Your way blackjack

An off strip casino just started offering a new variation of blackjack. It's called "your way blackjack", it is essentially a cross between blackjack and pai gow. First, players make 2 identical wagers, then the dealer deals each player and himself 4 cards. Players then may arrange the 4 cards into 2 hands, a high hand and a low hand, the high hand must have higher or the same point value as the low hand. Dealer shows one of his 4 cards, and each player then play each hand according to regular blackjack rules. Lastly dealer reveals all 4 cards then split them into high and low hands according to "house way", then play his hands just like regular blackjack. Each high and low hands are won/lost/push just as usual. 1 deck was used for this game, dealer hits soft 17, DAS allowed, blackjack pays even money.

I played this game for about an hour, most hands ended up in a push just like pai gow poker. The interesting thing is by arranging the 4 cards anyway I wanted, I could create many more double down and split opportunities than regular blackjack.

What are your thoughts on this BJ variation? Are there any optimal arranging strategy and house edge analysis on this?

One more thing I forgot to mention. Blackjacks are treated as soft 21, so if the dealer hits to 21 the hand will push.

Quote: Numpkin

One more thing I forgot to mention. Blackjacks are treated as soft 21, so if the dealer hits to 21 the hand will push.

So there's basically no such thing as a player Blackjack in this game? It pays even money, and must beat the dealer?

Does a player blackjack push against a dealer blackjack, or is it like Pai Gow where the dealer wins ties?

i will try to make my low hand into double down hands.
since my double down will be facing his low (or possibly stiff hands), I think this would be quite an advantage.

my gut feeling is that this game won't last long.

Quote: Deucekies

So there's basically no such thing as a player Blackjack in this game? It pays even money, and must beat the dealer?

Does a player blackjack push against a dealer blackjack, or is it like Pai Gow where the dealer wins ties?

Correct, there's basically no such thing as blackjack, but you probably still wanna arrange ace and 10 together as your high hand.

Ties are pushes, just as in regular BJ.

From my observation, the "house way" dictates that the dealer must make a pad hand as the high hand if he can, if he can't he will try to make the best non stiff as his low hand. For example, if the dealer has 10, 6, 5, 4, he will make 14 as his high hand and 11 as his low hand. However, if the dealer has 10, 7, 4, 4, he can not make 14 and 11, he must make 17 and 8.

So the low hand doesn't neccesarily mean the worse hand.

Quote: Numpkin

From my observation, the "house way" dictates that the dealer must make a pad hand as the high hand if he can, if he can't he will try to make the best non stiff as his low hand. For example, if the dealer has 10, 6, 5, 4, he will make 14 as his high hand and 11 as his low hand. However, if the dealer has 10, 7, 4, 4, he can not make 14 and 11, he must make 17 and 8.

So the low hand doesn't neccesarily mean the worse hand.

without doing any math, the strategy seems to be attack on his low hand (and go for a double if you can) if he is showing a high card, and attack on his hi hand if he is showing 2-6.

Quote: andysif

without doing any math, the strategy seems to be attack on his low hand (and go for a double if you can) if he is showing a high card, and attack on his hi hand if he is showing 2-6.

OP said that the dealer only shows one of his 4 cards before you play your hands, and you must arrange your hands without seeing any of his cards.

Interesting variation -hard to optimize your play without understanding the rules on how dealer arranges his hands. Your double down and split advantages are minimized because, with 4 dealer cards, the dealer's upcard doesn't signify as much as in standard BJ.

But, apparently, the only dealer advantage is that when player busts his hand, player loses even if dealer subsequently busts the opposing dealer hand.

Since dealer has 4 cards there are a high number of possible combinations for the dealer's hands - very difficult to analyze.

Quote: gordonm888

OP said that the dealer only shows one of his 4 cards before you play your hands, and you must arrange your hands without seeing any of his cards.

Interesting variation -hard to optimize your play without understanding the rules on how dealer arranges his hands. Your double down and split advantages are minimized because, with 4 dealer cards, the dealer's upcard doesn't mean as much as in standard BJ.

Ah yes.
then i guess i would keep going for the double downs.

Just went and spent another hour or so at the table. Got clearfied on the "house way".

