BLACKJACK QUESTION

I should already know the answer, but I don't. Looking for a website that has the following info : What are the approximate % of hands, that a player will have a hard total of 17 thru 21 and soft totals of 17 thru 20 ? Not concerned what he does with those hands, or number of cards it takes to hit those totals .

I can find totals for 1st 2 cards easily, but no info on which are hard or soft. Can't find my copies of BJ as a business. I think Lawrence had number of times you get each 2 card starting hand in 100,000 hands. So I should be able to find out about 2 hand totals. Somewhere on the web ??

For single deck, any specific soft hand (other than blackjack) is 16/1326 = about 1.2%. So, just subtract 1.2% from your totals to get probabilities for hard totals.

Also, any specific pair is 6/1326 = about 0.45%, so for example if your "hard 18" total includes 9,9 and you want to count that separately, subtract another 0.45%.

Numbers for more decks will be different but still not difficult to calculate.

Firstly you have to define the drawing rules, and then the number of decks.
(i) If you assume infinite deck, then you can construct a spreadsheet using the principle that (for instance) from a 6 you can get soft 17 1/13 of the time, 8 thru 15 1/13 each, 16 4/13. Start with 21 has P=1 of having 21, etc. so 16 would be 21 to 17 are 1/13 each, etc.
(ii) If you have a finite number of decks then you have to work out all the ways of getting any given total and add up the permutations and work out their probability - best of luck!

If you are only looking at the first two cards, then it's simple. For instance you can get 15 (10-5),(9-6),(8-7),(7-8),(6-9),(5-10), ignoring (A4). There are 16*#decks of 10s and 4*#decks of others. If you have a pair, subtract one for the second card (e.g. 4N * (4N-1) ). Divide by (52N)*(52N-1).

Thanks a lot Charles, but I have no idea at all what the F*** you are talking about.

My problem , not yours, 11 grade education ended in 1957.

Quote: Buzzard

...Looking for a website that has the following info...
What are the approximate % of hands, that a player will have a hard total of 17 thru 21 and soft totals of 17 thru 20 ?
Not concerned what he does with those hands, or number of cards it takes to hit those totals .

Norm has a ton of free and very accurate info on the net.
http://www.blackjackincolor.com/blackjackfirstcards1.htm

THANKS I knew it had to be on the web somewhere. THANKS

Chart B21 on page 71 breaks down how many times you will get each hand in a trial of 100,00 hands. Revere's (not his real name) book was the first one I read in 1974 and I think that his book is the book I used to learn basic strategy as well as the simple plus minus count.

If you need the numbers on that chart, let me know. It will be quite a bit of typing or adding all columns of hands per each dealer up card as well as each player hand combo.

It should be the 3rd edition of Blackjack Attack by Don S. Unfortunately, I quit playing BJ and those books are in storage.