Hand 9 out of 10. (yes, I know, another next to last hand teaser..) Min/max bet 100/1000 and surrender allowed. BR1 2401 chips (me) and last to act on this next to last hand, BR2 2400 chips. BR2 bet 168, and BR1 exactly matched that bet 168. BR2 pair of 7`s, BR1 hard 11 and dealer up card 10. BR2 surrendered. What BR1 should correctly do ? (I did double with the hope that I will gain a lead of 400+ which would allow me to take the high and low on the last hand with a bet of 580, BUT in case of a different lower bet which would not let me gain at least a 400 lead, I would have surrendered my 11 ! - Is this the best optimal approach to it or not ?)
Without any exact numbers, my feeling is that this is similar to the situation in http://www.blackjacktournaments.com/bb/showthread.php?t=7907 in that the possible 400+ lead to be gained by doubling is not substantial enough or likely enough (with 11 vs the dealer 10) to overcome the benefit of correlating. I think I would surrender my 11.
So, it means that my opponent did a good decision by surrendering his 14 and eventually letting me to trap myself with a tempting but not optimal double ? But if instead dealer 10 up card there would be an Ace (no blackjack) or a 9 (or any other card) would still be correct to correlate and surrender on the 11 ?
If he had that kind of read on you, then perhaps it was a savvy play. It may also be that he simply saw 14 vs 10 and decided that surrender was the right play for his hand or that he saw your 11 and didn't want to risk a full swing vs your double. I still think that possible outcome of a 400+ lead in this situation is trumped by a guaranteed lead going into the final hand. I have not run any sims. It's just my gut feeling based on the results of the analysis I referenced previously.
surrender Thanks to gronbog’s tables we can estimate that surrendering your eleven hand gives you 51.4% chance to win while doubling would make you win about 47.5%. Also if you double for full amount and win you would have lead of 421 points. In this situation the best bet would be 790 to 840. This range has almost 2% better chances than bet of 580. Also, if you have time you may want to have fun finding double down bet for less that would be slightly more advantageous, and figure it out why. S. Yama
SuckOutOnThis, no, I am not saying that 290 is better than 790. What do you see special about the 290 number. I was saying that if a player was going to the last round of play with a lead of 421 the correct bet is from the range of 790 to 840, when both opponents have more than 2000 bankroll and max bet is 1000. Also, if a player decided to double down (next to last hand) with a lead of 1 point and his opponent surrendered bet of 168 then double down for less (if allowed) is slightly better than double for the full amount. S. Yama
