Bet or Cards - whats most important?

Toolman,

Several points:

1. Great post - clear, coherent and well written
2. I agree with you on most parts, in particular you assertation that the list of possible scenarios is almost endless - I too have come to that conclusions
3. I respectfully DISAGREE with you with regard to TBS (Tourney Basic Strategy) being something that is not possible - yes in the form you are thinking about (like a BS card).

Nevertheless a modified BS method, depending upon bet size, players, position and other factors, can and should be worked upon, if for nothing else than to enhance one's appreciate of the game.

Finally I want to thank all participants of this thread for taking the time to post their thoughts about this without it degrading as has occurred in the past. It's nice to know that we can agree to disagree once again!

 

Reachy's TBS...

...as I'm now calling it since nobody else seems to like the idea. You watch, you'll all be "Reachying" rather than "Wonging" in a few years (OK, I realise wonging is an AP technique for live games but you get my point).

It is clear that we have to agree to disagree since neither of us is going to change the others opinion. I have heard nothing so far that convinces me that I am not onto something here. Sure it's a very complicated problem and I will almost certainly have to take shortcuts but it's doable.

I am a firm believer in the "leading edge" concept. In a race the difference between the winner and the losers may only be fractions of a second but the difference in the prize money may be many, many thousands of pounds. Any additional %age of advantage that I can eek out may be the difference between winning and losing and my first Aston Martin.

Me using the example of what to do with a 12 was just that, an example. All I was trying to show is that following BS doesn't always give you the best chance of winning any one hand. When we get into more specific situations we are even less likely to win using BS but I think all tourney players realise that.

A minor point, fgk, but BS doesn't use an infinite deck, it's based on however many decks you want. And don't forget that there isn't just one "BS", there are probably many hundreds of "BS's" in use that are specific to local game conditions. BS isn't the chart that you memorise; that's a product of BS. BS is the underlying principle of playing to maxmise your EV over the long-term.

And to splitting 10's. My mathematical study hasn't yet extended this far and to be honest splitting scares me from the point of view of analysis. However there will almost certainly be a set of simple, easy to rember rules that will guide you in making this decision at the table. Watch this space...

Cheers

Reachy

 

I must protest!

I have been the victim of a most egregious plagiarism. I'll have you know that it was I who first coined the phrase 'Basic Tournament Strategy'. Any flak should be falling on me!

https://www.blackjacktournaments.com/posts/16096

I was speculating that the fall-back position of BS, when you can see no reason to follow any specific alternative, may not be entirely the best. By my definition therefore, TBS would not be some enormous monstrosity, attempting to cover all situational possibilities; it would be the strategy from which you are varying when you vary your strategy, IYSWIM.

I only really had in mind the possibility of formalising the sort of 'split less / double less / surrender more' approach that tends to get informally adopted anyway. Even in the earliest rounds, I think the coin-flip hit/stand decisions will be dominated by your assessment of whether you prefer to correlate with your opponents or go for a swing.

 

Drat you for pointing out my short comings and flaws but yes, I admit you are correct with the flaw in my assumption, however minor, a flaw is a flaw. Sometimes I just make assumptions and then think that everyone understands – lol! But let us further talk about the merits of Reachying shall we? First lets go back to basics:

Ok, now there are a few clues in the above definition of BS that lead one (at least me) to believe that BS is not the best for all situations. Other clues discuss the use of noticing patterns and to attempting to understand WHY you should play a situation in a certain manner.

Reachy when I discuss the use of an infinite deck I do that for two reasons: (1) It allows me to use the chart from blackjackinfo.com and (2) I am accounting for CSM which simulates the on-line versions (or RNG random number generators) that they utilize.

So why would I Reachy it versus Wong it? Are there times when it is more advantageous to hit my 14 vs. Dealer’s 2 with Reachyism or should I stick to BS? Will TBS help me or hurt me in that situation? Well the cards and the corresponding statistics, will provide us some insight to the solution. The main difference is that unlike BS in this situation I am NOT competing against the House. I am competing against BR1 thru BRL. Therefore based upon their hands and bets, my advantage may be in hitting, standing, or even surrendering.

Is this impossible? No! If we can send men to the moon figuring this out should only take 1 or 2 years more! Unless of course we didn’t really land of the moon and it was a Hollywood movie set and……..

 

BTS or TBS?

