Re: New Player Needs Some Advice

jarrett40 wrote:
> Really think it's 50/50? You're giving up about 8% on this bet.

o.k. 42/58, whatever. horseshoes and hand grenades..

> > always assume the dealer hole card (card face down) is a 10
>
> Why? There are 16 ten count cards in a deck and 36 non-tens. I hear
> people that should know better make this mistake all the time.

The math is obvious, I realize that the chance the dealer has a 10 is 
smaller that a non-10. But I play my hand (trying to improve my hand) as 
the dealer does have a 10. If this weren't the case, why would the basic 
strategy for 12-16 always hit on a dealers 7-A? Cause they want you to 
bust?? (which is nearly just a probable as not busting). For that 
matter, why does standing on a 16 with a dealers 7-A (even though it is 
against the BS) very often save my bet, the guy next to me and bust the 
dealer?

You know, now that that I think about it.. I'm less inclined to follow 
the BS and will never count because it takes all of the fun away. And 
like I said before, the wife and I have beaten the odds rather well 
drifting in and out of the BS logic. In fact we've done considerably 
better than the logic of the 'BS + counting tehnique'. We're well into 
the plus side of a 95% standard deviation of the expected win of someone 
playing the pure BS plus a Hi-Low Balanced count over nearly 50 hours of 
play. All that without counting and a very small bankroll? We must be 
pretty lucky..

I think I'll keep it somewhat something of a gamblers game.. Statistical 
mathematics are not quite up to par for the task. The true believers of 
the Basic Strategy would say that what other people on the table do or 
don't do has no effect on the outcome of any one persons hand. We've all 
seen the falacy in this. Maybe if we were all computers running 
monte-carlo simulations of all possible permutations and had the time to 
run the simulation then maybe that holds true. For average joes and 
janes, I suggest knowing the BS and playing 'on the fringe' is more 
exciting and _CAN_ be very rewarding..

thepixelfreak