Just because somebody says something and 100 people agree, doesn’t make it so, you guys should know that better than anyone, look at how many people voted for Bush.
You are all very welcome to side against me on this, but the fact is that for all of their efforts they can’t be proven right, it may have been decided on by certain members of a mathematical community that this is the way, but others disagree, i happen to be one of those in disagreement.
Professor’s point #3 that most people will do the same thing, and that is why most people will lose at this game in the long run, is valid.
The majority of people will agree that what they are saying makes sense, and i totally understand where they are coming from with this, but i get the feeling they don’t understand where i am coming from.
My argument from the start has been that i would rather have 4 seperate hands each being a 65% favourite to win against a dealer with one hand.
They are saying that it is better to be a 85% favourite with 2 hands against a dealer with one hand.
Applying mathematics, win – loss and total return, and all that stuff with their numbers would prove them right, but the fact is this
They will lose money at least 10% of the time, the dealer will draw to 21 10% of the time and beat both their hands, so they will lose everything 1 out of every 10 hands
I will lose money 0% of the time, the dealer will draw to 21 10% of the time still, but the difference is that i will draw to 21 more than 10% of the time, plus i have 4 seperate hands, each one more likely to draw to 21 than the dealer, that means i will lose everything never, it’s never going to happen.
The fact is that the probability of me losing all 4 hands exists, but there is no mathematical formula to figure it out, well there is, but it’s definitely not the one they are using, and that makes their math unsound.
To figure that out you have to figure out what the odds are of the dealer drawing to 21 and none of my 4 hands drawing to 21 in the same instance, or any 1-2-3 of my hands.
Plus all 4 of my hands will win over 40% of the time, since the dealer will bust out, i am winning 4 x my bet 40+% of the time, not 2 x my bet.
Technically speaking, in 100 hands i will win all 4 more than 40% of the time, 42% i think was agreed, at $100 per hand that equals $16 800(42 x $400), standing with 20 returns $16 000, i will win both hands 80% of the time(80 x $200), not 85%, i will tie 10% of the time.
But we don’t know how many of the other 58% of the hands i will win since i am drawing as the favourite, but we do know they will lose both bets 10% of the time, and win nothing 10% of the time, that is how often the dealer will draw to 21 and beat both their hands or draw to 20 and tie, their numbers are set, mine include other factors, even with the dealer drawing to 21, i am still the favourite technically since i have 4 hands more likely to hit 21 with 2 cards than the dealer having to draw 3 cards to make 21.
Their odds don’t factor in these things, or the split probabilities, their odds are basic, they say:
Number of decks in play, the percentages of you drawing a card with a certain value, for example, the chances of you drawing a 8 is 16/208 = 7.69%, then compared to the dealers up card and his odds of drawing a hand.
What happens though is that the odds change while the hand is in play, and the more hands that are in play, the more complicated the math gets.
Their odds formula is designed for 1 hand vs 1 hand only situations, and when multiple hands are in play they just multiply the 1 vs 1 result times the number of hands in play, those are not the true odds.
I’m not the only one btw who thinks this way, maybe here i am, but i can assure everyone it’s not the case elsewhere, they would know that since many have questioned their results in the past, as well as the fact that several formulas come up with different results for the same situation.
That’s not to say i’m taking shots at them, i would question anyones results, it’s just that they happened to jump in here with their i am math god attitude.
And
I’m really starting to like you Nolan, your tireless efforts to prove your point are astounding.
However, the fact remains that you keep putting your foot in your mouth
Here is your latest edition
Quote:
“0.70 vs ~0.46 with resplits (wizard says 0.47, my sim says 0.45).”
There you go again, making up whatever numbers you feel like, that number is quite obviously wrong, pretty soon you’ll be saying i will go broke with my 4 favoured hands.
You need to pay attention to what you’re saying here, you are saying my numbers are wrong, but at the same time you are admitting that yours are wrong and in contradiction with one another.
That does not make you look too convincing, that 0.02 error margin there comes out to a $8 shift either way
Besides that, if you have an ounce of logic and half a brain in your head you can see how that is an impossible figure, i am not making infinate splits to the point where there are no face cards or aces in the deck…0.46 ?, so you’re saying that by splitting to 6 hands i will lose more than 3 of them, even though i am a 65% favourite in each hand, how do you figure, 0.50 and under suggests that i am losing more than half my hands.
Why can’t you just accept the fact that your calculations might be off, why must it bother you so much.
Anyway, i’d like to say it’s been a pleasure, but i won’t, because it’s been quite irritating at times, nevertheless, you have had several days and ample opportunity to convince me, but you have failed to do so, i am not an unreasonable man, i am quite a sharpie when it comes to gambling though, and i am not someone to accept things at face value without questioning them first.
If you had managed to convince me somehow that you were correct, i would embrace it and look upon it as some great revelation that made me the wiser, but that’s not the case, there have been way too many examples of contradicting numbers, from you and from me and from several other blackjack odds calculators, the only thing that is attempting to get resolved here is that you are trying to convince me that your numbers are right and the others are wrong, and that’s not ever going to happen.
As you can see there is really no point in carrying on anymore, we are only repeating eachother, and this will never get resolved
Let me just end this by saying i’m right, you’re wrong