SpiderMan: What is the role of 6's in BJ?

[SpiderMan]

Most level-2s count the 6 as +2, while the Hi-Opt2 counts it as +1. Which is more accurate?

[Dancer]

> Most level-2s count the 6 as +2, while the
> Hi-Opt2 counts it as +1. Which is more
> accurate?

According to my handy spreadsheet, the effects of removing cards (in %) are as follows:

4 - Betting = .55, Playing = .62
5 - Betting = .69, Playing = .85
6 - Betting = .46, Playing = .61

Since humans aren't capable of adding decimal numbers like these in real time, system developers take shortcuts. The 5 is clearly the most advantageous card for the player to be rid of, hence it gets a +2 (in a level-2 count). The 4 is second, and the 6 is third. The 8 is the least significant card, by the way, so you'll see it valued at 0 pretty much universally (the Uston APC not withstanding).

Hi-Opt II discounts the 6 to remain balanced since it doesn't count the 9 as -1. This is slightly less accurate from a BC/PE standpoint, but it helps the IC (along with the SCORE) considerably.

To remain balanced, ace-reckoned level-2 counts, need extra "plus" values added to some of the small cards to compensate for the -2 assigned to the ace. The logical choices are the 3 and the 6 - which gives you the RPC.

[Don Schlesinger]

> Most level-2s count the 6 as +2, while the
> Hi-Opt2 counts it as +1. Which is more
> accurate?

You can't just isolate a single card rank and compare the accuracy of systems -- they have to be taken as a whole. That said, the effect of removing a 5 (not a 6) is considerably greater than that of removing, say, a 2 or 3, so, the more sophisticated systems make this distinction and count the 5 higher. The 6, on the other hand, is worth almost the same as the 2 or 3, and so counting it the same is not all that "wrong."

Don

[scarygary]

I think I am missing something.

Don, you said "You can't just isolate a single card rank and compare the accuracy of systems -- they have to be taken as a whole."

I understand that it is a matter of how the rank of a card compares to all of the other cards' ranks. It just seems to me from what you said that ranking the 5 as 2 and the 6 as 1 would be more accurate than a count that did not.