"Surrender Trap"

Surrender BACK Trap and mid game surrender. more comments please?

I'd appreciate anyones comments on the above post.

Thank you,

PapaTreat
papatreat@aol.com

 

Surrender Low

RBBob,
I like your approach to blackjack tournament strategies a lot.
If you are not already achieved (I don’t know) tournament player, then it is just a matter of time and practice before you will become one.
You showed that you like to look at a broader aspect of events, you work with the real numbers (very important), and that you are interested in many concepts. Good work.

Here are some specific comments you asked for.
What you call “surrender back trap” I call a maximum bet retaining the “surrender low” possibility.
When players analyze possible bets, I recommend that they always use ranges. “Surrender back trap” determines the top range of your bet that will still make you a winner if you and your main opponent surrender your bets. Technically, smaller bets will work as well, but the bigger bet may have additional psychological effects. Your opponent may not want to (or not be able to) exactly calculate how much money you will have if you surrender and he may think that his surrender will leave him with more chips than you may have even if you surrender.

It is impossible to put the exact value on this play because there is no measurable way to know the chances for your opponent to do this “foolish” play, even if the right conditions turn up.
For this situation to have a chance of happening your opponent's first two cards need to add up to 16, 15, and possibly 14. That’s about 15% to 20%. The dealer has to have a good hand, about 50%. Your hand, can’t be a winning hand, like nineteen and up, or a “promising” hand like nine, ten and eleven. It also can’t be an obvious candidate for surrender. So, we have 15%/20% times 50% times ~25% -- makes about 3%. Additionally, there should be no other players with quality hands, so their pushes or wins would make them ending up with more chips than you would have after surrendering. And finally, you main opponent has to fall for the idea of surrendering.
Though, it seems that the chances are low, if there is no better bet, any bit that helps is valuable and should be pursued.

I would like to bring to your attention the fact that many players do pay attention to other players’ bets and are looking for reasons behind them. For the case you cited, I would be inclined to bet 200 (out of my brl of 405) to make my opponent believe that I intended to double down no-matter-what, thus, I will not consider surrendering if he surrenders his bet of 500 (out of 515 brl).
Also, I may look for some other players having bankrolls smaller than 255, then keeping just five bucks more in unbet money. This way your main opponent may think that you just took (and will keep) the low on that person. Also, rounded numbers usually work better to conceal the intentions. Bet of 260 asks the questions why? And there is no other reasonable answer other than to keep the surrender low.

Knowing the relatively small value of winning by using a maximum bet retaining the surrender low, you may look more favorably at other bets. Betting only 100 protects you against BR4 (brl 300 all-in) winning her hand if you win your doubled bet, and gives you a win if you and BR2 surrender, or BR4 pushes. Bet of 200 remains my favorite, covers BR4 winning, and wins with BR2 pushing. Etc. etc.

RBBob, I think you correctly presented this as four players game with three advancing, though it is really two advancing out of three. BR1 have a lock, but many players would still look at the situation as four players and either get confused or at least they could feel that it is much more complicated than it really is. Since we talking about psychology of bets this is a pertinent element.
Also, very astute observation about the necessity of making the bet smaller by more than one minimum bet if a casino rounds down surrender bets.

I will make comments about the second part of your very nice post when I come back from my trip (a welcomed change) to LA.
Have a good weekend,

S. Yama

 

in early and mid part of tourney play bs, most of the times

RBBob,
A few words on the second part of your post.

Once again, I would like to congratulate you on your analytical skills.
It is helpful to know the exact expectations for the specific plays, and you even have a nice aide memoire for it.
You made right conclusions that in some situation preserving parts of your bankroll (as a result of surrender that is not the basic strategy play) can outbenefit the sum of effects for winning, pushing, and losing the whole bet.
You moved the point of surrender toward an arbitrary selected number of minus forty percent. The key element now becomes to correctly assess the situation when this would be a correct action.

Let me digress here. It reminds me of my own path, a few years ago, with deciding when to bet a maximum bet and when to bet half of my bankroll when I needed to make a catch-up bet and I had more than one max bet but less than two max bets.
For some reason I thought the point of splitting my bankroll in half was somewhere between having enough chips that my two bets would be at least two-thirds to three-quarters of the max bet.
There is no such a point. It is simply (but not that simple) result of comparing the value of winning max bet (and not being able to split) together with chances when I lose that bet versus benefits of winning and losing bet that is half my bankroll. The process is not an easy one because you must include likely correlation to your opponents’ result and psychological effects of your winning/losing specific bets on your opponents’ bet sizes and plays.

