Teaser

As per Sir Reachy request

A new tournament teaser

UBT format

2 players left min bet 500 max bet 25,000 Surrender is available
Br 1 betting first has used their secret bet has 67,000

Br 2 betting last with a secret bet has 59,000

This is the last hand of a one table tournament top 2 are in the money


Make the bet as if you were BR 1

and then make a secret bet as if you were Br 2 responding to BR 1 out in the open bet.

I will post the hands in a future post so you can then play the hands.

 

ok - I'll go

I was going to wait for Reachy - but since it's Presidents Day here and I'm playing at home, I'll go first:

If I'm BR1 than I bet 16,500

This gives BR2 the option of betting 25,000 and taking the high 84,000 to 83,500. However it also gives BR1 a chance to surrender and lock out BR2. BR1 just has to remember that if BR2 bets 25,000 then BR1 will have to DD for 1,000.

If I were BR1 I would want to DD min anyway to hide my hand, assuming I didn’t have pat hand.

A bet of 17,000 by BR1 “gives” the low to BR2 with a min bet and surrender. While the 17,000 bet only gives BR1 a tie at the high so if I wanted to lock BR2 out I would bet 25,000 – even that doesn’t cover a BR2 max bet BJ – plus I’ve given away the low.

A bet of 7,500 is ok. I mean that’s the traditional bet (lead minus a chip) but BR1 can be locked out with a max bet BR2 BJ.

Now as far as BR2 is concerned I’m thinking about betting 25,000 if BR1 bets anything less than 16,500. If BR1 bets 17,000 I bet min.

Now I'll wait for Joe to tell me how wrong I was

 

welcome back

welcome back Joep

I like your thinking here fgk - that's the way I would play it if I were BR1 - leave the option of surendering for the low - and doubling for the high - BR2 has to go max - unless BR1 gives up the low, and BR2 knows it -

 

The Best bet

The best for BR1 is to bet something between 9k and 15,5k - to be able to cover BR2's max win with DD win and same time have an option to SR (16,5k dosen't cover max win and you lose opportunity to SR if BR2 push).
Now in this interval there are some bets better than the other ( bets between11,5k and 15,5k cover BR2's straight win by BJ).
If BR1 bet anything more than 11,5k - lets say 12k, then in case of Dealer's A up he needs to buy Insurance for 2,5k and by losing that bet - difference becomes only 5,5k and he can't SR and have a LOW with BR2 push.
So 11,5k bet is perfect - you insure for 2k and after that SR for 5,750 (total is 7,750) same time BJ on 11,5k covers BR2's max bet win.
For BR2 the best bet is MAX, because BR1 didn't cover the straight win.

 

Part 2

This is a tricky one because you as BR 1 can not see BR 2 bet so the suggestions by Arlalik are great but without knowing what BR 2 bet you are in the dark as to what to do with any of you suggested bets after the hands are dealt.Now if both bets are out in the open then its a completely different situation.

This hand actually occurred between Hollywood Dave and I in Oklahoma.

We put together a 1,800 UBT format tournament 6 players @300 each are own main event if you will in Oklahoma.

We got down to heads up with Dave in the lead by 8,000 with no secret bet and with me betting last with a secret bet,you could call this an even match with these specifics.

Dave and I agreed to take $800 each and play the last hand for the remaining $200.

More specifics Kenny Smith was the dealer

Here is what happened

Dave bet 17,000

I personally think that is a super bet because of what it covers.
with an 8,000 lead that bet covers me on the high if I bet 25K.it also allows Dave to be able to surrender his hand once he see his hand and then my hand.My bet may be a secret but my hand is not.His hands are tied because of my secret bet and this covers me for a tie for the high and he is still able to surrender if he doesn't like the looks of things.

OK now its my turn to bet

I now realize that a max bet of 25 K will not assure me of a win but at best a tie on a win win.That is not the road I want to go down.

If I were to make a max bet here even though Dave does not know it I would be giving him virtually the high(Tie) and low which is not a healthy thing on the last hand.

So I must find a bet that gives me more escape hatches.

I bet 2,000 and let me take you inside my head on this hand. Here is what was running through my head at 4am in the morning.If Dave was dealt a hand that was difficult for him to surrender than I have the low on him.If he surrenders and loses 8,500 then any win by me gives me the high back.So the size of my bet allowed me to lose the hand if Dave played his out and lost,I would win that way with Dave having 50,000 and my chip count would be 57,000.

If Dave surrendered he would have 58,500 and if I won my hand I would have 61,000.This gave me a way to win without taking the dreaded forced DD on a 25K bet which I hate doing unless there is "NO WAY OUT"

OK now that you know the bets here are the hands

Dave is dealt a hard 13 and surrenders

I'm dealt a hard 13 also Dealers has a 10 up

How do you play my hand? your choices are stand or hit



If you were to hit what total do you hit to before you stand.


