Ok, I have some questions about this part of the study (see link below). If there are other players at the table it is no surprise always playing two hands is better than always playing one hand. But if you can switch back and forth between one hand at negative and neutral counts to two hands at positive counts, then why wouldn't that be optimal?

Why wouldn't it be better to bet the bare minimum of one hand with low counts rather then betting double that on two hands?

Karl Janeck wrote the post below a while back in response to a question I posed on this topic. In point #1 he says you should only switch to two hands when there are other players at the table and when the count is positive.

Additionally, the point Karl makes about spreading to three hands when there are 5 other players at the table contradicts what is stated in BJA3. I can't recall how many other players need to be at the table to spread to 3 hands, but it is less than 5 (I don't have my copy of BJA3 on hand). Any thoughts on this one, Don?

MJ

Karl wrote:

"As discussed, you should never play more than 2 hands. (It would be correct to switch to 3 hands on positive counts if there were at least other 5 more players at the table.)

When is it optimal to play two hands:

The effect of playing 2 hands is twofold. On the positive side, the player gets more money on the table for the same risk. The downside is the card-eating effect since two hands take more cards. The card eating effect is less significat if there are more players at the table. After performing analytical calculations it follows that

1) If there is at least one extra player at the table, it is optimal to spread to two hands with proper bet size (75% each hand) as soon as the count is positive. Thus, theoretically it is not necessary to wait for a large positive count.

2) If the counter plays alone, the two effects (card eating and extra money) roughly cancel out and there is no advantage in spreading to two hands (while it does not matter either).

Note that the optimal number of hands is completely unrelated to how much positive the count is. For example, one should spread to 3 hands with another 5 players at the table regardless if the count is +1 or +15.

The analysis above does not include any cover-related or other practical considerations."