Which deviations are most valuable?

[BoSox]

I meant to say is that the chance of taking insurance is only once every 150 hands. So, how is possible for you guys to make money?

Knowing when to take insurance is only one tool in a large tool box.

[aceside]

Knowing when to take insurance is only one tool in a large tool box.

Can you safely say that insurance is the most important skill in blackjack? This is what I keep pushing.

[21forme]

Can you safely say that insurance is the most important skill in blackjack? This is what I keep pushing.

You're really not making any sense pushing this. The most important skill is playing correctly. Knowing when to take insurance is just one very small part of the game.

[DSchles]

Can you safely say that insurance is the most important skill in blackjack? This is what I keep pushing.

Insurance isn't a "skill." It's a strategy departure. It's an index number that you learn -- one among many. It happens to be the most important one, but you are obsessing over something that doesn't merit your obsession.

Don

[aceside]

Insurance isn't a "skill." It's a strategy departure. It's an index number that you learn -- one among many. It happens to be the most important one, but you are obsessing over something that doesn't merit your obsession.

Don

See spreadsheet. Here I calculated the total amount of bet (investment) for a 6-deck shoe, not the expected return. I used a bet spread of 1/2/4/8/16. I do not know how to calculate ER for these cases. Any idea? I am still not sure about the relative importance of 16vs10 and insurance, but it strongly depends on the bet spread, of course, the number of decks. Insurace16vs10V2.jpg

[G Man]

Ace, you're wrong in your thinking. Insurance IS the most valuable index play of all. You seem to forget that when you take insurance at +3, you may easily have a bet out there that is 8 to 10 or 12 times as valuable as when the TC is 0.

[Gronbog]

OK, so you are factoring in the frequency of making the departure from basic strategy in each case. That's correct. However, your frequencies are still not right.

For 16 vs T, (13/169)*(4/13) = (1/13)*(4/13) is correct for being dealt 6,T from an infinite deck off the top but you need to multiply by 2 to allow for T,6 and you also need to consider all of the many, many other ways that you can end up with 16 vs T. For the 6 deck game you've been referencing, the probability of 6,T or T,6 is more correctly (24/312)x(96/311)x2, but that still doesn't account for the other ways to end up with 16 and how often they each occur when you're playing the correct strategy for your count.

• 42% is not the frequency of TC=0 nor the frequency of TC>=0. For a six deck game with 4.5/6 decks of penetration, deck estimates accurate to the nearest 1/2 deck and flooring used to resolve to an integer, the frequency of TC=0 is about 27.7% and the frequency of TC>=0 is about 55.0%.
• For the same game, the frequency of TC>=+3 is not 5%. It is about 8.7%.

These numbers have been determined by simulation and you can verify them using CVCX and/or CVData. The point is that these calculations can be very tricky so simulation is actually the easiest way to obtain these numbers.

[aceside]

To simplify the math, we assume a game of infinite decks game without the surrender option and consider only the player’s first two cards. Player only is allowed to have two cards. To let me make corrections again:

1. Player makes a stand/hit decision when 16vs10 at a frequency of 55%*(13/169)*(4/13)=1.3%. Here the 55% is the frequency of TC>=+0.
2. Player makes an insurance/no decision at dealer Ace at a frequency of 8.7%*(1/13)=0.7%. Here the 8.7% is the frequency of TC>=+3.

The (6,T) and (T,6) permutations have been considered, and all other combinations (7,9), (8,8) for two-card 16 have been considered too. Thank you for your insight.