I don't see this discussed much, but it occurred to me that a DD face-up (shoe-dealt) game is generally about 60% better than a pitch game. How do I make such an outlandish statement?

Two reasons - SCORE and Game Speed.

SCORE for the face-up game will be higher due to the additional playing advantage (the greater the pen, the greater the advantage), and average game speed of a pitch game is probably about 70 rounds/hour whereas the shoe-dealt game is probably around 100 per hour under normal conditions.

So I simmed a typical DD game: H17, DOA, NDAS, 66% pen, HO2/ASC, spread 1-4, wong-out @ -8:

Pitch game (face down):SCORE = 48.44 x 70% (game-speed factor) = 33.9 (adjusted SCORE).

Shoe game (face up): SCORE = 54.27 x 100% (game-speed factor) = 54.27 (adjusted SCORE). Improvement in SCORE = 20.37/33.9 = 60%!!!

So let the ploppies feel their cards. I'll take the shoe game!