California No Bust Blackjack

I have made several programs that I modify per the situation, but have used to evaluate the advantage of games with this rule set, as played in casinos in Southern California:

if you bust by less than dealer: PUSH
blackjack: 6 to 5
Surrender after first card
Double down on any two starting cards
No cards after split aces
split up to four times, double after split if not aces
continuously reshuffled deck
dealer hits on soft 17

Anyways, I was evaluating the odds of standing on a 12 vs. 12-16 and found you should hit on any up card with a hard 12. As I looked further though, I found that you should stand with a 13 vs 4-6. I was wondering if anyone has done any simulations and gotten different results? I have seenbut this is for a different variant with jokers. I.e, 14 vs 5 on 50,000 iterations yielded:

HIT
Win: 15752
Push: 7019
Loss: 27229

Stand
Win: 21452
Push: 0 (EDIT LOSS TO PUSH)
Loss: 28548 (EDIT PUSH TO LOSS)

so you would lose 4381 less on this iteration by standing instead of hitting.


in pseudo code

I generate a deck as such:

size= number_of_decks*52 #number of cards
shoe= (1..size).to_a.shuffle #creates an array of size that I can apply a modulo operator on
player draws two cards that you input
dealer draws two cards, one card is your input
I run one simulation where I hit, and one where I stand and see how they compare
Dealer plays out like this:

while scoreHand(@dealerHand)<17 || (scoreHand(@dealerHand)==17 && dealerHasAce)
@dealerHand<<@deck.pop



Anyways, Thanks for Reading!!

Well, clearly this isn't the most invigorating topic, but I'll share my results:

I came to find that the no bust rule gives a very significant shift in the house advantage, so much so that the gave is brought from over a 2.4% house advantage down to a 1.4-1.45 house advantage. It's similar to the issue the wizard of odds described with craps, where its approximation is really somewhat subjective. I chose to calculate both for the sake of argument. The decimal on the wins accounts for the 1.2 payout on blackjack. House edge approximation 1 is with pushes factoring into the house edge, house edge vs. 2 is without. As you can see, this game is an awful bet, and I didn't even factor in the house commission yet. Anyways, maybe someday someone will find this calculation interesting. I'll probably spend a little more time manipulating my results, but I am more excited by the fact that I now have my own program specifically developed for blackjack odds approximation, which can easily be adapted to a number of different situations.

HERE ARE MY RESULTS:

Out of 5,000,000 hands:

wins: 2,547,859.8
pushes: 512,096
losses: 2,624,329
Session Total: -76,469.20

House Edge: 1.478468844736075%
House Edge vs.2: 1.5293839999788905%

Hi. I am not a blackjack player but I noticed that you referenced the Normandie. I haven't been there in years. Do they still have the card craps game?

No, not currently. I am not much of a blackjack player but I'm practicing modeling casino games in Ruby code, and this seemed like a good place to start.

Quote: rKelly

I have made several programs that I modify per the situation, but have used to evaluate the advantage of games with this rule set, as played in the Normandie Casino in Gardena, CA:

if you bust by less than dealer: PUSH
blackjack: 6 to 5
Surrender after first card
Double down on any two starting cards
No cards after split aces
split up to four times, double after split if not aces
continuously reshuffled deck
dealer hits on soft 17

Anyways, I was evaluating the odds of standing on a 12 vs. 12-16 and found you should hit on any up card with a hard 12. As I looked further though, I found that you should stand with a 13 vs 4-6. I was wondering if anyone has done any simulations and gotten different results? I have seen https://wizardofodds.com/games/california-blackjack/ but this is for a different variant with jokers. I.e, 14 vs 5 on 50,000 iterations yielded:

HIT
Win: 15752
Push: 7019
Loss: 27229

Stand
Win: 21452
Loss: 0
Push: 28548

so you would lose 4381 less on this iteration by standing instead of hitting.


in pseudo code

I generate a deck as such:

size= number_of_decks*52 #number of cards
shoe= (1..size).to_a.shuffle #creates an array of size that I can apply a modulo operator on
player draws two cards that you input
dealer draws two cards, one card is your input
I run one simulation where I hit, and one where I stand and see how they compare
Dealer plays out like this:

while scoreHand(@dealerHand)<17 || (scoreHand(@dealerHand)==17 && dealerHasAce)
@dealerHand<<@deck.pop



Anyways, Thanks for Reading!!

I don`t know anything about programming but I noticed under stand you had win 21452, loss 0 ,push28548.How can you have 0 losses this seems wrong.

There is a mandatory "pay to play" fee per hand in most California Card Clubs. Does this figure into your HE calculation?

You are much better off playing the baccarat game at the Normandie (or the Hustler Casino) and avoiding the fee to play.

That pay to play isn't factored in, but it's really simple to calculate:

FEE/BET = HOUSE EDGE

Your best bet is always to max bet, which would make that house edge about 1%, but it can be significantly worse if you bet the table minimum!!

Quote: bigfoot66

You are much better off playing the baccarat game at the Normandie (or the Hustler Casino) and avoiding the fee to play.

Ya but they have that awful Dragon 7 variant, which is beatable but seems very annoying.

I like the EZ Bacc better, and I never make the side bets. The house edge is in fact a touch lower on the banker side versus traditional bacc. And, as you noted, the side bets are highly countable. What's not to like?

Quote: Hunterhill

I don`t know anything about programming but I noticed under stand you had win 21452, loss 0 ,push28548.How can you have 0 losses this seems wrong.

My bad, the loss should have read push and vice versa on the second one. Stupid oversight!