One final note when you are done playing with this teaser dont forget to close the door of my head when you leave.


Joep

 

Thank you!

Nice teaser Joep, gives us plenty to think about. The lead BR1 has is awkward (less then 1/3) so, as all others have pointed out, you are going to have to compromise one way or another.

Since I don't wish to duplicate other responses I will suggest a bet of 21.5K "What the hell sort of bet is that?" I hear you ask. Well, here goes. It covers BR2 max bet and max bet double with a double of your own. Sure, it gives up the surrender push but any bet by BR2 over 5K is vulnerable to a BR1 surrender since if forces BR2 to win or push if BR1 surrenders. This may force BR2 to bet small to take the low and prevent a BR1 surrender but leave them with limited flexibility. They can only win if you lose or they successful double whilst you lose or push. If I was BR2 I'd bet $4.5K so that BR1 can't surrender and it also allows a double to beat the push.

I didn't say it was the best bet, just another bet.....


Cheers

Reachy

Addition: This post was written before Joep's response! Damn

 

Ok, now that you’ve given some “more” details there are still more I would like to know. For example this was a single deck that was being used correct? What was the penetration and the count? If it were just you and HD heads up I KNOW that you were both keeping track of things like that.

BR1’s bet of 17,000 and surrender gives BR1 a chip total of 58,500. Had you min bet 500 you could have surrendered for a chip total of 58,750 and beaten him by ½ a chip.

For that reason I didn’t like the 17,000 bet. But you didn’t go for the obvious instead you went for 2,000. Now simply put you’ve got to win or have the dealer bust.

Having a 13 versus a dealer face card…..

With a single deck and hitting soft 17 the dealer is only going to bust 23.25%.

I hit and play BS. Hit until 17 then stop – unless I knew what the count was and with a single deck…..

The other option was to tell the dealer that you’d give them 100.00 for an 8! Oops it wasn’t Antonio “the magician” dealing was it? :joker:

Another option that BR2 should have considered, that hasn’t been discussed, is a secret bet of ZERO. That’s right!

Now Joe, Had HD bet 16,500 instead of the 17,000 tell me you wouldn’t have bet max (25,000) instead of the 2,000!

 

I would bet $7,500 to lock up the low. I'd take the 56% odds of winning?

UBT is reshuffled after each hand. Forget counting.

Wish I could have watched this one!
tgun

 

You're right about the online version - this was a single deck in HD's suite.

You've got to AP players with a single deck - you think no counting was going on?

 

Once HD bets 17,000, what about the possibility of also betting 17,000 behind him. It gives you many options:

If he plays his hand straight, you can surrender for the low, DD for the high, or simply play for a swing.

If he surrenders, you play your hand to tie or win.
If he doubles down, you surrender and force him to win (or 3-bet if you can split).

The best part is that without knowing if he needs to DD or surrender, he may be forced into suboptimal play.

Admitedly, I've never tried this technique, and I don't know if it's more successful than other strategies, but it seems like it should work at least half of the time.

What do you think?

 

Since a push is as good as a win, I would just follow BS in this case and hit to a hand. That is assuming a favorable count.

Thanks for having a sub-question that a newbie can take a stab at. :laugh:

 

Wong bashing

I always used to use this line of thought but I came to the conclusion that bets like this limit your ability to manipulate your odds after the cards have been dealt. BR2 can practically lock the high in this case since their max bet will need 3 bets by BR1 to be beaten. Therefore BR2 is nearly powerless to do anything after the cards have been dealt. A bigger bet will allow cover of the high but will require decision making after the deal about re-taking the low (something I hope I can address with my own strategy charts, you can call it TSS if you like ). It may mean reducing your initial probability from 56% to something like 50% but it'll give you greater flexibility post-deal which on balance would give you a better overall probability of success. I have heard the term "flex bet" somewhere before and I like it.

This is not a criticism of your bet tgun, however I think it illustrates the limitation of Wong's Table 4 for assessing probabilities. I hope/wish someone is working on refining Table 4 and adding in doubles, splits, surrenders, BJs etc and more specific figures for players greater than 2. London C, you got anything in the pipeline?

Cheers

Reachy

 

Exactly why I originally said 16,500 to PREVENT BR2 from taking the low. The problem is that I forgot that with EBJ you can secret bet zero! Talk about taking a low

Interestingly enough you're right about players which higher bets surrendering more than normal (at least more than BS would dictate)

 

Does not compute (yet)

I'm quite relieved to see that there is some doubt about this point. After a spate of 1on1 play at Global recently, I realised that I don't know what the optimal bet is in this situation. So I've been meaning to pose the question -

How does the presence of the surrender option affect Wong's 'Two Player Exception'?

I'm glad it's not just me who is unsure.

