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I am not a mathematical genius but I do know a few things.
1. I enjoy playing blackjack when I am at a land based casino.
2. In 8 out of 10 trips to Las Vegas I come home with LESS money then I went there with. Most times many thousands less.
3. Most people do the same thing. Even the mathematical geniuses.
4. If 2 and 3 werent true for online casinos also none of us would be making money, or having this discussion, or have this forum to debate Blackjack at.
5. When you gamble no matter what you do you will lose more then you win over time.Now I will step back out and let the mathematicians have at it again.
When you gamble no matter what you do you will lose more then you win over time.
I never play blackjack to make money – you could double your money, but that’s about it.
All I am asking for is: PLEASE, LET ME LOSE WITH DIGNITY and have fun while doing it! Dont be pulling cards out of your :shakebutt
The dignity (if there really is any) in land based casinos is the smiling dealers and waitresses who keep you company while you squander away your money. And then there’s that overly friendly bastard that REALLY breaks your bank, the casino host who gives you a jacket and a couple of coffee mugs to go home with.
Dignity is easy online because no one see’s you throw shit around the room when you lose.
That’s about as good as it gets.
overly friendly bastard that REALLY breaks your bank
Hehe, I know that guy. :beatup:
I really should not throw my hat in the ring but….
Nick, Please…. you are in a no win situation here. HowardMoon, NolanA and MichaelBlueJay are exactly correct. They get it exactly.
I respect your posts always. I know you are not correct on this one though.
Ding. Ding. Round 12…
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
Thanks for the entertainment, Nick. You’re truly a legend.
nick777 wrote: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.If mathematically considering all possible outcomes is not proof, then what is? Blackjack returns are not determined by magic and voodoo. They are determined by mathematics, and one can mathematically prove optimal strategy for a given situation.
nick777 wrote: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
Yes, all that basic algebra stuff… the kind of thing a junior high school student might see on his homework. 2*(0.85-0.15) > 4*(0.65-0.35), so 2 hands with an 85% chance of winning clearly has the higher expected return.
nick777 wrote: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.Are you serious?! You will lose money 0% of the time?! Think about what happens those 10% of the times that dealer draws 21. What happens if you draw a 21 in 1 hand, and <21 in the other 3? You have 1 win and 3 losses for a net loss.
nick777 wrote: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.This one almost made me laugh out loud. There is no mathematical formula for figuring out the probability of simultaneously losing all 4 hands?! That’s basic probablity. It seems that your probability skills are no better than your algebra skills. I don’t see why you are obsessing over simultaneous losses. LOSSES COUNT EVEN IF YOU DON’T LOSE ALL 4 HANDS AT ONCE. If you win 1 hands and lose three, you have a net loss.
nick777 wrote: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.We’ve gone over this many times. The dealer has a higher probability of getting 21 than you do on a given hand. The dealer has a ~10% chance of getting 21, you have a ~1/13 chance (only if you draw an ace). Remember you are drawing only 1 card, as you said you’d stand on 12 or more against a 6. Or are you taking that back and saying you’ll hit on more than 12 now?
nick777 wrote: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.
I hope you realize that people use computer simultations when the odds get too complex for hand calculations. When I say “my sim”, I am talking about a computer simulation that accounts for all of the above.
nick777 wrote: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.What odds formula is this? How to compute an average (hint: you have to consider losses)? How a computer simulation works?
nick777 wrote: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.I believe that every blackjack expert and everyone with a strong gambling mathematics background disagrees with you. Every strategy table I have ever see, and every computer simulation I have ever seen disagrees with you.
nick777 wrote:“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.
Wizard’s sim uses infinite decks. Mine uses a non-infinite number of decks. Little rule differnces like this account for the 0.02, along with not running it for an infinite number of hands.
nick777 wrote: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.(I hope) we’ve established it is 0.70 vs 0.56 for no resplits… the numbers I have been posting for many pages. That means each time you split 10s, it decreaeses expected return. If you include resplits, then you are no longer standing on 10s in the split hands, instead you are splitting 10s… and splitting 10s decreases exepected rertun. If you added resplits and split 10s instead of standing, then obviously overall return will decrease to below 0.56.
Think about it this way you could have had a 20 in the split hands, but instead you chose to split them again a risk getting a total far below 20. Obviously it is going to decrease expected return.
nick777 wrote: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.Quite a sharpie?! I wonder what it takes for someone to not be a sharpie? An elementary school student with zero algebra or probability skills?
nick777 wrote:Let me just end this by saying i’m right, you’re wrong
That is certainly a convincing statement. Standing is the same strategy unanimously accepted by blackjack experts (excluding special situations), so every blackjack expert must also be wrong. Math professors, card counters, the MIT blackjack team, Stanford Wong, Wizard of Odds… all of them are wrong. That Nick is “quite a sharpie.” We must have done all of our analysises wrong, programmed all of our computer sims wrong, and have been using incorrect strategy in our playing for decades.I’m starting to think the rest of the people here know you’re somebody’s 12 year old kid and are laughing at me for arguing with you.
You can’t be serious
Are you actually standing by that 0.46 figure of yours, do you not have any common sense
How do you lose more hands than you win by being the favourite, what math formula is this
Example
6 hands after splitting in total
You are drawing with a 10 vs a dealer with a 6
You will win $282 for each $600 bet ?
That is your great formula
Nobody of sound mind can agree with that
So even though i will win 65% of the time realistically, i will lose 54% of the time according to you
Get outta here buddy, don’t insult my intelligence
Go get yourself a math tutor
You have just ended this debate
Nick, do you understand what a resplit is? It means you can split a second time only if you have a certain combination of cards. It’s a subgroup of hands… only those where you draw a pair of 10s after splitting. Your expected return for hands where you draw a 20 after splitting is higher than your overall average regardless of splitting or standing, but standing on 20 produces the highest overall return.
