Hello again It's heads up in the final hand of a recent tournament and I am BR1 going into the last hand in which I also act last. Betting is 50-2500, surrender allowed, Aces split only once and one card for each only. BR2 - 11,500, bet 2500, cards A-6, action hit, 20, stand. BR1 - 14,050, bet 2500, cards A-A, action ??? Dealer - 10 Should I split those Aces? Many thanks Dogen
Quick Math Without doing the math of the hand which you could never do at the table in less than 1 minute.The Push for you opponent looms large with his 20 . Since you can split your aces without giving up a low to him and by doing so you protect against his pushing as splitting aces has a greater potential to win one lose one than to lose both. I'm on the side of splitting them..........This is how I would play the hand with under a minute to make my decision and I have held forth in that with my responding to this post without looking anything up Joep
split Here's a quick proof: with SPLIT: If at least one of our hands is 21 (happens 52% of the time) we always advance Only this group of cases is already 52% This is way more than with SR, because this results us to advance only 41% (Dealer makes 20 or 21)
I would HIT,if i make instantly 18 i lose when dealer makes 19 if i make instantly at least 19,20 i win 100% lets say if i hit hard 14-AA2T i stand ,i lose when dealer makes 17-19 odds should be 70% total. Splitting does not seem good if u wont get picture,u win only when dealer makés 21,or burst.
Split those puppies Splitting the Aces seems to me to be the best play for BR1. Tirle bj mentioned that getting a 10 on at least one hand gives BR1 the table (regardless of dealer outcome) and that probability is 52%. But there are other scenarios that that will give BR1 a table win when splitting, most important of which is a dealer bust. Here is a list of the ways for BR1 to win the table when splitting Aces under the circumstances outlined and some probabilities of that happening: NOTE: The percent in parenthesis is the probability (rounded) of dealer hitting to the total indicated when having an up card of 10. Dealer hits to 17 (12%) and BR1 hits to 18, 19, 20, or 21 on either hand – probability = ??% Dealer hits to 17 (12%) and BR1 hits to 17 on both hands ---------------- probability = ??% Dealer hits to 18 (12%) and BR1 hits to 19, 20, or 21 on either hand –---- probability = ??% Dealer hits to 18 (12%) and BR1 hits to 18 on both hands ---------------- probability = ??% Dealer hits to 19 (12%) and BR1 hits to 20 or 21 on either hand –-------- probability = ??% Dealer hits to 19 (12%) and BR1 hits to 19 on both hands ---------------- probability = ??% Dealer hits to 20 (37%) and BR1 hits to 20 or 21 on either hand –-------- probability = ??% Dealer hits to 21 ------------------------------------------------------ probability = 4% Dealer busts -----------------------------------------------------------probability = 23% Now I don’t have the time or inclination to calculate out all the exact probabilities but it looks to me like BR1 would have around a 80% probability of winning the table if he split the Aces. If any of the math whizzes out there would like to make the calculations, I’d be interested in the results. Flat Eric take note: This would be an interesting challenge for you, unless Reachy gets to it first. As a side note, I don’t understand why BR2 only hit. Seems to me he should have DD to have any reasonable chance of winning the table. But of course, this is not the question that was asked. Just making an observation.
Split or surrender, how about HIT? The first thing I like to mention is that BR1 absolutely gains nothing by surrender vs hit. If SR - BR1 advances only when dealer makes 20 or 21. If the dealer is going to make 20 or 21, BR1 can comfortably lose his bet while trying to make 17 - 21 and gain extra pushes or wins with dealer's 17, 18 or 19. This is free hit vs surrender. Couple of numbers: If BR1 splits A-A, he/she advances with about 75.5% If BR1 hits A-A, he needs to know how far to hit. Simply by hitting as a dealer (hit to hard 17 or soft 18), he advances 80.2% of the time. Remember this is not the best way to play, but it is better than spliting. And finally the best way to play the hand is to hit to soft 18 or hard 15.
Thank you Many kind thanks for your replies. However I must admit that I am now more confused than when I started. Everybody has put forward good mathematical arguements for hitting or splitting and I don't know which is MOST right. With the use of math and stat I would have hoped a single correct answer was possible but it seems not. Can anybody provide a definitive answer? Incidentally I hit, bust, dealer turned and 8, I lost. I wished I had split. Many thanks Dogen
H15 S18 Here are my numbers for an infinite deck. It doesn't matter if the dealer hits or stands with soft 17 since with his 10 up he can only get a hard total after checking for not having a BJ. .............BnkRll..........Bet.........cards........action BR1........11,500.......2,500........A + 6.......hit to 20 BR2........14,050.......2,500........A + A.........? Dealer......................................10 Surrender.........40.81% Double.............43.56% Split................75.53% H15 S18...........80.58% H16 S19...........79.70% Therefore hit to soft 18 or hard 15 In Ken Smith's revision of Wong's table page 131 he gives H16 S19 for this situation when BR1 has a "slim lead". However in the above hand BR1 has more than a "max bet lead" and can still advance if BR2 pushes and BR1 loses so H15 S18 is the best chance. If BR1 had only 12,000 (a slim lead) then H16 S19 would be the better play. ...................BlueLight
program? Hi Bluelight Can I ask how you came to your figures? Do you work them out manually or have you some software? If it's the latter what do you use? Cheers Reachy
We need some terms for these. How about "Same Results" and "Avoid Swing" tables. BTW, anybody have an "Avoid Swing" table?
Tournament probabilities Reachy I use my own program written in Microsoft Quick Basic for DOS for calculating results. Manually would take much longer and could result in an error if I should overlook something. ........................BlueLight