I made a mistake on my previous post, the dealer will actually always try to make 11 on the low hand unless he can make a 20 on his high hand. Example: 10, 9, 7, 2, the dealer will make 17 and 11 instead of 19 and 9. But if the cards are A, 9, 7, 2, dealer will make 20 and 9. Also, if the dealer has 2 aces, he will always split the aces, for example, A, A, 5, 6, dealer will make s17 and s16 instead of 12 and 11.

And the dealer up card seem pretty irrelevant compared to regular blackjack, but this is only from observation without any math.

Quote: andysif

Ah yes.
then i guess i would keep going for the double downs.

If dealer's upcard is a 10, there is a pretty good chance his high hand will be a 20 (or 21), so yiou wouldn't want to double down on the high hand in that situation! With the dealer's ability to arrange his 4 cards, a player's 2 card hand of 11 or 10 might not be as attractive as you think for a double down bet. Remember a dealer's T-6-T-5 is a great hand - arranged as T-T and 6-5.

How does dealer arrange A-T-9-8?
- as A-T and 9-8?
- or as A-9 and T-8?
- or as A-8 and T-9?

Quote: gordonm888

If dealer's upcard is a 10, there is a pretty good chance his high hand will be a 20 (or 21), so yiou wouldn't want to double down on the high hand in that situation! With the dealer's ability to arrange his 4 cards, a player's 2 card hand of 11 or 10 might not be as attractive as you think for a double down bet. Remember a dealer's T-6-T-5 is a great hand - arranged as T-T and 6-5.

How does dealer arrange A-T-9-8?
- as A-T and 9-8?
- or as A-9 and T-8?
- or as A-8 and T-9?

21 and 17, the dealer will always try to make 20 or 21 for the high hand.

Okay, I present some info that should be illuminating.

I developed a spreadsheet in which I listed out every combination of ranks for a four-card hand, together with the probability of it being dealt from a single deck (i.e., 9-8-7-6 occurs much more frequently than 9-9-9-9). For each of the possible 4-card hands, I used the Your Way Blackjack dealer's rules for arranging the four cards into two blackjack hands.

Below I present the frequency with which the dealer will have each kind of Blackjack hand in both his high hand and his low hand. Note that if the player arranges his hand according to the dealer's rules then these frequencies would apply to the player's hand as well.

2-card BJ hand	Freq in High Hand	Freq in Low Hand
21 (AT)	0.197	0.003
20	0.320	0.017
19	0.120	0.017
18	0.098	0.022
17	0.071	0.031
16	0.012	0.037
15	0.008	0.049
14	0.015	0.058
13	0.027	0.073
12	0.048	0.082
11	0.029	0.122
10	0.017	0.120
9	0.014	0.117
8	0.006	0.090
7	0.003	0.073
4-6	0.000	0.085
soft 17	0.002	0.000
soft 16	0.012	0.000
soft 12-15	0.014	0.005

There's a lot of data there, but I think we can tease out at least one conclusion.

Never double or split pairs when playing your high hand. Dealer's high hand will be a blackjack (which only counts as a soft 21) 19.7% of the time and will be a 20 (either T-T or A-9) 32% of the time. So 51.7% of the time you are playing against a Dealer hand of 20 or 21. So, let's not feel overly proud of an 11 or an 8-8 pair and double our bet. That is like running into a firing machine-gun in WWI.

Note that the dealer will have a made hand, 17 -21, about 70% of the time and a 10 or 11 4.6% of the time. Thus, during the 'arrange your cards" step, you must strive to make a "made hand," 17 or higher. If you can't do that, HIT whatever hand you have and hope to make a 21 or 20.

In subsequent posts, I will provide the frequency data for high and low hands as a function of the dealer's up-card. That should help us understand whether it makes sense to double down on an 11 or 10 in the low hand vs a dealer 5 or 6.

I'm playing this with a deck of cards at my desk.

I'm wondering,.....the two question that arise:
1. Is it fun for a Blackjack player;
2. Is it fun for a Pai Gow player?

Granted, it's easy to switch over to this game.
Your take?

The Table below is an analysis of the the Dealer's 2-card HIGH hand in Blackjack Your Way, as a function of the dealer's card that is shown. Remember that the dealer's up-card is revealed after the player arranges his cards but before the player makes decisions such as stand, hit, double etc on his/her high and low hands. Remember also that the dealer's up-card is one of four cards that the dealer has and does not necessarily become part of the dealer's HIGH hand; indeed when the face-up card is a 2-6 there is an excellent chance that it winds up in the dealer's low hand.

