Removing one card from a split RTP

At Playtech casinos you can "bet behind" someone. If you bet behind you have no input into hits or stands, the player controls that. You can choose whether or not to increase your stake when the player doubles/splits. You can make this decision on the fly after seeing the initial cards.

If player splits you can choose to just follow the 1st split, ignore the 2nd and not increase your stake. A 2 card 21 got by this method is still just 21. This could technically be exploited by a player in cahoots with a friend, player betting low and altering his strategy for the benefit of his friend, who bets much higher behind and has the effective choice of Stand, Hit, Double, Split or **remove one card** when confronted with a pair. If we assume the player's bet is negligible, how much RTP would a "remove one card from pair" option gain?

Here is a link that may be useful >>> strategy_link

This link will take you to the "BJ Expected Values" (EV) page. You can click on the relevant^^^ link on that page and it will tell you the EV for each decision***.

^^^: For example say you wanted to know the values for "6 decks, dealer stands on soft 17" and "Player may resplit to four hands, except aces and No drawing to split aces", then you would click here

***: If the play has a positive EV then you play both hands in the split, but on the negative EV plays you just play one hand as the "back bettor"

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I think the overall EV improvement of this is around 0.15% ###, if the front players' bet is the table minimum and the back players' bet is the table maximum.

###: This figure is from memory, and also I can't remember what the table min and max, was so I could be wrong.

Quote: rumba434

At Playtech casinos you can "bet behind" someone. If you bet behind you have no input into hits or stands, the player controls that. You can choose whether or not to increase your stake when the player doubles/splits. You can make this decision on the fly after seeing the initial cards.

If player splits you can choose to just follow the 1st split, ignore the 2nd and not increase your stake. A 2 card 21 got by this method is still just 21. This could technically be exploited by a player in cahoots with a friend, player betting low and altering his strategy for the benefit of his friend, who bets much higher behind and has the effective choice of Stand, Hit, Double, Split or **remove one card** when confronted with a pair. If we assume the player's bet is negligible, how much RTP would a "remove one card from pair" option gain?
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I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying if player A is betting $1 and player B is betting $100, and player A decides to split his 7’s against an 8, you can choose to only play one of the 7’s? I think in the next post you mentioned a player edge of .15% for those rules. Sounds about right. Why do I think if you used this strategy at an on line casino it would be red flags to them?

Quote: rumba434

At Playtech casinos you can "bet behind" someone. If you bet behind you have no input into hits or stands, the player controls that. You can choose whether or not to increase your stake when the player doubles/splits. You can make this decision on the fly after seeing the initial cards.

If player splits you can choose to just follow the 1st split, ignore the 2nd and not increase your stake. A 2 card 21 got by this method is still just 21. This could technically be exploited by a player in cahoots with a friend, player betting low and altering his strategy for the benefit of his friend, who bets much higher behind and has the effective choice of Stand, Hit, Double, Split or **remove one card** when confronted with a pair. If we assume the player's bet is negligible, how much RTP would a "remove one card from pair" option gain?
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There are teams that exploit these sorts of games on an international level -- it's called "Splitting for Less." Here is an article I wrote about this.

https://www.888casino.com/blog/blackjack-tips/splitting-for-less-in-blackjack

Quote: teliot

Quote: rumba434

At Playtech casinos you can "bet behind" someone. If you bet behind you have no input into hits or stands, the player controls that. You can choose whether or not to increase your stake when the player doubles/splits. You can make this decision on the fly after seeing the initial cards.

