A fair point, I was referring to the Hi-Lo index as IIRC that is what abc4000 uses.
Makes sense. I still feel a little uneasy about it though. It's not the strongest doubled hand to have. Kinda leaves you regretting not forfeiting it, especially when you have a larger bet out.
Regarding surrender/forfeit in Pontoon/SP21, it actually is incredibly powerful. It increases your win rate by almost 50% when applied correctly iirc.
In normal blackjack the expected return for standing 17 v T is -.419. So this is a 20% improvement over surrendering which is of course -.5. Presumably the disparity between standing and surrendering (which is really what you are looking at with a forfeit) is even stronger for pontoon because in blackjack we are less inclined to surrender at negative counts. Of course you will sometimes hit 17 v T in pontoon because of the bonuses but that is irrelevant for the double down rescue / stay consideration which you are talking about.
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