Variance

[BoSox]

I feel, with little empirical evidence to back up my assertion, that surrender is an underrated feature that we do not fully take advantage of.

Sorry Fireman, you can't lump a group of players on an internet board all into the same category of skill level by saying "we". Many members do not even have the opportunity to surrender where they play.

I know that there are surrender indices for each count, but these are geared towards maximizing EV. I am currently looking at how to minimize variance and I have some ideas about how to use surrender more effectively.

Surrender when used properly is a wonderful rule especially for a card counter. The rule allows the player to make slightly larger initial bets knowing that they have that option to fall back on. Now I am not sure where you are going with this, but, the deciding factor on when to surrender is very clear. You only want to surrender the hand if you are faced with a negative 50% and above expectation "meaning even less win % on the hand by playing the hand out". Now if someone wants to do this differently such as surrendering before an index number is reached and thinking that they are in fact cutting down on variance is NOT thinking straight, and has it all wrong.

Surrender is just one topic that I mentioned to spur the discussion. I would be looking for other ideas, strategies, and philosophies about minimizing variance.

I like Wonging out of shoes as much as you can get away with while looking natural. By avoiding the worst of the worst negative EV hands the player will have less negative EV to make up when the TCs are positive. By doing this your spread can be slightly lower "cutting down on variance" to get the job done.