In the table below, the column headings are the rank of the dealer's face-up card, and the entries are the frequency with which the indicated 2-card BJ hand will appear in the Dealer's HIGH Hand. So as an example, when the up-card is an Ace, there is a 70% chance the HIGH hand will be a 21 (remember that there is no Blackjack in Blackjack Your Way, so an A-T counts merely as a (soft) 21.)

Hand	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	T	A
21 (AT)	0.130	0.130	0.130	0.130	0.130	0.130	0.130	0.130	0.262	0.700
20	0.240	0.240	0.240	0.240	0.240	0.240	0.240	0.314	0.391	0.0981
19	0.111	0.111	0.111	0.111	0.111	0.111	0.165	0.354	0.133	0.074
18	0.103	0.103	0.103	0.103	0.103	0.139	0.272	0.031	0.099	0.053
17	0.083	0.083	0.083	0.083	0.083	0.205	0.066	0.066	0.070	0
16	0.065	0.065	0.011	0.015	0.031	0.017	0.011	0.012	0.008	0
15	0.045	0.059	0.006	0.012	0.025	0.019	0.008	0.015	0.002	0
14	0.007	0.006	0.034	0.038	0.027	0.017	0.009	0.012	0.011	0
13	0.006	0.072	0.052	0.049	0.054	0.018	0.017	0.009	0.025	0
12	0.126	0.080	0.079	0.081	0.067	0.026	0.024	0.021	0.044	0
11	0.060	0.054	0.050	0.047	0.047	0.020	0.036	0.037	0	0.001
10	0.037	0.030	0.030	0.019	0.023	0.040	0.025	0	0	0.002
9	0.032	0.028	0.024	0.025	0.024	0.019	0	0	0	0.003
8	0.010	0.008	0.007	0.009	0.004	0	0	0	0	0.003
7	0.009	0.008	0.007	0.007	0	0	0	0	0	0.001
4-6	0.001	0.001	0.001	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.000
soft 17	0.001	0.001	0.001	0.001	0.006	0	0	0	0	0.006
soft 16	0	0	0	0.002	0.001	0	0	0	0	0.002
soft 12-15	0.035	0.032	0.032	0.028	0.003	0	0	0	0	0.024

Some Thoughts: If the Dealer's face-up card is an Ace, the HIGH Hand is brutal: 70% of the time it will be a made 21 and 9.8% of the time it is a made 20 and 7.4% of the time it is a made 19! And there is zero probability of the dealer having a stiff hand (12-16) in the high hand!! I haven't yet done the analysis, but I suspect that Basic Strategy for the Player's HIGH hand will be to hit a (hard) 17 and 18 vs a dealer Ace.

When the dealer shows a Ten-value card, there is approximately an 8% chance that the dealer's high hand will be stiff (12-16). I suspect that hitting a hard 17 on the HIGH hand vs a dealer Ten will also be optimum. I need to do the math, though.

When the Dealer's up-card is a 3, this indicates the weakest distribution of HIGH hands: about 28.2% pf the high hands will be 12-16. The second weakest face-card appears to be the 2, followed by 6, 5 and 4.

In my next post, I will provide the corresponding table for the Dealer's LOW hand. Be prepared for some some surprises.

This Table below, is an analysis of the the Dealer's 2-card LOW hand in Blackjack Your Way, as a function of the dealer's card that is shown. This is a companion table to the one in my previous post in this thread, which provides analogous information for the Dealer's HIGH Hand.

In the table below, the column headings are the rank of the dealer's face-up card, and the entries are the frequency with which the indicated 2-card BJ hand will appear in the Dealer's LOW Hand. As an example, when the up-card is a SIX there is a 20.7% chance that the LOW hand will be an 11 and a 5.5% chance that the LOW hand will be a 16.