Colin, you defined a Basic Tournament Strategy, whereas mine is a Tournament Basic Strategy. This distinction is clear, like apples and oranges . Can't we just generalise and group them under the English School of Tournament Blackjack?

fgk - The way I understand the use of the infinite deck is that it allows calculations to be performed far more easily. Also I would venture to say (and I could be completley wrong here) that a CSM is equivalent to a fresh undealt shoe of whatever number of decks is being used. So if it's 6 decks in the CSM then the 6 deck charts would be suitable. Also I assume that the RNG doesn't allow for an infinite number of cards during a hand i.e. it's not possible for more than 24 Aces or 24 8's to appear during any one hand.

Other than that I agree with everything else you've said

Cheers

Reachy

 

London, don’t get your bloomers in a flutter!

Basic Tournament Strategy (BTS) just doesn’t have the “ring” as Tournament Basic Strategy (TBS).

BTS, BTS, BTS versus TBS, TBS, TBS – I just feel that TBS rolls of the tongue better. Hey, BTW we’re adding to the alpha bet tourney slang dictionary.

TBJT
EBJ
EH1
EH2
The BR gang

And so the list grows…….

Hey Reachy, ESTB now? Holy Cow!

Just think if you & London starte the ESTB we'll have to call you guys professor Reachy and professor London!

With respect to RNG - Once again I was just assuming and I don't KNOW what the online sites use for their cards.

With respect to CSM and deck count - don't buy that argument because after the hand is dealt the cards go back in the hopper right away - they aren't held in a rack. Remember to AP players past results do affect future events due to the removal from the deck.

When I do my calculations for TBS and MMS I assume a "fresh" 8-deck each and every hand

 

Can't redefine BASIC STRATEGY

If any member(s) is going to pursue the utopian TOURNAMENT BASIC STRATEGY, then please keep in mind that you must use the term BASIC STRATEGY as it is generally accepted in the blackjack community. You cannot redefine the term BASIC STRATEGY to fit your own needs or to fit the shortcomings of rules you develop. If your method does not fit the definition of BASIC STRATEGY then it is not BASIC STRATEGY, it is a guide, a book, a set of laws, or whatever.

Fgk42 quoted a definition of BASIC STRATEGY from the WIZARD OF ODDS as follows:

The most important thing to know about blackjack is the basic strategy. This strategy is simply the best way to play every possible situation, without any knowledge of the distribution of the rest of the cards in the deck.​

The key phrase in the definition is “every possible situation”. If the system one develops for a tournament does not meet that criteria then one cannot call it BASIC STRATEGY. A BASIC STRATEGY does not have to be in chart form. It can be a narrative or whatever but it must cover “every possible situation” otherwise it is not BASIC STRATEGY.

 

and now for something new...

Toolman,

Where is there a disagreement? Basic strategy (BS), when played against the house, is basic strategy (BS) – no one here is trying to dispute those facts – at least I’m not.

While I dare not attempt to speak for Reachy I can say for a fact that in my opinion when playing in BJ tournaments that BS “…is simply NOT ALWAYS the best way to play every possible situation, without any knowledge of the distribution of the rest of the cards in the deck.”

Therefore Reachy, in addition to others, is attempting to compute/calculate/devise/work out etc., a system that would be more advantageous than BS – hence the terminology TBS – tournament BS.

[Now for another disclaimer: is this NECESSARY? Does anyone believe it is necessary? Only time will tell but it is my belief that it is worth exploring the possibility]

Believe me, TBS is DIFFERENT than BS applied in a BJT. Once professor Reachy has revealed the results the TBJ world will gasp in awe and amazement! :joker: Or maybe they’ll just yawn, shake their head and go on their merry way. Who knows? Just remember that they first laughed at Harland David Sanders and told him it would never work!

 

I don't think anyone is seeking to redefine the term Basic Strategy

A new term is being proposed (with varying degrees of conviction, I think) for a generalised hand-playing strategy that is applicable to tournaments, rather than to cash games. ISTM that adding the word 'Tournament' to the existing term conveys that meaning well enough.

Also, 'every possible situation' relates just to the composition of your hand and of the deck*. That's obviously the case for BS, but it is also the case for (at least my interpretation of ) what we are talking about here. As I said, specific tournament situations cause you to deviate from how you would otherwise play the hand; it's the 'how you would otherwise play the hand' that is at issue.

*Actually, just your cards and the dealer's up card (and hence, by implication what's left in the deck), otherwise we are into the realms of card counting.

 

high hopes

My skills, knowledge, experience are miniscule compared to almost anybody else on this site. I have an idea, a hypothesis, but I'm not sure that I have the wherewithall to see it through. However that doesn't mean I'm not going to try. And I don't believe by any stretch that I am the only person persuing this line of enquiry; in fact I know I'm not.

