Rereading old articles from Arnold Snyder (RIP, Bishop). This one caught my attention: https://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/gamb...ure-an-expert/
In (4) he cites the following scenario:
"A new game has just opened up on the Vegas Strip: Blackjacarat. In this game, all rules are exactly the same as in standard, single-deck, Vegas Strip blackjack, except that you may place your bet on either the player’s or the dealer’s hand. Note: since all other rules are the same, house rules are followed in playing the dealer’s hand, even when your money is bet on the dealer’s hand. Likewise, you make all decisions on the player’s hand, regardless of where your money is bet. You estimate that in the standard Strip game you can get an edge of about 1% over the house from card counting with a 1-to-3 spread. Approximately what kind of an edge could you get in Blackjacarat using the optimum strategy, and the same spread? a) 2% b) 4% c)50% d)100%"
Clearly, the correct answer is (d), since the player can bet on the dealer to win and then proceed to lose on purpose. Snyder says as much in the solutions:
"Your optimum strategy in Blackjacarat, as described, would be to place all bets on the dealer’s hand, then continue to hit every player hand, including naturals, until you busted. This would give you an advantage of 100% over the house. Experts may employ a few fine points of basic strategy, such as splitting and resplitting all pairs, then hitting all of these hands until they busted. The one exception would be that you would never split aces, since these hands would draw only one card each, often resulting in a player win. You could increase your 5-per-hour win rate by employing a number of sophisticated double-down strategies. While it would be profitable to double down on hard hands of 12 through 20 vs. any dealer up-card, these plays would lower your win rate to slightly under 100%, since the player would occasionally win. But we’ll get into these fine points of play as soon as Vegas World offers a version of this game."
Has anyone ever bothered to check these strategies or calculate/estimate the resulting player edge?
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