Does this Blackjack variation sucks?

Hello!

I found this game on a South American casino. It's a blackjack variation and it has the following rules:

4D, HS17, DOA, DAS
No hole card, but if you doble down and dealer has a BJ with T, you only lose your original bet
Surrender with any card, including with A
Splitting unlimited, including resplit with A, but you can not draw cards from a splitted A
BJ pays 1:1 and wins automatically, except against dealer's T and A. You can also count it as just 11/21 and double down
Player's 21 (formed with cards) and dealer's natural BJ (T+A) are a tie. But you can play a tie-breaker where you must double your bet and the house does it too: Highest card wins, just like Casino War, but if there's a tie, it pays your original bet 3 to 1
You can buy insurance against a dealer's T pays 10 to 1

Bonus pay:
- Three of a kind and suited flush of three cards pays 3 to 1
- Suited 777 pays 20 to 1

Does it suck a lot? It is countable, at least Ace-counting? The insurance against T looks good.

Seems to me like a lot of smoke and mirrors to cover up the horrifying even money blackjack. Although I have to say if I understood the bonus pays correctly it becomes decent. But I think you must have a mistake on the first bonus, or it requires a side bet?
Anyway my 2 cents:
Initial HE is -0.65% and even money on BJ adds -2.3% so it's almost -3% HE
The option of doubling down 11/21 is useless.
The tie-breaker has -EV, even with the bonus on the tie(see wizard's study on casino war).
The insurance against 10 has an initial house edge twice as high as the usual insurance bet. Roughly 2/13 instead of 1/13 (Approximation). So yes it can be counted but it won't be +EV nearly often enough to be worthwhile.

Suited 777 probability is 0.000015 on 6 decks, I don't have a number for 4 decks but it's going to be a bit lower. 0.000015*20 adds 0.03% return

The last one has to be a mistake, three of a kind probability is 0.005041 for 6 decks, adds 1.5% and a flush(which is suited by definition??) has a probability of around 0.05% so that'll add about 15% return???? I am going to assume you meant a straight flush, which has probability of 0.0002% and adds 0.6% return.

Hey Tyler! Thank you for answering so fast. I really appreciate your comments.

There are no side bets on this game, besides the insurance option (against a A and T). Maybe I used the wrong terms, because I'm not a native english speaker, but this is what I mean with the bonuses:

Pays 3 to 1:
Three of a kind (Three same cards on your hand without busting, For example 5 of Hearts, 5 of Hearts and 5 of Clubs)
Straight of the same suit (For example 2, 3 and 4 of Clubs on your hand, without busting)

Pays 20 to 1:
Suited 777 (For example 777 of Clubs on your hand)

Thanks!

Quote: KoolAid

Hello!
No hole card, but if you double down and dealer has a BJ with T, you only lose your original bet
Surrender with any card, including with A

This sounds like Early Surrender. Not sure that Early Surrender was factored into Tyler's analysis (which was excellent.)

Quote: gordonm888

This sounds like Early Surrender. Not sure that Early Surrender was factored into Tyler's analysis (which was excellent.)

You are correct, I just assumed no hole card rules since it was possible to get to 21 vs dealer blackjack. Losing only original bet should lower the initial house edge by 0.11%.

So it sucks, right? It's not even worth trying the ace counting for the T insurance?

I have estimated, very roughly, that the HE is about 1.4% (see below for details.) So this is not an attractive variant of BJ.

The Tens Insurance truly does suck. The odds of the dealer having BJ are basically 1 in 13, while the payoff is 10:1. That is not a good bet.

1. I calculate that the HE attributable to the basic features of your game (BJ pays 1:1, 4D, H17, DOA, DAS, unlimited resplits is 2.765%. It is so high because of the 1:1 payoff on BJ.

2. You can Early Surrender which reduces the house edge by 0.62% to 2.145% Early Surrender means that that you can surrender befire learning whether the dealer has a BJ. With Early Surrender, the usual basic strategy is:
vs: A Stand on 18-21 Hit 9-11 and soft hands Split AA Surrender: everything else
vs. T Surrender on H14-16, and these pairs: 66,77,88 Play everything else normally.

3. However, the rule is also that if you make a (non-blackjack) 21 vs Dealer BJ, that your hand Pushes rather than loses. Indeed, you may then "Double Down" and you go into the Casino War mode:
- if Dealer's car is higher you lose (outcome is -2)
- if your hand is higher, you win (outcome is +2)
- if your hands tie (identical rank) your original bet is paid off at 3:1 (outcome is +3)
Thus, with a Made 21 vs Dealer BJ, you normally would have a payoff of -1, but in this game the payoff will be +0.217. I estimate that this rule would normally reduce the House Edge by about 0.2%.

But Early Surrender and the Payoff Rule on 21vBJ are tangled up with each other. You don't have much chance of making a 21 vs Dealer A, if you're surrendering almost every hand lower than an 18. Indeed, the early surrender strategy would need to be modified because of the much more favorable payoff on 21vBJ.

The combination of these two rules probably results in a net reduction in the House Edge of about 0.7%, so:

Adding in Early Surrender + 21vBJ Payoff Rules will make the HE about 2.065%.

4. Your rules are essentially Peek on Tens and No Peek on Aces, but this has almost almost zero effect because you will be surrendering or not splitting most of your pairs versus Ace and Hitting 11vA in order to chase a Made 21.

5. The rule on 10:1 payoff on an insurance bet vs Dealer 10 is a sucker bet and has no effect on HE.

6. I seem to remember that the RESPLIT Aces rules is worth about 0.01%, which lowers HE to 2.055%.

7. The TRIPS bonus rule(including 10X Bonus on suited 777) is a potentially large effect. If you always HIT pairs 22-88, it would be worth about 0.8% off of the HE. But, other than 55, we always split 88, and split 22-44,66,77 v 4,5,6, and sometimes v2,3. Also, we have already assumed that we are getting some advantage by early surrendering 66-88 vT,A and 22-44vA.

So its a mess, I don't know what the best strategy is when you have any pair 22-44 or 66-88. I will just close my eyes, hold my nose and take a wild guess that this TRIPS bonus rule will reduce HE by an additional 0.30%.

HE= 1.755%.

8. The straight flush bonus seems limited to occur only on these suited straights: A23 - 789. I calculate that has a frequency of about 0.12% and a net reduction in HE of about 0.36%. So that reduces HE to 1.395%.

So I estimate House Edge to be roughly 1.4% +/- 0.2%.

Quote: gordonm888

The Tens Insurance truly does suck. The odds of the dealer having BJ are basically 1 in 13, while the payoff is 10:1. That is not a good bet.

When I dealt charity poker, our blackjack game allowed insurance on a 10 up betting there's an ace in the hole and it only paid the standard 2:1! And YES, some people bet it with a ten up!!

I really appreciate your help! But what do you mean on the 8 point: "The straight flush bonus seems limited to occur only on these suited straights: A23 - 789"? If I have a 7 and 8 of the same suit, Clubs for example, and then I hit a 9 of Clubs, I will bust and the bonus will not be paid.

"vs: A Stand on 18-21 Hit 9-11 and soft hands Split AA Surrender: everything else"

Hard 8 is also a hit, not a surrender. Hard 4 is a hit in a S17 game but a surrender in a H17 game. Also AA v A is a hit, not a split in a ENHC game.