the very top of this list and because this is such a common hand, it is very easy to spot when a player plays the hand differently.
Standing on all 16 vs 10's is one of the things known as 'card counter basic strategy'. Flash laid out the reasoning for most of the counter basic strategy plays and that is that you will be playing the hand incorrectly only on negative counts (sometimes neutral) when your small bet is out, but will be playing the hand correctly, on positive counts when your bigger bets are out. On top of that if you are a player that aggressively wongs out of negative counts, as I am, then you are playing incorrectly an even less. This means the cost is very small and for that small cost you have eliminated one of the biggest 'tells' on one of the most common hands.
Edit: I am going to credit 'card counter basic strategy' to Snyder, because I read about it on his site, although it could very well be that others came up with it, or similar before him.
Last edited by KJ; 09-05-2015 at 07:07 PM.
I am not only a BJ genius, but also a programming genius. At work, other programmers read my source codes like Bible. Someone said it is like art.
I know Norm is a successful business, but I don't know who wrote his programs. He might hire other geniuses and just trust them. I myself did write a program to pinpoint the cut-off on 16 v 10. For Hi-Lo, it is about 0.75.
Last edited by BJGenius007; 09-05-2015 at 07:11 PM.
Nothing like having good ol' surrender for those pesky 16vT's. This hand sucks! -.53 off the top of the deck hit or stand, so you're pretty much doomed no matter how you slice it with it only being a matter of trying to lessen the pain. In a high count with 16vsT and no surrender you should stand, so for instance if you were wonging in at +2 you would always stand on 16vsT... and thoroughly piss off everyone at the table when by doing that you "upset the sacred flow of the cards"!Hahahaha As it turns out, I've pissed off a lot of people along the way. There are a few differences when playing high stakes NMSE without LS depending upon where you're playing that I won't bother going into but no matter what you are screwed when you get this hand! The difference in actual EV between hitting and standing is not all that remarkable, that is to say that if you hit instead of standing at +4 the difference is about 5.3% in EV. If you feel you need to "cover play" and always hit or always stand it will cost you but if you look at how the numbers behave, the loss doesn't seem to have all that huge of an impact (on paper). On paper is not real life where you groan as you get the dreaded 16vsT with no LS, though.
Here's an interesting "cover play" story for you. There is such a thing as a deck composition with this hand (in which there's a large surplus of {6-9} in the remainder) that using Hi-Lo the count would appear to be -2 but the correct decision is to stand, according to perfect play. You are making the correct playing decision but would look foolish to anyone watching closely to see if you are hitting or standing according to the count, not that this truly means all that much, it doesn't. It's so close in EV that it actually makes little difference.
Last edited by Tarzan; 09-05-2015 at 11:00 PM.
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