When there is a BR3 also in the mix, then the flexible approach (try to take the high against them both, but with the option to surrender into the low against at least one of them) seems like it must be the way to go, but when there are just two of you it seems a lot more uncertain.

I do have some plans in this area, but the pipeline is a long one, and it will be some time before anything dribbles out of the end of it. Don't forget, it's not just a question of incorporating fixed probabilities of winning/losing various numbers of units. The tricky part is accounting for the dynamic changes of strategy that will occur, both for player 1 after he has seen player 2's cards plus his own, and then for player 2 after he has additionally seen how player 1's hand played out. (And then there are the UBT complications of face-down doubles and secret bets and secret actions.)

 

In reference to tgun's suggestion:

I'm a little surprised by this answer. If one can show that a different bet increases one's win probability before the cards are dealt by using "TSS" (or anything else) then that would be the best bet because then the new bet would give one a probability above 56%. But you can't show that.

When making a bet, one should always strive to make the bet that gives one the best probability to win with facts known before the card are dealt. Sure the final outcome will be determined by the fall of the cards and/or how one plays those cards. Yes, the probabilities change after the cards are known but that change can be for or against. One just don't know until one sees those cards but one must bet before one sees those cards. So to make a bet so one has more flexibility and in the process giving up some of the win probability (and thereby increasing the opponent's win probability) seems to be accomplishing nothing more than positioning one's self so one has the best chance to show off.

One should go into the last hand with the purpose of winning, not with the purpose of hopefully being able to show off to others neat little tricks one has picked up along the way. I guess I'm asking: Do you want to entertain others with your knowledge or win the table?

 

aha!

Toolman, I'm surprised that I can still surprise you!!

My general point here is that Wong Table 4 (WT4 from now on) is limited in it's use because it is very specific and takes no account of the "manipulation" of probabilities post-deal. I don't have the numbers and it'll be a big project to get them, probably far beyond what anybody is working on at the moment (certainly beyond my capabilities), and likely many years down the line.

I'm not picking on tgun but I'll use his bet to illustrate my point. Using WT4 in its purest form there is no doubt that BR1 betting 7.5K is the "best" bet since it's the absolute low and it forces BR2 to win their hand hence the 56%. But that's it. BR2 will bet max and BR1 has to rely on the dealer to beat BR2: he can't double, surrender, or anything to change his position after the cards have been dealt (OK, OK, he can split AND double but, COME ON!). However if BR1 had bet 15K as per MonkeySystem he has more options. If BR2 bets max for the high, BR1 can now DD to retake if need be. BR1 can also surrender and force BR2 to win, same as the 7.5K bet. I can't put numbers to this but intuitively I feel that it is better because I have options. If we use pure WT4 with a 15K bet then BR1s probability is 50-51%. But we have all seen, in previous tourney teasers, how much difference different actions can make post-deal, often 10-20%.

Look at it this way. As BR1 betting 1st the best we can expect using WT4 is a probability of 56% pre-deal. By betting 15K we reduce that to 50% or -6% as a relative measure. The question is, does a "flex bet" give you over 6% extra advantage post-deal to make this a better approach? My answer is, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, but I can't give you an actual overall figure. My gut says it does though.

This does lead me to a question of my own. Forget the secret bet aspect, this is pure TBJ theory we are talking here . Clearly if BR1 were acting last the probabilities of success would be much greater since they could simply correlate for the high low and get about 80%. That's at least 24% better than if they were acting first; the power of position! So BR1, knowing that there are various milestones that would increase their odds of success in a weaker betting position on the last hand (e.g. 1/2 max bet lead); did they not make an error by not making sure they at least achieved one of these milestones? I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the hand before last (FH-1) is more important that the final hand (FH) since it can dramatically effect your chances of success on that FH.

Anyway, off to bed, 1 bottle of Gewürztraminer later....

Cheers

Reachy

 

You will never cease to amaze me, my friend.

Positioning yourself before the FH is critical to long term success. I don't quite have that part down as well I'd like but I'm not alone in saying that FH-1 (and possibly several hands before that, depending on circumstances) can indeed be as critical as the FH especially if you are betting first on the FH. But that's not so surprising since Wong talks about this in his book. In a recent tournament, I blew my opportunity to get to the semi-finals by not remembering this principal. Hopefully, I will not repeat that error - experience is indeed the best teacher!

 

2 cents more!

I would only bet 15,000 and surrender for low if my opponent could be trapped. If not, I don't want to be forced to surrender to get the low, because I might be forced to abandon "Basic". For example what if I end up with a 12, 13, or 14, vs a dealer 17, 18, or 19, "Basic" says to hit; but now I must surrender to get the low back. I don't know the math but I know that when you abandon "Basic" you give up some odds of winning.


Thanks for all the great posts.
tgun

P.S. Reachy, I know you're not picking on me. A USA midwesterner, with "gun" in his handle.

 

Now I understand where your handle came from.