And Toolman, I believe that you have exposed the fundamental problem with BS as it relates to TBJ when you quoted what you saw as the key phrase in the definition of BS. "Every possible situation" is far from covered by BS in a tournament. BS often coincides with TBS (I can't believe I'm calling it that !) and it comes from the same root but it needs to be refined. Go back over some of the tourney teasers and see how contra-BS some of the solutions are, impossible to compute at the table but I'm sure that a few, maybe many, rules can be formulated to make this more manageable.

As I said in my last response to fgk, BS is not the charts that we memorise they are the product of a set of principles that comprises BS. In fact the principles for BS are very simple - maximise EV. And whatever I come up with, whether we call it BASIC STRATEGY, TOURNAMENT BASIC STRATEGY or REACHY'S STUPID IDEA is irrelevant. If it works I'll use it!!

Here is a taster of some of my work. The boxes correspond to opponent totals down the y axis and dealer upcards across the x axis. Find what your opponent has and the the dealer has and do what the box says. Easy

Cheers

Reachy

PS. Of course it isn't full disclosure. You'll have to wait until it's fully formed before I give it all away.

 

Not plagiarism after all then?

Reachy,

So it seems we really were talking apples and oranges. I'm slightly confused now about what your goal is. Are you seeking to generalise the final-hand "what's my best action to advance?" teaser to something applicable to every round? I'm not sure how that would work.

 

embryo

I want it all!!!!!!! I have no preconcieved ideas, I'm following a path and seeing where it leads. Sometimes, as I turn the corner in one path a whole range of other paths seem to appear. I intend to go down all of them. Some may be dead ends, some may lead to hidden riches.

The taster in my last post was just a small portion of something I worked on a month or so ago. In fact that was the start of my journey, I have already taken a few of the unexpected paths that I have come across.

I'm glad this topic has come up actually because I have been wanting to discuss it for some time and get some feedback.

Cheers

Reachy

 

What da

In my last post I merely stated that one should not mis-use the phrase "basic strategy" and that any "system" that did not tell how to handle all possible situations in absolute definitive terms should not use the phrase "basic strategy" in it's name. I believe this is important so that we have uniform definitions for words and phrases. And boy, what a surprise I got!!!

My words were manipulated, misquoted, and in general torn to shreds. Everybody went off on their own tangent trying to justify their way of thinking. Some of the writing was so complex that it is beyond my meager mind to intemperate and comprehend. But so be it. To those that are considering developing a "TOURNAMENT BASIC STRATEGY", all I was trying to do was set you in the right direction but I guess you'll have none of that. So I'll say good-bye to this thread again (ya, I know I said that before) and wish you the best of luck on your development.

One thing London Colin: What do you mean by ISTM. I have never seen those initials before and have no idea what they stand for.

 

The easy part first -

Sorry. I'm revealing my internet-nerdyness with that one. There are a bunch of such abbreviations that get used as shorthand on forums etc. This particular one is "It seems to me". Others that crop up are
AFAIK - As far as I know
IMHO - In my humble opinion (usually said by people being less than humble)
WLTM - Oh wait, that's something different.

And the tricky part -

I really don't recognise the picture you are painting. This seems to have been a classic example of the misunderstandings that can occur in this form of communication, as was mentioned a while ago when things around here were at their most heated. Please, don't take offence when none was meant.

I composed this reply backwards, so to speak, so that it wouldn't seem like I was jumping straight in with a riposte, but to answer those specific points -

All I did in replying was point out that as far as I could tell no one had mis-used it in that way. (Although, since then Reachy has (IMHO) muddied the waters a bit, widening the scope of what is being discussed beyond what I thought it was. So maybe you were on to something.)

 

London Colin:

No offense taken and I have nothing against you or Reachy. I was just letting off some steam.

Like I eluded to before, I'm not going to answer any more questions on this thread or make any more comments (except the next paragraph). It just gets me deeper in the quicksand.

I am sincere when I wish whoever tackles a "basic strategy" for tournaments all the best of luck. Since I don't think a cut and dry method can be developed as the words "basic strategy" imply, a lot and lot and lot of luck will be needed.

So long for now, see you folks on another thread some day.