If player splits you can choose to just follow the 1st split, ignore the 2nd and not increase your stake. A 2 card 21 got by this method is still just 21. This could technically be exploited by a player in cahoots with a friend, player betting low and altering his strategy for the benefit of his friend, who bets much higher behind and has the effective choice of Stand, Hit, Double, Split or **remove one card** when confronted with a pair. If we assume the player's bet is negligible, how much RTP would a "remove one card from pair" option gain?
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There are teams that exploit these sorts of games on an international level -- it's called "Splitting for Less." Here is an article I wrote about this.

https://www.888casino.com/blog/blackjack-tips/splitting-for-less-in-blackjack
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Great article, as usual. I want to disagree with your conclusion that it would be difficult to detect this scheme being used. If I’m noting one guy betting $5 and the guy behind him betting $100 the FIRST thing I’d look for is what they do during splits. It would only take a few such hands for me to put the kibosh on the team.

I vaguely remember the 0.15% number when I looked at it. I think I assumed it was equal bets where you looked at the total effect on both bets, so would split 3s vs 8 but not vs 9.

Quote: SOOPOO

I want to disagree with your conclusion that it would be difficult to detect this scheme being used. If I’m noting one guy betting $5 and the guy behind him betting $100 the FIRST thing I’d look for is what they do during splits.

That's because you are brilliant and intuitive.

In my experience (and yes, I busted a team doing this in person, and have assisted several casinos in identifying this play), you can watch the team play for several hours before one of the obscure back-betting splits happens, all the time wondering if they are counting, see hole-cards, marking the cards, edge sorting, have a camera in the shoe, have busted the automatic shuffler, tracking Aces, etc. Then it happens once (like splitting 3-3 against 9) and you wonder if they are eating cards because an Ace is due, or maybe the cards are marked, etc.

You think it's easy? Well, if it happened 10 times in an hour, maybe. But that's not what happens with this play. The exceptional splits are rare. This thing is very hard to detect in real life.

Now, consider your average casino floor manager, table games director or surveillance manager at Bob's casino, and ask him the question "you are allowed to double for less, why aren't you allowed to split for less?" He may not even know it's a rule.

Quote: rumba434

At Playtech casinos you can "bet behind" someone. If you bet behind you have no input into hits or stands, the player controls that. You can choose whether or not to increase your stake when the player doubles/splits. You can make this decision on the fly after seeing the initial cards.

If player splits you can choose to just follow the 1st split, ignore the 2nd and not increase your stake. A 2 card 21 got by this method is still just 21. This could technically be exploited by a player in cahoots with a friend, player betting low and altering his strategy for the benefit of his friend, who bets much higher behind and has the effective choice of Stand, Hit, Double, Split or **remove one card** when confronted with a pair. If we assume the player's bet is negligible, how much RTP would a "remove one card from pair" option gain?
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rumba434,

I analyzed this option and posted the results over at bj21.com back in March of 2013. If you are a paying member at bj21.com, you can access the post and see the appropriate strategy at this address:

https://bj21.com/boards/green-chip-forums/sub_boards/posts-of-the-month-archive/topics/mar-2013-splitting-hairs-on-hairy-splits?page=1

At any rate, the value of this "unequal split" option varies with the ratio of the back bettor's wager to the front bettor's wager, the number of decks (8, 6, 4, or 2) used in the game, whether the dealer hits or stands on soft 17, and whether the game is NoDAS or DAS, with in each case the first-named option giving the better results. Under the best conditions: 100:1 ratio, 8D, H17, and NoDAS, optimal team strategy will give the team an additional +0.1739%, so the team strategy alone will not overcome the house edge.

However, if you can find a back betting game with 2D, S17, DAS, and RSA (resplit aces) where the player's IBA is roughly -0.14%, and your team can use a 100:1 bet ratio, then the +0.1572% gained by using optimal unequal splitting strategy WILL just barely make the game +EV... for the 10 or so minutes your team will be allowed to play ;-)

Hope this helps!

Dog Hand

Although this +0.16% is positive, it is teeny tiny. If this back betting is allowed, then the back player would easily do back counting to get an edge of more than +2% himself alone. Why even bother doing cahoots? Logic?

It is employed against CSM games. Big money games with a low house edge and back betting are available in certain parts of Asia. Counting is not easy against machines, though it is still possible.