I ran some sims to look at the idea of altering betting strategy based on having rich or poor middle cards. The system is normal Doubled Halves with full indexes, game is 8D (7/8 pen), S17 DAS LS, 1 to 12 bet spread. 750 million rounds per condition tested.
I came up with 2 alternative deck compositions, either rich or poor with the middle cards 7, 8, 9. Freightman’s proposed side block also counts the 6, but I wasn’t sure how to easily deal with that, since the 789 block is neutral relative to the main count whereas 6789 is not neutral. The TC for these altered decks is neutral, with the normal ratio of Tens & Aces (to each other). The 789 block cards are either rich or poor by 2.5 cards per deck in the altered decks.
There is a slight effect that changes over the range of TCs:
From negative TC to +1 TC, extra middle cards slightly favor the player.
From TC +2 to +5, a normal number of middle cards is very slightly best.
At TC +6 and above, extra middle cards are increasingly worse for the player. The advantage at TC +7 in a middle card poor deck (2.56%) is about the same as TC +8 in a middle card rich deck (2.48%).
Attachment 4687
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