 

response to Ken

just because there is a 42% chance of something happening - that doesn't mean that if you run 100 trials - the expected event will happen exactly 42 times - in fact - it is highly unlikely that you will get exact results - in example - the odds of getting a stiff - define stiff as 12 to 17 - in bj is about 42% - but if you dealt out 100 hands - it is actually pretty unlikely that you will get exactly 42 stiffs -

for a discrete distribution - which is what we deal with in bj - we can calculate the probability mass function for the liklihood of a certain number of stiffs being received in any number of dealt hands - thus for 100 dealt hands we can caluclate how often we are likely to receive 41 stiffs - or 40 stiffs - etc. -

this is one use of the term 'drift' in probability theory - the tendency to vary from the expected (most likely) result -

in a very long sequence of bj hands - the probability mass function - when put into a histogram - will resemble a traditional bell-shaped curve - and be symetrical - so if you sit down each night and play 500 hands of blackjack - for 500 nights - and you want to maximize your play for profitability - you would develop a strategy based on the expected probabilities - 42 stiffs per 100 hands - some nights you would get fewer - some more - but it would tend to average out over all the nights - because the drift expectation is symetrical -

basic strategy assumes you are playing an infinite sequence of hands - so the expected probabilities converge to a limit - and will be realized over that infinite sequence - in the real world we never play infinite sequences of hands - so there is actually a unique optimal strategy for each unique finite sequence of hands - basic strategy works for advantage players - not because it is necessarily the 'optimal' strategy for their particular finite sequence of hands - but because it is the most likely strategy to be 'advantageous', or produce positive results - even if not perfectly optimal - but that is because an ap will play many hands of blackjack - the shorter the sequence of hands - the less likely that bs is an optimal or even advantageous strategy - and bs is an strategy based on maximizing profitability over a long term of play - it is not necessarily optimized to maximize your probability of winning a tournament table where you are playing a very short sequence of hands -

to get back to drift impact on short sequences - in an eight hand sequence - the probability of being dealt a hand of 12 to 17 is 42.728% (close enough) - but that calcs out to 3.418 stiff hands per 8 hand sequence - which is impossible - using binominal probabilities - and in this short a sequence we get a skewed mass function - so the probability of getting 3 or fewer stiffs in the first 8 hand 'virtual table' of an ebj tournament table - is 53.022%, the probability of getting 4 or more stiffs is 46.976% - getting four or more stiffs in 8 hands would be disadvantageous - giving a higher proportion of stiffs than expected by the base probability - and the player would experience a reduced ev for that 8 hand sequence - getting three or fewer would conversely give the player an increased ev for that 8 hand sequence - and that increased ev will occur 53% of the time - so the player can expect that during the first eight hands of an ebj tournament - the cards will favor the player at 53% of the tables played - because of the less than expected occurance of stiffs during that 8 hand sequence -

you can apply the same approach to surrender - while in bs you would surrender a hand only if the ev is -0.50 or greater - in any very short sequence of hands - the dominant probability (losing, here) would force the results of that short sequence towards itself more often than not - thus - looking at a projected number of possible surrender opportunities (12-17 against a dealer 7-A) of about 26.3% of the hands - or for a 20-hand table - a projection of 5.255 hands - if you work out the binominal probailities of losing versus not losing over such a short sequence - the probabilities favor a greater use of surender at the majority of tables - as this will advantage you more often than not - because at most tables - the resulting ev will exceed -0.50 for more hands than bs predicts - at a minority of tables - you would be benefited from surrendering less often - but you want to win tables - so a more frequent surrender is desirable -

over many tables over a long time - the probabilities - of course - over all - will tend to converge towards the expected - but that is not relevant to tournament play - you want to play the probabilities to win the most tables - so you want the strategy that helps you do that -

I do think it is possible to build a playing strategy for tournament bj - that takes into account the different nature of risk of ruin and the impact of probabilities for short sequences - and is set up to maximize the players potential for winning the table - as opposed to maximizing long term profit - which is irrelevant to tbj - and you can oput this strategy into a bs type chart - and vary it by the playing rules - etc - just like you do for bs - you will still need to vary from that strategy because of strategic considerations - like correlating with other players - etc. - and of course - desperation plays going into the final hand - sometimes you just really need to double your hard 19 against the dealer's ace - but still - there are definitely better playing strategies possible the bs for tournament play - as I guide to follow - and a proper probability analysis can also improve betting strategies as well - such as indicating more aggression during the first 8 hands of an ebj table -

I have been using a heavily modified strategy for playing tournaments - for several tournaments now - and getting good results - when I hit 100 tables - I'll let everyone know how well it worked - but I am very happy with it at this point -

 

Monkeysystem

aggressive betting doesn't have to mean always putting out the largest bet - anything above the middle bet of the other players I would consider 'aggressive' - if you bet too conservatively - you will need to go all-in at 53% of your tables to survive the first elimination hand - and you're not going to win any tournament on hand 8 - but you do want to survive the first elimination hand without maximum risk and in good shape for the rest of the play - more aggressive betting will accomplish that a little more often than more conservative betting - I think