Hand	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	T	A
21 (AT)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.004	0.010
20	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.006	0.022	0.035
19	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.007	0.056	0.022	0.032
18	0	0	0	0	0	0.008	0.056	0.017	0.028	0.039
17	0	0	0	0	0.009	0.056	0.046	0.046	0.039	0.049
16	0	0	0	0.009	0.055	0.056	0.025	0.066	0.046	0.055
15	0	0	0.009	0.055	0.046	0.048	0.066	0.066	0.060	0.067
14	0	0.009	0.055	0.046	0.065	0.033	0.074	0.074	0.070	0.076
13	0.009	0.055	0.047	0.065	0.086	0.089	0.089	0.089	0.087	0.088
12	0.055	0.045	0.065	0.086	0.040	0.097	0.097	0.097	0.096	0.089
11	0.070	0.106	0.145	0.207	0.207	0.154	0.144	0.088	0.113	0.090
10	0.123	0.145	0.179	0.087	0.183	0.151	0.152	0.096	0.11	0.085
9	0.158	0.179	0.168	0.174	0.164	0.04	0.078	0.088	0.107	0.081
8	0.162	0.146	0.075	0.141	0.128	0.053	0.057	0.061	0.085	0.066
7	0.148	0.149	0.014	0.121	0.006	0.040	0.050	0.054	0.07	0.053
6	0.128	0.052	0.103	0.000	0.000	0.023	0.029	0.046	0.050	0.034
5	0.097	0.097	0.003	0.003	0.001	0.018	0.028	0.009	0.027	0.024
4	0.045	0.012	0.007	0.001	0.005	0.008	0.009	0.003	0.010	0.011
soft 17	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
soft 16	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
soft 12-15	0.003	0.003	0.003	0.006	0.005	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.012

Analysis: When the Dealer's face-up card is in the range of 8 to A, there is a high probability that the Dealer has another high card in his 4 cards, enabling him to make a hard 17 or a soft 18 in his HIGH hand. The Dealer's rules will require him to do so, which means that the remaining two cards automatically become his LOW hand. This is a pretty random way to compose a LOW hand and it shows: the frequency of LOW Hands that are stiff (Hard 12-16) is highest when the Dealers up-card is 8 through Ace:

- Dealer Ace, LOW hand is stiff with a frequency of 37.5%
- Dealer Ten: 35.9%
- Dealer 9: 40.0%
- Dealer 8: 35.1%
- Dealer 7: 32.3%
- Dealer 6: 20.4%
- Dealer 5: 19.5%
- Dealer 4: 18.2 %
- Dealer 3: 28.2%
-Dealer 2: 24.9%

Note that when the dealer's up-card is a 5 or 6, the frequency of the LOW hand being an 11 is over 20%, and with a 6 showing the frequency of the low hand being a 10 is 18.9%! Given a Dealer 5 or 6, the Dealer is less likely to be able to make a "made hand" of 17-21 in the HIGH hand and thus will usually work to optimize the LOW hand when arranging his cards - and 11 is the best value that the low hand can get. These high frequencies of 10s and 11s will weigh somewhat against splitting pairs or doubling down when a Dealer 5 or 6 is showing.

After studying the table, above, I am guessing that a Dealer 9 signifies a weaker LOW hand than any other Dealer card. More rigorous analysis is needed to evaluate whether doubling down or splitting a pair in the LOW hand is ever warranted against any Dealer card.

So, the conventional Blackjack logic is turned on its head somewhat. I expect that the casino that is introducing Blackjack Your Way will make a ton of money from people who will be playing their BJ hands the conventional way: standing on 12-16 when the Dealer's card is a 2-6, doubling down on 10s and 11s, splitting pairs etc. In most instances, these appear to be terrible plays.

Coming up with a Basic Strategy for Blackjack Your Way will be a lot of work. There are two sets of decisions to optimize: how to arrange your four cards* and then how to play both the high and low hands. And many of the standard BJ rules won't apply all the time: like "Hit until Hard 17" and "Always split Aces and Eights." And, in a one-deck game, the identity of all four of the players cards may be relevant to some close game play decisions. I may take a shot at a Basic Strategy if I have the time, but I would encourage other math geeks to build on what I have done so far and take a shot at analyzing some strategy decisions.

* One oddity I noticed is that the dealer will arrange 9-9-8-8 as 9-9 (18) in the high hand and 8-8 (16) in the low hand, whereas the player has the freedom to arrange this as 9-8 (17) and 9-8 (17). However, when Basic Strategy is eventually developed it may call for hitting hard 17 in many or most situations, making a 9-8 | 9-8 about the worse holding you could get. So, a lot of basic analysis work needs to be done.

This game looks very intriguing! Lots of decisions for the player keeps it interesting.

I'm curious to see what full basic strategy looks like, how it compares to conventional rules of thumb (aka simple strategy), and costs of errors between those.
For example Blackjack Switch full strategy is pretty complicated, but there are a simpler set of rules of thumb that I was able to mostly master within a couple hours of practice.

