eduardo
eduardo
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February 7th, 2010 at 11:39:00 AM permalink
Hi everybody!

my name's eduardo, and I am doing a research work for university. I chose blackjack and its card counting as the subject for my work.

A part of my work consists on calculating a basic strategy on my own, and I'm having trouble in finding the formula to do it.

Does anybody know the formula i have to feed in my computer in order to get the basic strategy?
the rules are: stand on soft 17, split and re-split everything (aces included), double down with only 9, 10, 11 , no peek, no surrender.

And what do i have to regard? the dealer's probabilities to get a better sum and to bust or the player's probabilities to get a better sum and to bust ??????

Thanks a lot!
Bigsooner
Bigsooner
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February 8th, 2010 at 12:23:16 PM permalink
The important thing in blajkjack decisions is not weather a certain choice makes or loses money, but how it does compares to the otehr choices

for example splits 8's agaisnt a 9 will lose money, but you will lose more if you hit (or stand)

this is especially important in double down choices

The best way to create your own basic strat is to run sims
pacomartin
pacomartin
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February 8th, 2010 at 3:05:37 PM permalink
Quote: eduardo


A part of my work consists on calculating a basic strategy on my own, and I'm having trouble in finding the formula to do it.



The calculation of basic strategy is certainly not an algebraic formula. I wrote a post on this page entitled Calculation of Expected Values in Blackjack in which I try to calculate the expected value of one simple situation of player 10,9 against a dealer 10 where the player chooses to stand show how difficult it is to do these calculations.

The wizard of odds has posted the expected values of all variations of card games in appendix 9 on his site. The EV's are for composition dependent plays. They are then combined into groups so that a strategy chart can be laid out dependent on the sum of the player cards. It's important to use the probabilities when you do the calculations.

For example the correct play in many cases for a player (10,2) against a dealer 4 is to hit, but it is a small advantage. There is a larger advantage for a player (9,3) (8,4) (7,5) when the player chooses to stand. So in general a player sum of 12 against a dealer 4 is to stand.

If you go to appendix 9 and download the expected values for the game you are interested in, it is still a struggle to come up with basic strategy cards based on the sum of the player cards. However, it is a much bigger problem to calculate the expected values individually. It is even harder to make the computer program flexible enough to cover multiple rules and decks of cards.

The other alternative is to simulate play and then keep a running count of wins and losses. This technique is much simpler, but reuires billions of runs (possibily trillions) to assure accuracy.

You should check on the scope of your assignment,.
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