Casino Basic Strategy Card

I am curious to know why I have never seen a perfect Blackjack Basic Strategy card issued by a Casino before. Maybe some of you have, but I have never seen one without errors. I would take one off of a table at one Casino and look at it and for H17 it wouldn't suggest double 11 against ace sometimes. Some would suggest surrendering hard 17 vs A but some wouldn't. Some would suggest surrendering pair 8s vs Ace but then some wouldn't. Double soft 19 vs 6 not showing. Why would there be so much variation from one Casino Basic Strategy card to another Casino Basic Strategy card? There was a player that had put some effort in memorizing the chart given to them by the Casino only to be surprised by being told by one of the dealers about certain inaccuracies. The player seemed a little disappointed by the news.

The differences you mention are four of the six differences between S17 and H17 strategy for 4+ deck games with all other rules being generally favorable. My guess is it's just sloppy work on the casinos' part. Other than knowing the difference in play between the dealer hitting or standing on a soft seventeen, few people know how that difference affects the house edge, much less how it changes strategy. I'm sure you are one of the very few who have spotted the card errors.

Many years ago when I visited Las Vegas for the first time one casino ran teaching sessions for Blackjack, Roulette and Craps (7-8pm I think). One casino (Sands?) gave a goodie bag with strategy cards. Nearly all of the big casinos had welcome books with vouchers. The approach was keep the customer happy, offer freebies or cheap good and they'll keep coming back to play at our casino.

Nowadays it seems totally different approach in Las Vegas; more business oriented. 6/5 Blackjack is the obvious example of milking innocent punters.

In the UK they do hand out pamphlets that explain the games but you're on your own when it comes to strategy.

Ever notice that the video poker automatic assistance you sometimes get will highlight winning pairs etc but, for instance, not 4 to a flush?

Think about it. They'd have idiot players screaming bloody murder when they followed the advice but "didn't win"

Casinos are probably not crazy about strategy cards being put out by themselves for the same reason.

Strategy cards generally provide limited information. Number of decks and DAS vs NDAS affect the recommendations. Most other differences between strategy cards are very minor, I would think.

In single-deck where DAS is offered the correct play is to split 3s vs a dealer 8 upcard. The decision is extremely close but you won't see the play recommended very often (about as often as you'd find a single-deck double after split game I'm afraid).

There are anomalies in strategy cards as well as charts in different blackjack books. In books the differences can often be explained because of the system being used. In Hi-opt 1 the 7 is considered neutral, even though it is +0.3

But I'm clouding the issue. Your post concerns strategy cards. Once again, I would think that the differences would be minor, but it is a little frustrating that there would not be consistency. Math is an exact science, you'd think that strategy cards would comply to accuracy.

It would be nice for someone to post a more definitive answer to your question, and provide the math for how far off the wrong recommendations are.

I too have never seen a 100% correct basic strategy card for the game offered. One casino I go to is H17 and has S17 cards, and another is S17 and has H17 cards. At this point I'm rather convinced this has been done on purpose. Some places some dealers even carry the BS card on their lanyard so they can inform players. So when I've had people ask me the correct play 11vA H17 (double), and the dealer says just hit, it's always frustrating to either keep quiet or tell them they the wrong card (rare if ever). Just one of those things as a counter you deal with... Knowing you're right but having to accept "looking wrong" by the "smart dealers" and their "perfect basic strategy" cards. Frustrating to me at least =P.