Players Choice Blackjack

Found an interesting blackjack game at the UK website mrgreen.

It's called players choice blackjack. Ive never seen a game like it.

Five two card hands are dealt face down. And the values of the hands are displayed at the top of the screen in a random order. Such as;

9 16* 15 21 18

* = soft value

You can then select one of the five hands to be your own, it will flip one card and you can decide to keep it or pick the next hand instead.

You then pick a hand for the dealer from the remaining hands and they flip one card before you play your hand out.

Rule variations;
1) dealer plays to win or tie under 17, stands on 17 (i assume this means if you have 13 and the dealer has 9, and draws a 6, the dealer will stand)
2) if you tie, you lose half your stake
3) there are no splits, doubles, insurance or surrender
4) 8 decks, shuffled each hand
5) all pays are 1-1

Its defiantly a fun game, but how bad is it?

I like trying to figure out my hand from the upcard

Welcome to the forum MrDJ! That is interesting indeed. Wizard reviewed and created a strategy for Players Choice 21, in which the player their 2 best hands with 3 cards.

This variant seems entirely different, though, and finding the right strategy would be strenuous. Perhaps someone on here will take a swing at it. I think you are right that the key lies in your confidence of your total value given one of your cards.

Very interesting game. I'd play it if I saw it at a Casino I was at.

I assume it's only a 1 player at the table game? If not and there are multiple players at the table, does every player at the table get 5 hands of their own to choose from or are players making their choices based on the same cards? Kind of crazy with a full table.


ZCore13

Previous thread. Guess who won that? :+)
Would be fun online or as a machine. I never fully analyzed it but just played by feel.

If you choose not to keep your first hand, can you give that hand to the dealer? Or do you have to pick the dealer's hand from the remaining three mystery hands? If the latter is the case, then no strategy will apply to picking the dealer's hand.

If you didn't know the hand totals, you'd keep anything above an 8 and discard anything lower, with an 8 being a wash. However, knowing the hand totals, I think that this chart from Blackjack in Color is most useful in ranking your possible outcomes. According to the chart, the hands in our example would rank:

21 > 9 > 18 > s16 > 15

If we assign the value of 1-5 for each total (21 is worth 5), then we can give a weighted value to each card we can draw. If you turn over an ace, then you have a 50/50 for the best hand (5) or the fourth best (2), so we'll give the ace (5+2)/2= 3.5. Here is each possible card you may turn over ranked by their potential hand:

4 (4) = 3 (4) = 2 (4) > A (3.5) > 10 (3) > 7 (2.5) = 6 (2.5) > 5 (2.3) > 9 (2) = 8 (2)

Surprisingly, the best cards to turn over in this example are 2-4, because that guarantees that you have the #2 ranked hand. From this simple analysis, I'd keep the A, 2, 3,4 and discard 5-9 for your example totals. If I flipped a 10, I'd keep it because I think it'd be better than 0.5 when considering the probability of every possible combination. Also, keep in mind that the linked chart ranks hands for when splits and doubles are allowed, which probably overstated the value of the 9 in the above example. This simple method works if you have time to sit at your computer, but is probably too tedious for real time play. Also, I can't begin to guess at this games house edge with 1:1 BJ and no doubles or splits.

Quote: studmuffn

If you choose not to keep your first hand, can you give that hand to the dealer? Or do you have to pick the dealer's hand from the remaining three mystery hands? If the latter is the case, then no strategy will apply to picking the dealer's hand.

The hand is discarded completely, there is never any strategy in picking the dealers hand, but working out what it might be is quite fun after you get to see his up card. (its possible to see up to 3 up cards if you muck your first pick)

Quote: Zcore13

Very interesting game. I'd play it if I saw it at a Casino I was at.

I assume it's only a 1 player at the table game? If not and there are multiple players at the table, does every player at the table get 5 hands of their own to choose from or are players making their choices based on the same cards? Kind of crazy with a full table.


ZCore13

Its only a 1 player game

Hypothetical hand from today

The 5 values were 21*, 18*, 14, 9, 19

My first pick showed me a 9.
So I can rule out the soft 18, 21 and 9
I either have 14 or 19

If I have 19 I win almost 3/4
If I have 14, I surely have to hit.

I decide to discard for the purposes of this demo.

I end up with hand with a 7 in it.
So now I must have 18* 14 or 9

I pick the dealers hand and he shows an ace
He either has 18* or 21

I end up with 9 (other card turns out to be a 2)
I hit and get 13, hit again and bust.

Dealer shows soft 18

Quote: HeyMrDJ

Hypothetical hand from today

The 5 values were 21*, 18*, 14, 9, 19

My first pick showed me a 9.
So I can rule out the soft 18, 21 and 9
I either have 14 or 19

If I have 19 I win almost 3/4
If I have 14, I surely have to hit.

I decide to discard for the purposes of this demo.

I end up with hand with a 7 in it.
So now I must have 18* 14 or 9

I pick the dealers hand and he shows an ace
He either has 18* or 21

I end up with 9 (other card turns out to be a 2)
I hit and get 13, hit again and bust.

Dealer shows soft 18

I think part of what is really interesting is that you have a much better idea of what the dealer has underneath (than regular blackjack) before you decide whether to hit or stay. I think I'll see if I can find a game demo online (mrgreen or others). I think I would play this.

Quote: beachbumbabs

I think part of what is really interesting is that you have a much better idea of what the dealer has underneath (than regular blackjack) before you decide whether to hit or stay. I think I'll see if I can find a game demo online (mrgreen or others). I think I would play this.

Indeed I'd like to play a demo to really get my head around it. At first it sounded like you get to know the hands AND pick your hand. Now it sounds as though you know what the hands are and you peek 1 card then get randomly assigned a hand if you choose not to keep that hand, correct?