I am aware that my ramblings may confuse not only you but also most of other readers. The difficulty lies in my incapability of explaining one process without relying and referring to other processes and elements of blackjack tournament theory you may not be familiar with.

Let’s go back to your deciding when to surrender and when to play the hand. Hopefully I can be of some help by sharing my views on some approaches to the subject.
No matter what methodology you use it all comes down to the idea of the risk – reward ratio.
What you need to be doing is comparing your overall tournament value for two decisions: playing the hand and surrendering it.
Basic strategy tells us what is statistically the best playing strategy for each particular hand. This will prove right in the long run. And disregarding bankroll, trip duration, and risk of ruin topics it is always the long run when we play blackjack for real money in casinos.
It is not so in blackjack tournament play. Winning, or losing, or losing half of your bet, sometimes even if it is a small portion of ones bankroll may decide between a big prize win and no win at all.
So, while the basic strategy is a great guidance or at least an important point of reference most of the time, in essential situations it loses its validity.

In the early and middle phase of a tournament round the reward is somewhat smaller than the risk.
For example, in the first few hands, if you make all-in bet you have about even chances of winning or losing. Losing takes you out from the competition, so the risk is 100%. Winning increases your chance a lot, but it is not near being a guarantee that you win the table.
Nevertheless, the risk-reward ratio stays somewhat proportionally related to your bankroll.
It is additionally “flatten” (and not linear) by specific situations like: your bets being smaller, prospect of having a bad betting position, and the leader being far ahead of you. There are also other aspects of the game that you could try to incorporate to assess the risk-reward ratio - and your opponents’ style of playing is definitely one of them.

In the end phase of a round proportionality of bets to the players’ bankrolls may completely lose any relevance. There are situations where going into the last hand and having bankroll bigger by a minimum bet can increase chances to win/advance by more than thirty five percent, and much more against inexperienced players.

In the situation you described basic strategy probably would be the best play. You should consider changing it if a few additional indication point in the same direction. Remember that the differences expressed in percentage numbers are rather small. A composite of some typical situations you described, assuming you would have good betting position on the last hand, and played only against one other player, your chances of winning the table would be in the low twenties. Each of the below mentioned aspects could move it about one to one and half percent.
You need to look where your bankroll may end up if you lose, surrender, or win your bet in relation to the maximum bet and the leader bankroll.
For example, if winning your next maximum bet gets you within one max bet to the leader even if you lose the whole bet -don’t surrender.
If the leader is going to partially correlate (will make bigger than the minimum bet) when you make big catch-up bets after the surrender – don’t surrender.
Surrendering hand that has EV of -.40, for your case, lowers your chances about one and half percent.
Being likely to bet first on the last hand, as well as the leader making sizable bet and having a good hand (21 and bj) should prompt you toward taking chances of playing instead surrendering.

Counting may easily tip the decision one way or the other. For example, if we compare player’s 15 vs. dealer 9 and use single deck, where first, we replace two Tens by two sixes, and then two sixes replaced by two Tens.
The EV changes from -.39 to -.55. The chance of winning is 27% in the first case and only 19% in the second case. This difference would be worth slightly over two percent for winning the table in RBBob’s example.

Hope it helps,

S. Yama

 

Another excellent post Mr Yama. Being a newbie I need to go back to the beginning really and I need to know more about EV, which is obviously fundamental to the topic we are discussing here. What resources do you recommend to help me understand EV? Are there EV charts that match players hand with dealers upcard? How easy is it to calculate EV without charts or simulators?

Help!

cheers

Reachy

 

Sorry to bring up old stuff...

... but I have been reviewing this surrender trap thing (getting paranoid about it; don't think I could stand the shame of being caught out by one. Again!!! ) and whilst I understand it, something in S. Yama's original post caught my eye and I'd like a little more explanation on.

