Alan: Fine tuning indices for dealer hits soft 17

[Alan]

I've been looking at Stanford Wong's Basic Blackjack book to study dealer hits soft 17 basic strategy more carefully. As an Advanced Omega II user, I have a number of index variations for certain plays when dealer has a 6 or an Ace. To add to this arsenal I studied Hi Opt II and extrapolated index variations for other plays. In most cases the index decreased by 2.

I note in particular that in Mr Wong's book he suggests the following changes to basic strategy when dealer hits soft 17, for which I have no index variation as yet:

Double down else stand if:

s19 v 6
s18 v 2

Double down else hit if:

11 v A

In these 3 cases the AOII index for generic play is 2.

Question 1: Should I reduce these numbers by 2 (as has been the case in most other index variations) to arrive at 0 when dealer hits soft 17?

Question 2: There has been no mention of index variation for any other plays against dealer 2. Is s18 v 2 an exception to the rule for some reason? If not, should other indices also be affected similarly, and if so, which ones?

Question 3: AOII and Hi Opt II systems make no mention, when dealer hits soft 17, of surrendering 8-8, 17, 16 or 15 versus dealer Ace (except in European no hole card). Should I adopt the European no hole card strategy and indices for these hands when dealer hits soft 17 (except for not splitting 8's if no surrender of course), or should I stick with the normal indices?

I hope you don't think that I'm splitting hairs too much. One needs as much advantage as possible against dealer hits soft 17, and improvements (or corrections) especially to basic strategy for this rule variation are crucial in getting that edge.

Thanks in advance.

[Don Schlesinger]

> I note in particular that in Mr Wong's book
> he suggests the following changes to basic
> strategy when dealer hits soft 17, for which
> I have no index variation as yet:

> Double down else stand if:

> s19 v 6
> s18 v 2

> Double down else hit if:

> 11 v A

> In these 3 cases the AOII index for generic
> play is 2.

> Question 1: Should I reduce these numbers by
> 2 (as has been the case in most other index
> variations) to arrive at 0 when dealer hits
> soft 17?
You might look at "Pro BJ," and compare pp. 259 and 267, as a start. But, the simplest way to have the accurate indices would be to generate them with software such as SBA

> Question 2: There has been no mention of
> index variation for any other plays against
> dealer 2. Is s18 v 2 an exception to the
> rule for some reason? If not, should other
> indices also be affected similarly, and if
> so, which ones?
Looks like splitting 7s and 6s might change a little.

> Question 3: AOII and Hi Opt II systems make
> no mention, when dealer hits soft 17, of
> surrendering 8-8, 17, 16 or 15 versus dealer
> Ace (except in European no hole card).
> Should I adopt the European no hole card
> strategy and indices for these hands when
> dealer hits soft 17 (except for not
> splitting 8's if no surrender of course), or
> should I stick with the normal indices?
Neither. The indices for ENHC are vastly different from those of "regular" BJ, whether s17 or h17. In turn, those for h17 are much lower vs. dealer's ace than they are for s17, so intermediate indices between s17 and ENHC are called for when playing against h17. As an example, as you point out, surrendering a pair of 8s becomes the proper play vs. ace, with h17.

> I hope you don't think that I'm splitting
> hairs too much. One needs as much advantage
> as possible against dealer hits soft 17, and
> improvements (or corrections) especially to
> basic strategy for this rule variation are
> crucial in getting that edge.

For correct BS, see any of the Web pages that provide all the correct plays.

Don

[Spokanimal]

about this myself since Carlson only provides 9 index variations for H17. I had always assumed that Carlson had provided the 9 most significant variations (sort of like the I-18 of H17 modifications) but that may be a bad assumption.

Since you probably have as good a feel as anyone for the relative strength of indexes as a result of your I-18 work, would you say there are H17 vs S17 index mods of greater significance than Carlson's 9 and, if so, which H17 modifications would they be?

(P.S. to Alan... I'd love to know what you come up with in your research as well)

Thanks Don (and Alan).. As an AOII man, I much appreciate your comments on this subject.

Spok

[AO2fer]

Since S17 is rare these days. Maybe there is no way to figure this out or, if there was, Bryce C. had included the most important ones.