Final hand, Bet Min: 1K, Max: 100K You have 564K and are on the button They have 441K Both bet 100K secret. You get hard 13. They get A-7. How do you play it? How should they play it (that should be pretty obvious). Remember, you must act first. Thoughts? I'll post the actual results after, I hope, some replies from our viewing audience of experts...
What's the dealers up card? What is the dealers up card? That is what I would used to decide what action I would take on my hard 13.
Ace... My apologies for not including this most vital piece of info! ...and also, neither you nor they took insurance and dealer did not have BJ.
With the dealer showing an ACE, he/she will only bust 20% of the time. If you stand, your opponent has a decent chance to swing you and win the table. So I would hit to 18. Although there is a secret bet, with your opponent not having a pair to split, he can only double his bet. Therefore doubling down will do you no good because all you need is a single win to lock up a table win.
Hit to hard 17 With an initial bet of 22K BR1 shuts out BR2 unless BR2 gets a double down. After the 100K bet by BR1 and a BR2 bet of 100K (a best bet) and the cards delt: BR1 should hit to hard 18. This limits BR2's chance of winning the round to 22.37% If BR1 busts and then if BR2 hits to soft 19 and hard 17 then BR2's chances rise to 38.53% (after BR1 busts). ........................BlueLight
If You Stand If you stand your opponent needs to beat the dealer's pat hand to beat you no matter what he bet (remember, you can only assume he bet the max.) There's no point in doubling when your single win covers the double down like this, except to hide the hit card in the online game. In the live game doubling would be pointless since you stand in secret and your opponent doesn't know for sure if you stood or doubled. In this game the dealer hits soft 17, meaning with a dealer upcard of ace, the dealer will draw to 17 only 8% of the time. If your opponent can't improve his hand you have a 92% probability of winning by just standing on a stiff here. And even if your opponent does improve his hand he still needs to beat the dealer's pat hand. The dealer has a 72% probability of finishing with 18 or higher. You'd better stand.
Up by $123,000... BR1's bet is okay (anything $78,000 up to the $100,000) will cover BR2's DD. Now the only way you (BR1) can lose is if you get swung. A win/DD win does BR2 no good. The only hand the dealer can have to swing you is a 17 (presently), a push by BR2 still gives you the win, so I agree with Monkeysystem and would stand on my 13 and not give away the bust.
What really happened... OK--thanks all for the input. Toolman and Bluelight say hit, essentially because the dealer busts only 20% of the time when showing an Ace. TX and Monkeysystem say stand on the stiff due to fear of busting and since the other player still must also make a hand against the Ace to win. So on to what I did, and what happened: I hit, figuring the same as Toolman and Bluelight since 80% of the time (79.87% to be precise in an H17 game) the dealer would make a hand. I caught a 9 and busted. They doubled down, as expected with what I assumed was a 100K max bet. The dealer busted, their DD card was a 10 making 18, swinging me 200K up vs. my 100K down. I guess the analysis would need to be how much likelihood that doubling an A-7 will produce a hand better than a dealer hand starting with an Ace. Rounded, there is a 21% each chance of an 18 (20.66%), 19 (20.68%) or 20 (20.73%), making them all more or less equally likely. A 17 will result only 8.28% of the time, while 21 will appear 9.53% of the time. I have no chart to tell me the likelihood of A-7 producing hands that could not beat the 80% of hands 17 and above that the dealer could get if the dealer didn't bust. In retrospect, I think I should probably have stood. My sense is, thinking about it, that the other player would not get a DD that would beat the dealer's final total, thus standing would make me safe. Just wish I had the figures to show myself why this is better--or conversely that it is not if that is the case. I'm sure I have the info in Peter Griffin's book or Schlesinger's Blackjack Attack or something--I'll have to dig it up so I can know for sure... After all, no one's providing definitive proof here of the best play--only street smarts. Trouble is--I'm hearing to go down two different streets! (Where's Reachy or London Colin's UK supercomputer when you need it?)
Why? If you busted in front of BR2, why would they DD and give you the low again? With your $100,000 lost all they needed to do was was win. Their DD made no sence at all.
TX: "If you busted in front of BR2, why would they DD and give you the low again? With your $100,000 lost all they needed to do was was win. Their DD made no sence at all." Because I bet secret, remember? They didn't know for sure if I may have bet small and they still needed to DD to catch me. Especially in light of my hitting the 13 instead of standing. At least that's what I figure they thought...
Duh....LOL Forgot about the secert bet, I was wondering why BR2 would DD...LOL. I was think, "boy thats a bad play"...LOL.
