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Thread: Is the Wizard of Odds Wrong?

  1. #1


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    Is the Wizard of Odds Wrong?

    Either the wizard's math is wrong, or I'm making a mistake somewhere in calculating this:

    Basic strategy for a game with the 6 card charlie rule in effect.

    Here is the wizard's strategy:
    https://wizardofodds.com/games/black...ategy/charlie/

    So lets look at an example
    He says to hit a five card 17 v 2, but there are no numbers to explain his calculations

    S17 8 deck, The EV of STANDING on, for example, 17 (2,3,4,5,3) v 2 is -0.151863

    Hand calculator
    https://wizardofodds.com/games/black...nd-calculator/

    Now if we calculate the EV of hitting this hand (any no bust is an auto win) we get:
    11(outs)÷46(cards remaining)= 0.239
    subtract 0.761= -0.522

    How is going for the 6 card charlie better than standing in this example?

    Im finding that almost all the examples of hitting 17 are wrong, and hitting 16 v 2-6 is always wrong

    What am i missing? I'm hoping im miscalculating this somehow, but dont think that i am...

  2. #2


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    well ur math is wrong for one thing. we have a 4:9 chance of making our hand so it is more like 30.7%. looks like you are using single deck EOR for some reason.


    still if the dealer busts with a two 35% of the time then it seems it would be better to just stay. plus we could push.
    Last edited by Meistro123; 01-14-2018 at 05:10 AM.

  3. #3


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    In eight decks, the standing e.v. is -.1519 for the sample hand that was presented. If you hit, you have exactly 0.30 chance of making the hand and winning one unit, so that means you bust 0.70 of the time. Net is -0.40. So, unless I'm missing something also, standing is clearly better. FWIW, in his Basic Blackjack, Wong also gives standing, so something seems to be wrong with Mike's chart.

    I will write to him.

    Don

  4. #4


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    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    In eight decks, the standing e.v. is -.1519 for the sample hand that was presented. If you hit, you have exactly 0.30 chance of making the hand and winning one unit, so that means you bust 0.70 of the time. Net is -0.40. So, unless I'm missing something also, standing is clearly better. FWIW, in his Basic Blackjack, Wong also gives standing, so something seems to be wrong with Mike's chart.

    I will write to him.

    Don
    I was using single deck for the hit, i may have mixed that with 8 deck to get the -0.1519, oops, but either way most of his plays on the chart seem wrong

  5. #5


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    I wrote to Mike. Here is our correspondence:

    Mike,

    One of the members of Norm's forum questioned the accuracy of your chart for 5- and 6-card Charlies, which can be found here:

    https://wizardofodds.com/games/black...ategy/charlie/

    Specifically, he said that it made no sense to him that, for a six-card Charlie, which would be an automatic winner of one bet, you would hit 17 vs. 2 (and several other plays). I verified in Wong's charts that, in fact, this was not a hit, but the math is rather simple to see. I posted the following to the forum:

    In eight decks, the standing e.v. is -.1519 for the sample hand that was presented [Don: it was a five-card 17 of 2,3,4,5,3 vs. 2]. If you hit, you have exactly 0.30 chance of making the hand and winning one unit, so that means you bust 0.70 of the time. Net is -0.40. So, unless I'm missing something also, standing is clearly better. FWIW, in his Basic Blackjack, Wong also gives standing, so something seems to be wrong with Mike's chart.

    I will write to him.

    Any thoughts?

    Don

    Hi Don,

    You make a good argument there. I made that page years ago so can’t easily bring up the background numbers behind it. I will remove for now given it obviously is flawed.

    Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

    Mike

    Mike,


    I have one more thought. For the hand in question, there is obviously a big difference between a 5-card and 6-card Charlie, as the former pays double. But you have only one footnote, as if hitting 17 vs. 2 were right for both Charlies. In fact, if you do the math, and Wong seems to agree (Table 22, Basic Blackjack), it's right to hit for the 5-card, but not the 6-card, Charlie.



    You had separate charts for splitting but not for hitting and standing, so maybe you needed to distinguish between the two for that also.


