which game is best?

I've surveyed several casinos around me and found the following (all BJ pays 3:2, and as far as I know, all can re-split up to 4 times, including aces; I am excluding the crummy 6:5 games, as I will not play them)

single deck
double down on 10-11
no double after split

double deck
double down on any two first cards
no double after split

6 deck shoe
double down on any two first cards
can double down after split


There is also video BJ with double down on any two first cards, including after split, and has surrender. Clearly this is the best game if you flat bet, but I like to vary my bet. ;)

My bet spread is low so I don't get barred.

According to the Wizard of Odds calculator all three games have similar odds. Assuming that all the games use a cut card the double-deck one (given the rules you mentioned) is slightly better than the other two (if the single-deck game is dealt to a certain number of hands instead of a particular point then that one is the best of those).

(You didn't mention whether the dealer stands or hits on soft 17, but I used H17 in my analyses.)

Use CVCX to compare hourly rate, ror, and std dev or even just look at SCORE

Sorry I left that out. All three games hit soft 17.

Also, I played the 6 deck shoe last night and have two additions, one bad and one good:

cut card only 2/3 of the way in
can double down after hitting... that was bizarre, getting a 2 and 5, hit, get a 4, and then I can double down!

You left out one of the biggest piece of information from all of the games...

...what's the penetration on all 3 of the games?

He stated on the 6 deck it's about 66% judging off the 2/3 way through. Hopefully he can get it for the other games as well.

three card doubling is highly advantageous to the player, I think a little better than +0.2%