Heads up 4 deck

The title says it all. Ive found a way to play heads up 4 deck for a cheap price with no sidebets to tempt me.

Is this or is there any advantage to this over 8 decks, or is it negligible?

This is essentially video blackjack online, not live dealer, virtual cards and what not...

stand on soft 17, surrender is available, aces only split once with no additional cards if you split the aces, split only once

Quote: heatmap

The title says it all. Ive found a way to play heads up 4 deck for a cheap price with no sidebets to tempt me.

Is this or is there any advantage to this over 8 decks, or is it negligible?

This is essentially video blackjack online, not live dealer, virtual cards and what not...

stand on soft 17, surrender is available, aces only split once with no additional cards if you split the aces, split only once

Is there an advantage of 4 decks over 8 decks? Absolutely. The house edge increases as decks increase. the difference between 8 deck and 6 deck is small, only about .03%. The difference between 8 deck and double deck much greater. 4 deck is obviously going to fall in the middle.

These difference I speak of are the house edge, or initial house advantage. For a card counter there are other factors involved in different number of decks, like decreased true count frequencies, but you didn't mention card counting, so I will leave this out.

Now while the house edge is reduced, the house still has an edge, meaning the game is still -EV (you will lose over the long run)

How often do they shuffle and do you know when the shuffle occurs? for most players, four decks are better than eight because you spend twice as much time waiting on the shuffle. Unless you are counting or have another edge, the more time the dealer shuffles, the fewer hands you play at a disadvantage.

For your rules (3-2, S17, DOA, DAS, Late Surrender, no resplits) the house edge is:

2 decks: - 0.2228%

4 decks: - 0.3991%

6 decks: - 0.4569%

8 decks: - 0.4858%

Quote: billryan

How often do they shuffle and do you know when the shuffle occurs? for most players, four decks are better than eight because you spend twice as much time waiting on the shuffle. Unless you are counting or have another edge, the more time the dealer shuffles, the fewer hands you play at a disadvantage.

i think the shuffle is performed whenever you timeout - purely imagination at work here though and im really not sure but heres my thoughts :

if you sit at a table and dont act there is a timer, which im assuming is also for the benefit of the other players at the table, so that people act quickly.

If you dont act you are not in the round.

The timer is always there, timing out and i also think they may kick you off of the table if you really dont act enough or on time.

And im assuming that the shuffle happens when you time out - no clue why i assume that though.

It's more of a WAG than an assumption.

Quote: gordonm888

For your rules (3-2, S17, DOA, DAS, Late Surrender, no resplits) the house edge is:

2 decks: - 0.2228%

4 decks: - 0.3991%

6 decks: - 0.4569%

8 decks: - 0.4858%

These numbers surprise me a bit. I have no doubt that you are correct but I just thought I remembered that the 4 deck game was a little closer to a double deck game than a 6 deck game. I am sure I am remembering wrong, because I have very little experience with a 4 decks game.

As a matter of fact my only experience was probably 12-13 years ago in Atlantic City. Tropicana offered a 4 deck game for a brief period. It was like a card counter convention as card counters flocked to the game because it was better than the 8 deck games that were all up and down the boardwalk. lol. Like I said, it didn't last long. I have never seen another one in a brick and mortar casino.

For years, the only BJ game in Searchlight was four decks. It's no longer there.

For every game or scenario I’ve ever analyzed, once you get to 6 decks you’re effectively at infinite deck.