cesc721
cesc721
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Joined: Jul 9, 2013
July 9th, 2013 at 5:40:50 PM permalink
5. What is the basic strategy for a traditional home blackjack variant with rules:

-Single deck shuffle after every game.

-Dealer and each player dealt with 2 initial cards faced down and additional cards drawn faced down too.

-Any 5 cards without busting pays 2 times immediately. (The 5 cards need to be shown to everybody.)

-Busted hands gets a push if dealer busted his hand as well, however looses 2 times his bet if dealer draws to 5 cards without busting,ie busted hands remain faced down waiting just for a dealers push.

-Dealer gets to hit last, but with a min 16, has a choice to uncover any of players cards before further hitting (reason: uncover players with 3 or 4 cards first which has higher probability of busting, then hit against remaining players with 2 cards.).

-Blackjack pays 2 times immediately.

-2 Aces pays 3 times immediately.

-All players and dealer must draw to minimum 16.

-No doubling at all.

-Since this is an informal game, players could peek at each others cards except for the dealer.

-Who has the edge the dealer or players? I believe dealer will need to play a slightly different strategy from the players.

-Since sometimes hitting to 5 cards, players peeking at each others cards and dealer gets to uncover cards before hitting, is there any variation play accompanied with counting?
AceTwo
AceTwo
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July 16th, 2013 at 1:57:40 PM permalink
The game you describe is so Different than Normal BJ that I do not think anyone can give you an answer.
I do not think any of the available BJ software can analyse this game and come up with BS and EV.

Hoever the game you describe make the Dealer game more similar to the Player game than in Normal BJ.
In Normal BJ the main benefit of the Dealer is the Double Bust Rule going to the Dealer. I think it accounts for something like 10% of EV.
Here in Double Bust is a Push (except the 5 card situation which happens rarely).
On the other hand the Player must draw to 16, therefore there is no real Hit-Stand strategy for the Player, he always Hits so no advantage from strategy.

The BJ paying 2:1 and the AA 3:1 is a big plus for the dealer.

I think probably the game is positive for the Player.

STRATEGY
Upto 15 everybody hits as you said.
The strategy relates only to 16 and 17.
16 with 4 cards should be hit for both sides
17 will need analysis (probably is stand)
charliepatrick
charliepatrick
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July 16th, 2013 at 4:24:57 PM permalink
Actually 5-card hands happens quite often - you find this out when analysing Pontoon where either side's 5-card trick wins and find out that the dealer with a 2 quite often makes a 5-card hand. Players should normally hit 3-card soft 18s, whereas I'm guessing the dealer has to stand.

Mu gut instinct is the player gets quite an advantage from immediately winning and the dealer only gets an advantage with 16 or 17 being able to look at player's hands (I assume he might as well look at all of them).
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