Argument for standing on Soft 19 vs. Dealer 6

Total Dependent Basic Strategy dictates doubling down on a soft 19 vs. dealer 6. Besides avoiding sneers and jeers from players and dealers alike, I suspect that not doing so has an extremely small effect on the House Edge. I’m relatively new to the game of Casino BJ and admittedly no math wizard. However, after playing thousands of practice games, I have observed that a soft 19 vs. dealer 6 only comes along about every 300 to 400 hands. Moreover, there is only about a one percent advantage to doubling down vs. standing. And you must risk another bet each time. On average, you would have to play this hand 100 times to net one unit profit. That comes to about 35,000 games. I play BJ about 3 to 5 hours a month. It would take me 7 years to play that many BJ games. I’d love to hear your comments on this.

Sneers and jeers vs doing the right thing. Do what you are comfortable with. I don't hit 13 on a 2 in switch nor a 12 on a 4 either unless the players around me are idiots, even though those are the right plays.

It is an EXTREMELY low margin play. And it only applies to H17 games. I had the opportunity to do it once at the Venetian. The dealer's mouth was literally agape. I could tell she wanted to reach across the table and slap some sense into me. By the way, I won. :)

I also really like to surrender my 16s against a 10. Not only is it the correct play, but it lessens your variance as well. I LOVE the surrender rule for this reason. One guy I was playing with recently was really pissed that I kept surrendering; he kept losing his hands while I was sitting at first base. I couldn't decide whether to offer to sell him my hand, or to bet him his whole stack that I was making the correct play. In the end, I didn't have the balls to do either. :(

It happends 1 in about 1088 hands in a 6 deck game. The differance in ev of doubling v standing is 0.009869. The change in house edge if you always stand instead of doulbling is only 0.0009 %
Edit to add: I've done it a couple of times. The table was full when I did it, and I was the only one left after everyone lost to a dealer 18 (exept for me who got a face. )

Quote: Hawksed

Total Dependent Basic Strategy dictates doubling down on a soft 19 vs. dealer 6.

It depends on the rules.

According to the Wiz' Basic Strategy Calculator, you stand with soft 19 if the dealer has a 6, if the rules say the dealer stands on soft 17, and they're using 2 or more decks.

But if your calculations are right, (and miplet's post seems to confirm it), the difference is so small, that you should just do what feels right.

.496 (stand) vs .5756 (double)

"The following tables display expected returns for any play in blackjack based on the following rules: dealer stands on a soft 17, an infinite deck, the player may double after a split, split up to three times except for aces, and draw only one card to split aces."

That's not an insignificant monetary difference. Did I misread this table or are we talking about a 1-2 deck game?

Wizard's infinite deck hand values

Quote: ahiromu

.496 (stand) vs .5756 (double)

"The following tables display expected returns for any play in blackjack based on the following rules: dealer stands on a soft 17, an infinite deck, the player may double after a split, split up to three times except for aces, and draw only one card to split aces."

That's not an insignificant monetary difference. Did I misread this table or are we talking about a 1-2 deck game?

Wizard's infinite deck hand values

Double is .4796 (You did A9)
Its BS in all h17 and single deck s17

Quote: miplet

Double is .4796 (You did A9)

That's S17 though, the strategy is to stand in that case
I did not find Wizard's tables for the H17 case, but my calculations (they come fairly close to Wizard's most of the time except for splits) show 0.4531 (stand) vs. 0.4610 (dbl).

Not a lot, but I don't get the argument about 'added variance'. The whole point is maximizing the winnings (it should be minimizing the losses, but then the correct strategy is not to play it at all :)) - increased variance increases the probability of you winning more in a given interval of time, so it is actually good. It's only bad when there is a real possibility of going broke, but one measly bet is unlikely to make a significant difference in that case (if I only had one unit left in my bankroll, I'd double anyway, because it doesn't make very much difference if you lose that last chip this hand or next hand, and this one at least has positive expectation).

Well said, weaselman. They only problem for us mortals is that the variance is more apparent than the .0009 percent difference in the house edge. It's the emotional default to fret at that doubled $100 bet going the drain than to think, "oh, well I gained a fraction of a cent on that play." But I would double that hand all day, too.