If you draw 20s on each of the 4 hands after splitting, then you can resplit to 8 hands (not 6). If you stand on the 4 20s, your expected gain is 4x 0.7 = 2.8x bet size per hand. If you split the 4 20s, your expected gains is 4x 0.56 = 2.24x bet size per hand (asumming only 1 resplit is allowed).
That’s half of the problem. Next you need to consider how often resplits occur. Let’s keep it simple and use the approximation that you’ll draw a 10 4/13 of the time (a 10, J, Q, K) as in an infinite deck (recall Wizard of Odd’s sim used infinite decks, mine did not)
So in any hand 4/13 of the time, we decrease the expected return by (0.7-0.56). The expected return decreases by (0.7-0.56) x 4/13 per hand = 0.043 per hand. If there are 2 hands with totals of 20 that can be resplit (as after splitting a single hand), the overall decrease is 2 x0.043 = .086. So we expect the overall expected return to decreaes by .086.
0.56 – 0.086 = ~0.47
We are using the infinite decks approximation as stated above, so we expect to get the same numbers listed at Wizard of Odds for infinite decks… http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack/appendix1.html He lists 0.47… the same number.
Once again, you have shown that you do not understand basic mathematics.[/CODE][CODE][/CODE]
Your math is like reading a chinese menu high on crack
1 – it is more likely i will split to 6 hands since probability favours only 2 of my 4 hands receiving splitting cards.
2 – 0.47 is scientifically and mathematically impossible in every culture in the world
There is 0% chance that i will lose more often than i win by being the favourite, did you get that, 0%
I can only hope and pray that every blackjack player who signs up under me thinks like you
Pure foolishness
nick777 wrote:Your math is like reading a chinese menu high on crack1 – it is more likely i will split to 6 hands since probability favours only 2 of my 4 hands receiving splitting cards.
There is a ~4/13 chance of having an opportunity to resplit in any given split hand. You can end in any where between 4 and 8 hands, if there are 4 hands after the 2 splits. Why focus on 6? Why not 5 or 7? It really doesn’t matter what number you choose, you only need to know that there is ~4/13 chance per split hand to compute expected return.
nick777 wrote:2 – 0.47 is scientifically and mathematically impossible in every culture in the worldThere is 0% chance that i will lose more often than i win by being the favourite, did you get that, 0%
It is only impossible in your world, which seems to be based on magic and voodoo, rather than math. For people who understand basic math, the conclusion is obvious. Let’s step through it one more time… really slowly this time.
I’ll only use one initial hand to keep things extra simple for you. You draw two 10s vs a 6. (I hope) we’ve established that if there are no resplits, the expected return for that hand is 0.7 (stand on 20) vs 0.56 (split to two 10s).
Next we consider the possibility of resplits. What happens, if you draw a 20 in one of the split hands? You can keep the 20 or your can split it again. So what is the expcted return for this split hand, in which we drew two 10s against a 6? Why it’s right above us in the preceding paragraph! Its 0.7 if we stand and 0.56 if we split. So if we resplit the pair of 10s drawn in the split hand, the expected return for this split hand drops by 0.7-0.56=0.14
Next we consider how often we’ll have this decrease of 0.14. There is a 4/13 we’ll draw a 10,J,Q,K in an infinite deck. Remember we only draw one card on the split 10s. There are two hands after the split, each with a 4/13 chance of decreasing by 0.14. So the overall decrease is 0.14 x 4/13 x 2 = 0.086
So the expected return with resplit is 0.56 – 0.086 = ~0.47
Look what wizard of odds prints for resplits on a pair of 10s vs 6 with an infinite deck — http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack/appendix1.html — 0.47
Frankly, I’d be more surprised if you did understood this, than the fact that you are having trouble with this.
First of all, WE have established nothing except for the fact that you are error prone
Those numbers are yours and yours alone, and i in no way agree with them
Now you are stating this
Hypothetical scenario
I am playing 5 handed and split to 10 hands, each one drawing on a 10
My odds in each showdown are 65% to win
Meaning i will win 6.5 of my 10 hands on average
You are saying i will win only 4.7 of my 10 hands
Is there something wrong with you ?
Seriously
nick777 wrote:First of all, WE have established nothing except for the fact that you are error proneThose numbers are yours and yours alone, and i in no way agree with them
My sim, my hand calcs, wizard’s sim, and the guy’s sim I linked to on page 3 are all approximately 0.46 . It is you and you alone who has different numbers. Every other reputable source says ~0.46 for resplits.
nick777 wrote:I am playing 5 handed and split to 10 hands, each one drawing on a 10My odds in each showdown are 65% to win
Meaning i will win 6.5 of my 10 hands on average
You are saying i will win only 4.7 of my 10 hands
You only have a ~65% chance of winning if you do not resplit. But let’s work with that number anyway. If you have a 65% chance of winning and 35% chance of losing, what is your expected return? It is Amount Gained on a win * chance of winning – Amount lost on a lose * chance of losing = Bet Size x 0.65 – Bet Size x 0.35 = Bet Size x (0.65 – 0.35) = Betsize x 0.3 … In that one hand your expected return is Bet Size x 0.3.
Do you see that expected return is not how many hands you win? You have a 65% chance of winning that hand and your expected return is 0.3 x Bet Size. Consider what happens if you win 50% of the hands and lose 50% of hands, like a fair coin flip. Your expected return is a big fat 0, even though you are winning more than 0% of the hands. An expected return of 0 means that you are expected to not make a gain or make a loss.
So, let’s test your math skills with this new information on how to compute an average . If I say a hand has an expected return of 0.47, What am I saying your chance of winning the hand is? (Hint: It’s no where near 0.47).