I'd be a bit concerned with the frequency at which the high hand is 20 or 21. I guess it applies equally to dealer and player. But I know that facing down a dealer's 20/21 in normal BJ gets very frustrating. (Yeah.... The math ends up balancing out in the end... but there is still that feeling of a kick in the gut when they flip two face cards...) The frequency of loss or push on the high hand might get annoying here as well. I'd have to actually play it for couple hours and see the real-life frequencies.

Quote: Numpkin

Just went and spent another hour or so at the table. Got clearfied on the "house way".

I made a mistake on my previous post, the dealer will actually always try to make 11 on the low hand unless he can make a 20 on his high hand. Example: 10, 9, 7, 2, the dealer will make 17 and 11 instead of 19 and 9. But if the cards are A, 9, 7, 2, dealer will make 20 and 9. Also, if the dealer has 2 aces, he will always split the aces, for example, A, A, 5, 6, dealer will make s17 and s16 instead of 12 and 11.

And the dealer up card seem pretty irrelevant compared to regular blackjack, but this is only from observation without any math.

After analyzing the game I can understand the basis for the House Way. High hands of 17, 18 or 19 are terrible hands with EVs in the range of -0.6 to -0.9. Unfortunately, I have based the tables I posted on the originally-stated (but incorrect) House Way where the Dealer's first priority in arranging his cards is to make a High hand of 17-21. This will cost me an extra hour or two to fix.

Okay, I have adjusted my spreadsheet to account for the news that the dealer's first priority when arranging the cards is to make either a 21 or a 20 in his/her HIGH hand, and if unable to do that the dealer seeks instead to optimize the low hand (11 is usually the best low hand, 10 is usually the second best, etc.)

I have now analyzed some basic strategy for the player's HIGH hand. Here are my recommendations:

Vs. a 10 or A: HIT until you have made a hard 19 or higher.
Vs. an 8 or 9: HIT until you have made a hard 18 or higher.
Vs. a 4, 5,6 or 7: HIT until you have made a hard 17 or higher.
Vs a 2 : HIT until you have made a hard 16 or higher.
Vs a 3 : HIT until you have made a hard 14 or higher.


Note: edited on 6-26-2015 to reflect corrections to spreadsheet calculations

Can someone please tell me the name of the casino offering this game.

Looks to be the Orleans from this: Your Way 21

Quote: Paradigm

Looks to be the Orleans from this: Your Way 21

Thanks.

Quote: Paradigm

Looks to be the Orleans from this: Your Way 21

What does a field trial mean? After 45 days, the gaming board will decide if the game is legal or not, and if it can be introduced in other casinos?

Quote: Avincow

Quote: Paradigm

Looks to be the Orleans from this: Your Way 21

What does a field trial mean? After 45 days, the gaming board will decide if the game is legal or not, and if it can be introduced in other casinos?

Yes. Generally, it can be as long as 90 days; if the game is good, it drops off the field trial roster in 45 days and stays in the casino, with a de facto exclusive for the casino until it gets formally approved at a commission meeting;
if it is poor (no action), or holds improperly (generally the extreme ranges or less than 10% or over 45%), or has game protection issues, or excess customer complaints, - it may fail.

Games that successfully complete their field trials drop off the new game field trial posted list and remain installed, and are formally approved at the next commission meeting. These games will then get a NV game entry with rules of play.

Games that fail also drop off the list, and are uninstalled by the casino. More rarely, a passing field trial game may be dropped by the casino (acceptable numbers and performance, but less profitable to run than other games).

Games that are marginal may get an extended field trial, as an "extension chance."

The casino has great control over the game's chances (location, hours open, the casino's activity level, etc.) The Orleans is a very busy casino, and this helps.

I've completed a basic strategy analysis for the Your Way 21 LOW hand when you have 12-21. Here are the results for the LOW hand:

Dealer Card	HIT	STAND
A	12-14	15-21
T	12-14	15-21
9	12	13-21
8	12-13	14-21
7	12-13	14-21
6	12	13-21
5	12	13-21
4	12-13	14-21
3	12-14	15-21
2	12-16	17-21

note: changes made on 6-26-15 upon correcting errors in spreadsheet calculation


There appear to be at least 4 situations in which the HIT/STAND decision is a close call and the optimum action depends upon the specific composition of your hand:

- 13 vs Dealer 8
- 13 vs Dealer 7
- 14 vs Dealer A
- 14 vs Dealer 10

For each of these, the simplified strategy is: Hit on 2 cards, Stand on 3 cards

Calculating the HIT/STAND breakpoints was a prerequisite to evaluating Double and SPLIT decisions, which I will do next.