For the part about being slightly greater than 1/3 of a max bet ahead I'm guessing the bet of 2/3 is so that you can surrender to the low if you want and also cover a max bet win by BR2. Again with the slighly more than 1/2 max bet lead, betting your lead less a chip will give you the low and high.

Firstly can I ask why can't you use this type of surrender trap with leads of more than 1/3 max?

Secondly, my concern with the above strategies is that they don't cover a max bet DD win by BR2 even if you DD yourself. You're not trying to spring a surrender trap with these bets so is there not more value in betting to allow DD cover? You would still have low and high against a max bet by BR2 and if they opt to take the low against you by 1 chip you have the option of surrendering to the low if you have a bad hand forcing them to win. They could of course in some circumstances bet to cover your surrender but only near the 1/3 max bet end of your lead.

Also can I ask what betting strategy you advocate for the leads between 1/3 and 1/2 max bet?

Cheers

Reachy

 

other leads

Reachy, I am sorry for not being able to answer it immediately, I will do it next week, promise, I am so pressed for time, who isn’t, though?

Very briefly:
Your guesses were right; the bets you mentioned retained the low if surrendered but could cover single maximum bet win by your opponent.
Surrender trap can be devastating, but its value is diminished by small chances of someone falling for it.
If I estimate that it may work 5% of the time against a particular player, but I give up overall 10% by not “forcing” my opponent to win a double down, than it is twice as good play not to go for “classic” surrender trap. Beside, betting just under twice the lead is a surrender trap, just a different form.
If you analyze this kind of games you will soon see that the value of it comes by correct “read” on your opponent most likely response to your bet. It becomes a game like this: my optimum bet may cause my opponent betting optimally for my edge of x, my betting less than optimally will cause my opponent to bet y times worse than optimally and z times optimally; my total chances are better for my not optimal play because a greater chance of my opponent playing not his best.

In the article you read I used some simplifications and rounding. Of course there are other leads, worth striving for, that afford you slightly better advantages. The other numbers, for example, are a lead of .375 max bet, then a lead of more than .4 max lead, and so on.

Hmm, can you find why lead of .375 is better than lead of .35 max bet?
Keep in mind that we are talking theoretical advantages, they may be very small and not really important in real (tournament playing) life.

Till next week,
S. Yama

 

Still working on 0.35 vs. 0.375

Is a just over 0.4 max bet lead good because you can take the low against a BR2 push and still beat their max bet win with a BJ of your own?

Cheers

Reachy

 

can't do it!!!!!

S. Yama - I've been puzzling over this .35 vs .375 max bet lead question and I just can't figure out why the .375 is theoretically better (apart from I guess slightly increasing your odds of winning the game). Before you answer what about opening it up to other forum members? Come on guys, what's the answer?

BTW Question is...

Cheers

Reachy

 

It is more that just making Surr Trap bet.

If you make a bet that broadly qualifies as a surrender trap and your opponent falls for it – great, enjoy your success. However, what if he or she doesn’t fall for it? Now you need to know how to play your hand.
Also, from your opponent perspective, he or she should know what is his/her best bet since you somewhat compromised your optimal bet hoping for the trap to work.
The answers to these questions will depend on the lead you have over your opponent.

For example, your lead is just over one third of max bet and you have bet exactly two thirds max bet. Let’s make it more realistic. Bets are: min 10, max 1,000, you had 2,000 and have bet 670; your opponent had 340 less, he is a good player, his bankroll was 1,660 and he has bet 600.
How do you play your hands now? When do you surrender, when do you hit, or stand, or double down?
There is a quite simple answer but the logic or practical understanding may not be easy for unpracticed players.
The formula is that you should surrender if your total chance of winning or pushing is smaller than your opponent’s chance of winning his hand.

Seems simple, but to understand it fully I will rephrase it differently. See if you understand the same concept but stated differently.
You stand or hit and don’t surrender if your total chance of winning or pushing is greater than total chance of your opponent losing or pushing (you can look at your opponent chance as 1 minus chances of winning).

To make it really sink in check if you can answer what is the right play in the bankrolls situation described above when you have hand of hard seventeen and your opponent has a stiff, let’s say a sixteen, and the dealer shows a six upcard.

Later we can get to the subject of right bets for your opponents; this is a key component to see the EV difference in leads of 0.35 and 0.375.

S. Yama