Quote: Romes

Indeed I'd like to play a demo to really get my head around it. At first it sounded like you get to know the hands AND pick your hand. Now it sounds as though you know what the hands are and you peek 1 card then get randomly assigned a hand if you choose not to keep that hand, correct?

Just came back from a few minutes freeplay of this on the mrgreen site. (google mrgreen; it comes up as the first listing). You know the values of the 5 hands, including which ones are soft (BJ is listed as 21*). You pick 1 of 5. It shows you a 2, for example, which you can see from 11, 12, 21*, 19, 20, means it has to be an 11 or 12. In this case, I think you dump this hand. You then get to select one of the other 4, which you must keep. You then select the dealer hand. It then plays out as regular BJ (with no splits or doubles), except (and it's a big one) if the dealer already has you beaten, they will not hit their 16 or whatever. So there's no use in standing on a total of less than 17 and hoping the dealer will have to hit the 6 upcard he's showing (as an example). But you can make a somewhat more intelligent decision about what to do with your hand by knowing something about which 1-2-3 hands the dealer has to have. Like maybe you hit your 17 because the dealer must have 18 or 19 because of what the totals were.

IDK; came away from it with mixed feelings.

As far as the mrgreen website; not all games offer freeplay to US people. If it's an IGT game, for example, it says it offers freeplay, but after you click on it you get an error message that says you're not in the geographic area to which they offer the game. The NetEnt games (of which PC BJ is one) do allow you to play.

On the good news side, I won free spins on a slot I tried out. The software crashed during the free spins due to a long-running script. I gave it 10 minutes, it was still stuck, so I refreshed the page. It did a reset to the main page, but when I re-entered the game I was playing, it had retained my game at the crash point and was available to continue without having lost any winnings.

Not sure I'd ever play it for real money, and edge is probably huge. But its a totally new angle on blackjack that I think should be applauded. The real question is, how would you tweak the game to make it better? re-enact the hit 16 rule? would they need to push 22's if they did so?

Quote: beachbumbabs

IDK; came away from it with mixed feelings.

Yeah I just got done playing the free game as well. I too had mixed feelings. I think it's a fun new spin, but at the same time it just felt very difficult to win. You generally know 1 of 3 hands the dealer has, but it doesn't help you at all 90% of the time. The dealer playing to win (meaning they stop on any amount once you're tied or beat) is a huge blow to the game. I think this really hurts as even if you can identify you gave the dealer a crap hand it doesn't matter if you too have a crap hand you must hit your 14 vs dealer 16.

I like that it's something different, but I wouldn't play it. You're getting very little useful information and sacrificing a LOT, and I mean A LOT, in the process. This must be a very high house edge game.

Quote: HeyMrDJ

Not sure I'd ever play it for real money, and edge is probably huge. But its a totally new angle on blackjack that I think should be applauded. The real question is, how would you tweak the game to make it better? re-enact the hit 16 rule? would they need to push 22's if they did so?

The game is still blackjack. The only added value to the player is potentially getting a "little" bit more information that is only really useful one out of every 5 or 10 hands. Not only that, say you have the added knowledge of having A-5 vs dealer 6 (and you somehow "know" he has 16)... you still can't double! Thus, this information is again pretty much worthless. You have more information but less ability to use that information (double/split/stand when dealer has higher than you but less than 16).

Thus, I don't think you'd have to change the house rules very much to make the game still have a decent house edge but not slaughter the player. Definitely need to bring back the dealer hits to 17 or better, it just doesn't feel like blackjack without it, and that's got to be a huge raise to the house edge. The player should still be paid 3-2 for blackjack as well. I'd still be willing to wager the house edge is at least 1%, which is way too high, even with these proposed changes.

Quote: Romes

The game is still blackjack. The only added value to the player is potentially getting a "little" bit more information that is only really useful one out of every 5 or 10 hands. Not only that, say you have the added knowledge of having A-5 vs dealer 6 (and you somehow "know" he has 16)... you still can't double! Thus, this information is again pretty much worthless. You have more information but less ability to use that information (double/split/stand when dealer has higher than you but less than 16).

Thus, I don't think you'd have to change the house rules very much to make the game still have a decent house edge but not slaughter the player. Definitely need to bring back the dealer hits to 17 or better, it just doesn't feel like blackjack without it, and that's got to be a huge raise to the house edge. The player should still be paid 3-2 for blackjack as well. I'd still be willing to wager the house edge is at least 1%, which is way too high, even with these proposed changes.

I'm going to totally SWAG it and say the HE is in the 5%-7% range. With the combination of dealer wins on any higher total, takes 1/2 your bet on any push, no DD/no split, and BJ 1:1, (I think those affect the HE in that amount order), and no compensating swing to the player except being able to trash a first hand (for which you don't know the whole count, just can sometimes eliminate 1 or more hands), it can't be anywhere near true BJ.

Quote: beachbumbabs

I'm going to totally SWAG it and say the HE is in the 5%-7% range. With the combination of dealer wins on any higher total, takes 1/2 your bet on any push, no DD/no split, and BJ 1:1, (I think those affect the HE in that amount order), and no compensating swing to the player except being able to trash a first hand (for which you don't know the whole count, just can sometimes eliminate 1 or more hands), it can't be anywhere near true BJ.

From previous thread:

Quote: newstd100

Hi, the theoretical return to player for this game when played perfectly is 98.37% - so house edge is 1.63%. This was tested and certified by NMi Metrology.

Us imperfect mortals probably play in the 5 % to 7% range.

Quote: miplet

From previous thread:

Us imperfect mortals probably play in the 5 % to 7% range.

Thanks, miplet! I thought that was in reference to the Players Choice 21 the Wizard analyzed, not this game.