Its remarkable how the basic strategy for Your Way 21 is so very different than BL, and how different the LOW and HIGH hand strategies are.

To Numpkin or anyone else:

When splitting four cards into a high and low hand, how is a soft hand regarded?

As an example, when splitting A-5-5-3 into A-3 and 5-5, which hand is High and which is low?

Also, the two card hand A-A is giving me problems when defining my High and Low Hands. Is it a 2? Or a soft 12? or a soft 22?

Quote: Paradigm

Looks to be the Orleans from this: Your Way 21

I've looked all over the Orleans and have not seen this game.

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

I've looked all over the Orleans and have not seen this game.

**sheesh**. I've already planned my whole day tomorrow around looking for this game at the Orleans.

Quote: Wizard

**sheesh**. I've already planned my whole day tomorrow around looking for this game at the Orleans.

I checked the pit area three times. I could've asked, but we're hungry and left to eat.

Has anyone developed basic strategy on this game?

Quote: gordonm888

To Numpkin or anyone else:

When splitting four cards into a high and low hand, how is a soft hand regarded?

As an example, when splitting A-5-5-3 into A-3 and 5-5, which hand is High and which is low?

Also, the two card hand A-A is giving me problems when defining my High and Low Hands. Is it a 2? Or a soft 12? or a soft 22?

Ace is always counted as 11 when splitting hands, so A3 is 14.

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Quote: Paradigm

Looks to be the Orleans from this: Your Way 21

I've looked all over the Orleans and have not seen this game.

It's the table next to a roulette wheel, on the side that is closest to the cashiers cage, table limit is 5-100. Or ask a pit boss they'll point you to it.

Quote: Numpkin

Quote: Ibeatyouraces

Quote: Paradigm

Looks to be the Orleans from this: Your Way 21

I've looked all over the Orleans and have not seen this game.

It's the table next to a roulette wheel, on the side that is closest to the cashiers cage, table limit is 5-100. Or ask a pit boss they'll point you to it.

I looked on every table. Even watched at least one hand dealt on each. Still didn't see it. I'll look again tomorrow.

It's the only table there with a $100 max bet, all other bj tables are $2000 max.

Quote: Numpkin

It's the only table there with a $100 max bet, all other bj tables are $2000 max.

I want to get a picture of it and post it here. As I said, I'll look again tomorrow.

Quote: HotBlonde

Has anyone developed basic strategy on this game?

Please scroll up, Basic Strategy is in progress, I am working on it and have posted partial results, albeit with some calculational short-cuts. Also, the Wizard appears to have engaged this issue, so we can probably expect his more authoritative Basic Strategy soon.

Quote: Numpkin

Ace is always counted as 11 when splitting hands, so A3 is 14.

So AA is counted as twenty two ?

Quote: Numpkin

It's the only table there with a $100 max bet, all other bj tables are $2000 max.

What is the name of the company, "3D Gaming"? I recognized the inventor's name back in his Thunder Valley days. It's unusual that the company name is not on the rack card.

Okay, here are the beginning of Basic Strategy Tables for the HIGH and LOW hands of Your Way 21 for Hard 8 and higher. I have not yet done soft hands or pairs. I've included not only the strategy guidance but the Expected Value, EV for each hand where I have calculated it.





I must say that I am fairly pessimistic about the House Advantage for this game - I suspect the House Advantage to be large relative to standard Blackjack and other table games. I haven't calculated it though - I'll wait on the Wizard to do that

Also, I will wait on feedback to see whether I do any more calculations on the Basic Strategy for Your Way 21. I have done a lot of work and received very little feedback, acknowledgment or encouragement to date from forum members and administrators/moderators. If you're interested in this topic and the work I've done, please join the conversation. Thanks.

Gordon, I am still trying to figure out if the game has a chance of working long term. I keep going back to Dan's comments on page 1 of the thread:

Quote: paigowdan

I'm wondering,.....the two question that arise:
1. Is it fun for a Blackjack player;
2. Is it fun for a Pai Gow player?