    Don




  6. #6


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    Quote Originally Posted by DSchles View Post
    I wrote to Mike. Here is our correspondence:

    Mike,

    One of the members of Norm's forum questioned the accuracy of your chart for 5- and 6-card Charlies, which can be found here:

    https://wizardofodds.com/games/black...ategy/charlie/

    Specifically, he said that it made no sense to him that, for a six-card Charlie, which would be an automatic winner of one bet, you would hit 17 vs. 2 (and several other plays). I verified in Wong's charts that, in fact, this was not a hit, but the math is rather simple to see. I posted the following to the forum:

    In eight decks, the standing e.v. is -.1519 for the sample hand that was presented [Don: it was a five-card 17 of 2,3,4,5,3 vs. 2]. If you hit, you have exactly 0.30 chance of making the hand and winning one unit, so that means you bust 0.70 of the time. Net is -0.40. So, unless I'm missing something also, standing is clearly better. FWIW, in his Basic Blackjack, Wong also gives standing, so something seems to be wrong with Mike's chart.

    I will write to him.

    Any thoughts?

    Don

    Hi Don,

    You make a good argument there. I made that page years ago so can’t easily bring up the background numbers behind it. I will remove for now given it obviously is flawed.

    Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

    Mike

    Mike,


    I have one more thought. For the hand in question, there is obviously a big difference between a 5-card and 6-card Charlie, as the former pays double. But you have only one footnote, as if hitting 17 vs. 2 were right for both Charlies. In fact, if you do the math, and Wong seems to agree (Table 22, Basic Blackjack), it's right to hit for the 5-card, but not the 6-card, Charlie.



    You had separate charts for splitting but not for hitting and standing, so maybe you needed to distinguish between the two for that also.


    Don



    Awesome. (The game i play has 6 card charlie and is single deck) this is very important strategy i need to know, but i think that i have it all figured out perfectly.
    (6 card pays 1:1 instantly)

    BASICALLY,
    always hit 12-14

    Hit 15 v 2,3 stand 4,5,6 (some combo exceptions of 15 that also hit v 4, for example 10,2,A,A,A hit v 4)
    *listing them all would take a bit of time, but i can if anyone is interested*
    (Also some combos of 15 stand v 3, for example 6,4,2,2,A)

    16 plays normal basic (S2-6, H7-A)

    And 17 is normal basic with 2 exceptions:

    Hit 6,6,3,A,A v A
    Hit 6,6,2,2,A v 10 and A

  7. #7
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    [QUOTE=blueman;239264]Awesome. (The game i play has 6 card charlie and is single deck) this is very important strategy i need to know, but i think that i have it all figured out perfectly.
    (6 card pays 1:1 instantly)

    Nevermind I just woke up
    Last edited by Joe Mama; 01-17-2018 at 06:38 AM.

  8. #8


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    Mike has fixed his chart and posted it. Just go to the site where you orignally found the flawed one.

    Don

  9. #9


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    Quote Originally Posted by blueman View Post
    Awesome. (The game i play has 6 card charlie and is single deck) this is very important strategy i need to know, but i think that i have it all figured out perfectly.
    (6 card pays 1:1 instantly)

    BASICALLY,
    always hit 12-14

    Hit 15 v 2,3 stand 4,5,6 (some combo exceptions of 15 that also hit v 4, for example 10,2,A,A,A hit v 4)
    *listing them all would take a bit of time, but i can if anyone is interested*
    (Also some combos of 15 stand v 3, for example 6,4,2,2,A)

    16 plays normal basic (S2-6, H7-A)

    And 17 is normal basic with 2 exceptions:

    Hit 6,6,3,A,A v A
    Hit 6,6,2,2,A v 10 and A

    Hello,

    The program http://www.bjstrat.net/cgi-bin/cdca.cgi on my website does composition dependent expected value calculations and handles rules options of 5 or 6 card auto winners. For 6 card auto winner you need to select the far right radio button in the auto winner section of rules options. You can fill in whatever number of decks you would like along with any of the other available rules options. For a player hand of 2-3-4-5-3 you simply click 2-3-4-5-3 under player cards. When you are finished, click compute and the EVs for what you have entered will be displayed for the shoe composition that is displayed. (Shoe composition can also be input.) Reset removes all player cards. Undeal removes the last player card. If you click compute with no player cards entered (or also 1 card, which displays EVs given player knows one of his cards prior to the hand being dealt) an overall calculation for the shoe composition entered is done. When 2 or more cards are entered the EVs for the player cards that were entered is displayed.

    Although I have several ideas of additions to the website, I very rarely add anything because of time constraints.

    Hope this helps.

    k_c

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