Could Real-Time Card Tracking and Adjusted Basic Strategy Beat Online Blackjack?

Quote: Archvaldor1

What is being described here...

Is depth charging.

Quote: gambling terms

Depth-Charging
A method of play described by Arnold Snyder in his book "Black belt in Blackjack", in which a player would either make flat bets or bet the table minimum on the first round of play after a shuffle and then raise his bets regardless of the count as play continues until the next shuffle. It is dependent upon the player seeing as many cards as possible, counting them using a counting system and making strategy variations based upon the count. In order to be successful, this method of play requires a count with a high playing efficiency and a deeply dealt single deck game.

https://www.dictionaryofgambling.com/gambling_terms/blackjack/d/

The reason you read about subsequent rounds is he was describing ways to beat short pen single and double decks back in the day... games where you only got 2, maybe 3 rounds in before the shuffle (regardless of the number of players).

Depth-Charging (use the search on this site even) has been described many, many times in single deal scenarios as well... where you bet table min on the first 5 spots, then table max on the 6th spot, assuming the added information and playing deviations will make up for the prior minimum bets expected loss. Again, why I said this 'usually' only works on low house edge games... not that it couldn't be implemented in tons of other ways in other games.

Quote: Archvaldor1

Quote: Romes

Q: Is online live blackjack still beatable?
A: Yes, but only technically and no you can't do it.

You are right, YOU can't do it.
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Yes, I could. I choose not to because I'm not stupid... and for the other X amount of reasons I've already mentioned.


If you're upset cuz you're struggling in blackjack, might I suggest these to help point you in the right direction?

https://wizardofvegas.com/articles/A-to-Z-Counting-Cards-in-Blackjack/
https://wizardofvegas.com/articles/A-to-Z-Counting-Cards-In-Blackjack-2/
https://wizardofvegas.com/articles/A-to-Z-Counting-Cards-in-Blackjack-3/

There are single deck online blackjack games where you can play 5 hands. The deck is shuffled every round. Depending on the exact rules it's about a 99.7% game. So the first 4 hands you would play say $1. The 5th hand you would play say $100. I'm guessing on the first 4 hands you would make some deviations that were not too costly so as to deal more of the deck. This would depend on what the 5th hand would be. If it was a 20 you would just play the other hands as basic strategy. If it was something like 11v10 or 13v4 then you would count all of the cards dealt and put it into a calculator and see if you should hit, double, or stand.

This situation doesn’t sound likely. If there are six players each playing five hands a time, it will run out of cards in one round of dealing.

Quote: Romes

The reason you read about subsequent rounds is he was describing ways to beat short pen single and double decks back in the day... games where you only got 2, maybe 3 rounds in before the shuffle (regardless of the number of players).

It is almost like he was describing exactly what I described and nothing to do with what you said previously, which was another method entirely and nothing to do with what you are now describing.

Quote: Romes

Yes, I could. I choose not to because I'm not stupid... and for the other X amount of reasons I've already mentioned.

You clearly don't understand how this works. You did what most old school card counters do and look at is if you were playing a bricks and mortar game. Online games work differently.

You don't simply play one table. That is a waste of time. This had been established by competent online players earlier in the thread. You play many tables at once and backcount aggressively. Poker players have been doing this for 20 years now, it is not exactly a revelation.

Once you understand how this works you might then be in a position to determine whether or not the risk/return is worth it. It would be better if you just admitted you didn't understand that you could multi-table online and the benefits of doing so.

Quote: Sandybestdog

There are single deck online blackjack games where you can play 5 hands. The deck is shuffled every round. Depending on the exact rules it's about a 99.7% game. So the first 4 hands you would play say $1. The 5th hand you would play say $100. I'm guessing on the first 4 hands you would make some deviations that were not too costly so as to deal more of the deck. This would depend on what the 5th hand would be. If it was a 20 you would just play the other hands as basic strategy. If it was something like 11v10 or 13v4 then you would count all of the cards dealt and put it into a calculator and see if you should hit, double, or stand.
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If I recall correctly optimal strategy gain on the fifth hand will be about .3%, not enough to beat the house edge in most online games. That includes doing crazy stuff on the first four hands to eat cards. Even if you find a break-even game somehow, which I'm guessing doesn't exist, it wouldn't be that attractive.

Don't let me put you off the creative thinking though, it is a very interesting idea. There are some angles here they are a just a little less apparent than using computer-perfect play in the traditional sense.

Quote: Archvaldor1

If I recall correctly optimal strategy gain on the fifth hand will be about .3%, not enough to beat the house edge in most online games. That includes doing crazy stuff on the first four hands to eat cards. Even if you find a break-even game somehow, which I'm guessing doesn't exist, it wouldn't be that attractive.

Don't let me put you off the creative thinking though, it is a very interesting idea. There are some angles here they are a just a little less apparent than using computer-perfect play in the traditional sense.

Awesome, thanks! I didn't think it was too beatable but worth looking at.

Quote: Archvaldor1

If I recall correctly optimal strategy gain on the fifth hand will be about .3%, not enough to beat the house edge in most online games. That includes doing crazy stuff on the first four hands to eat cards. Even if you find a break-even game somehow, which I'm guessing doesn't exist, it wouldn't be that attractive.

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It looks like you know a lot of stuff. Very good. This is the first time I’ve ever seen such an EV number being reported. Although this 0.3% number sounds reasonable, I’m still curious about how you obtained it. Does this number include the contribution from perfect insurance play?

For all the single deck games I’ve played, players’ cards were all dealt face down, except the hit cards usually face up. There is a good reason for not exposing these cards, because players may gain an advantage just by peeking into one neighbor player’s two cards. Also, I’d like to say that most single deck 3:2 blackjack games are actually positive EV for players, so we should play them if we see them. We do not need a computer to beat a single deck game.

Peter Griffin has a table for strategy gains with perfect play on in "Theory Of Blackjack". He actually breaks it down into insurance gains and that from other play deviations, the .3% number is inclusive of both. To get a precise and exact figure you would need to run a sim, I might be out by a tenth of a per cent or something depending on exactly what parameters are being used. But I don't believe offhand you can beat that specific game configuration using the approach you described, though it would be an excellent starting point if you can narrow the edge further somehow.

I agree with what you say about sd being highly beatable with card exposure. But we are talking about VERY few cards seen. That is the main problem here.