From what I can tell you have determined the strategy is very different from BJ and this will result in BJ players, that try the game, getting crushed.....they won't be back to play that "house game". Pai Gow players like figuring out the strength of poker hand options and the possibility of hitting a big payout with a Fortune or Emperor's Challenge side bet in place.......they aren't big on whether to hit or stand on blackjack totals, PGP isn't a draw poker game :-)........I just don't know who the market is for this variant.

What problem does this game solve that is currently prevalent in the market place? What void does it fill? These are questions for which I don't have answers.....and that makes me less interested in spending time reviewing your fine work or providing feedback.

However, I do admire your ability to figure this stuff out.......if I were capable and had already completed what you have done, I would take it on as a personal challenge to complete your strategy and then compare to what the Wiz comes up with in his analysis.......I believe he is going to The Orleans today.

As an example, I know that Miplet frequently tackles games for the mental exercise and to prove he can do it.....he is very well respected on the Forum as a result.

I hope that is enough motivation for you to see the project through to the end.....All the best!!!

Gordon, I appreciate the work you have done on this. I usually don't get interested in strategy until it seems like the game will survive.
I believe it only has one placement right now.
However keep up the good work.

Quote: gordonm888

....If you're interested in this topic and the work I've done, please join the conversation. Thanks.

It sounds a very interesting variant and, rather like Lucky 13s Blackjack ( https://wizardofodds.com/games/lucky-13s-blackjack/ ) the game would be interesting to play. If it was in the UK I would certainly give it a try, and like yourself, try and work out the strategy - lickily it isn't as complicated as Switch as you don't know the Dealer's up-card.

On a game front it seems strange that it is single deck, so either it is very countable, multi-decks gives too low a house edge, or something else is wrong. Also it would seem to give the last player an advantage (although I guess you have to set your hands before anyone acts).

I haven't got the techniques to look at composition-based strategy (except single things) so if I was looking at it I would use an infinite deck. I used that method for Lucky 13s and it gave a very close approximation to multi deck (only one play was different and that was a close decision) and gives an idea of House Edge.

Thanks for all your hard work and I hope you get to play the game for real and make use all that information.

I just went to The Orleans and played a bit. Not sure I thought their game was all that fun.

Paradigm -Thank you for kind words -that helps a lot.

I too have been thinking about what paigowdan asked. I have played and analyzed Pai Gow Poker and Blackjack extensively. I have come to find Blackjack to be rather boring and enjoy the extra thinking and slower pace (and more social tables) of PGP. The concept of this game attracts me because it requires the player to think a bit more than BJ, and it would be a slower game (and less of a grind.)

A major problem I see is that a player may lose a lot of money on the high hand and not have much fun doing it. You either have a 21 or 20 for the high hand or you are a long shot to win. Though I haven't analyzed it rigorously yet, I think the High hand will have very few of the usual opportunities to Double or Split (maybe some situations vs a 9), making the game less fun. In fact, the best way to play the HIGH hand is to play fairly similarly to the dealer -i.e., HIT until 17 (or higher!) in most cases with little doubling or splitting. If you play a strategy very similar to the dealers, there is no way to overcome the disadvantage of busting your hand before the dealer has a chance to bust his. You're a dead duck.

I do think most BJ players are reasonably intelligent and will realize pretty quickly that the HIGH hand has a high frequency of 21s and 20s and is not the place to double down (or will be told so by their fellow players.) But the game needs an attractive House Advantage - and I am doubting it has one.

From your table it seems the High Hand will be 17 or more about 80% of the time, so your chances of busting the high hand (initially assuming you're standing on 17) aren't that high. Also you only hit your 17 when it is advantageous whereas the dealer can't.

Thus I suspect the high hand is a bit boring (you get 21/20 and might win, you don't get 21/20 and probably lose) but has a bad House Edge as you never double or split, don't get anything extra for Blackjack and by and large play the same as the dealer.

For the low hand there doesn't seem to be any "really bad for the dealer" card - I agree (using a quick calculation based on your figures, using the average of all dealer's up-cards) you'd Hit 13, Double 11,10, Split A 9 8 7, Stand soft 18, so somewhere between a normal 2 and 7 or a low card with Push 22 rule.

At least with Lucky 13s you felt you had a good chance if the dealer had a 13 - although it was fairly boring as you just split and doubled nearly everything and stood on 12+.

Quote: gordonm888

But the game needs an attractive House Advantage - and I am doubting it has one.

The game can't afford to have an HE that is anywhere close to attractive for a BJ player because the hands per hour on this game are going to be really low compared to any other game on the floor.......even slower than PGP!

Here is the action:

Single deck, four card packets, push the button and distribute to players and one to the dealer......OK so you start out at let's say a 3CP pace of play.

Then you wait for players to look at their hands, separate their hi and low hand (the thinking process here is going to be less obvious than PGP where most of the time you put the pair in the high hand and your next two high cards in the low hand). Envision 4 players at the table.....this is going to take us down to at least PGP pace of play.

Then each player goes through the hit or stand process on each of two hands.........4 players at the table equals the time it takes to play 8 hands of BJ, recall a normal BJ table in Las Vegas is a 6 handed game, so this is going to take 33% longer than you experience playing at a full table of regular BJ, albeit with 33% more betting volume on the felt.

Then the dealer opens up their cards......splits them into two hands and plays out both their hands according to house rules.

Collect and pay, this is also going to be a PGP pace, not BJ pace as the dealer has two player hands to compare to their two hands, pay one, collect on the other, pay both, etc.

Scoop up the cards, put them into the shuffle machine, push the button and wait for the new packets of cards to get spit out to the cradle.

At best you are at 25 rounds per hour, less with a full table of 6 players.

Can you even play 6 players at the table with a single deck? Let's see 24 cards out to 6 players, 4 more for the dealer (1 of them exposed), by the time they get to hit or stand action at 3rd base you are going to have 28-30 cards exposed. 2-4 cards more than 50% penetration on an SD game! They must have a layout like Switch with only 4 player spots.

4 Player spots is not the most attractive feature of Switch to operators........you want access to as many bankrolls as possible using the existing real estate during the busy hours in a casino!

And what problem are we solving here again? More betting action, not really, it sounds like you will double and split less often than regular BJ. Big payoff potential, well no, even BJ's pay even money here. Less of a grind.....I guess if thinking harder = less of a grind (thinking harder is usually a turn off for your average table game player)......new player benefit like Free Bets or the option to Switch two bad hands and make them better, nope, no new feature here......so what are we doing again?

HOWEVER...........I haven't played it so we will have to see what Mike and others that really experience the game have to say. If it is still on the floor on my next trip to Vegas, I'll see if my thinking matches the play experience......I have had my mind changed more than once after actually playing a game so I won't write it off entirely........but Gordon, I will need some basic strategy help, so.......... :-p!

I played this game with teddys and HotBlonde today around 1:00 PM. I was happy to have found it after the rumors above that it didn't exist -- at least not at the Orleans. The game has no sign and easily blends in as another blackjack table.

There were already three people at the table. Based on just this sitting I think the fun factor is pretty good. Its a slow game and good for table participation. The staff were cool about exposing cards and players advising each other.

Things that may hold the game back are the slow rate of play and dealer errors. As you can see from the rack card I scanned below, the house way is rather involved.

One minor point.Every where i have played switch there were 5 spots not 4.
Maybe it's different depending on the casino.

Wizard -Thanks for posting that. Regarding the House Way -I think that is pretty much how I set the hands in my analysis, except that there are a couple of hands for which I should have split the ACES, and I didn't set TT99 correctly (see next paragraph.)

The first rule in the House Way about making a Low Hand of 19 or more - how is that distinct from the 2nd rule about making a 20 or 21 in the High Hand if you can? I guess that the only hand that the first rule uniquely affects is TT99 - it requires the dealer to arrange it T-9 | T-9. If you applied the 2nd rule to TT-99, the dealer would be required to set TT99 as T-T | 9-9.

The stuff about checking for Low Hands of 17 or 18 in the middle probably only applies to 1 or 2 possible hands. In fact, I have been unable so far to identify a single 4-card hand that is affected by that rule -they all seem to be affected by higher level/priority rules

But what is true (and may not be immediately obvious to players when setting their hands) is that a 12 is a better hand than a 13 or 14 -and a 4 or 5 is a better LOW hand than a 6. This seems to be reflected in the 2nd-to-last rule.

Quote: Wizard

...I was happy to have found it after the rumors above that it didn't exist -- at least not at the Orleans.

Me and my friend must be blind. :-)