Card Counting (Blackjack) and Flat Betting
If you are flat betting, then you are not taking advantage of your card counting. Therefore, give or take the odd insurance bet, you would barely dent the house edge by 0.1% (AIUI)Quote: ryanpIf you did everything 100% correctly with Blackjack Card Counting (perfect Basic Strategy, keeping track of the running count correctly always, and perfect deviations from Basic Strategy at the correct times), what would the house/player's edge be if you were to flat bet the entire time? I assume that doing such will improve the house edge somewhat but not sure if it would give you a player's edge or not for flat betting. Assuming a house edge of about 0.64% with perfect Basic Strategy (6-deck game, dealer hits on soft 17, no insurance offered, etc.).
Counting is all about recognising and betting big into those hands where you have an advantage.
Quote: ChumpChangeI've never played 2 spots at an actual Blackjack table. Are you allowed to play 2 spots when the True Count is 0 or better at double the minimum bet, then reduce to a single spot at minimum bet when the count is -1 or less? Or is there some other rule where you have to start with 2 spots at the start of a shoe, and if you go to one spot, you can't go back to 2 spots until the next shoe? What do the dealers care? With tables being socially distanced, each player seat could have 2 spots anyway, so it'd be a great time to change up playing one spot or two with no worry about elbowing out other players from the table.
Most casinos will let you switch between 1 and 2 spots on a shoe game. A lot less casinos will let you do it in a single or double deck game, but many allow it there too.
As for the question in the OP, it mainly depends on the rules of the game. You could gain a tiny advantage in single deck, 3:2 game just making typical index plays and flat betting if the rules are good enough...would have to be S17 for sure. (good luck finding that game in north america)
Its probably even possible in double deck with very liberal rules and PERFECT composition based strategy. The edge would be so ridiculously tiny I don't think it would be worth the incredible effort. Probably worth a few pennies per hour in EV if you flat bet $100 and don't make a single mistake.
In 6 deck, no way.
Quote: Bowler377I've heard of one situation in Ian Andersen's book where he described a card counter who flat bet, used all indices, and always got out of the shoe at true count -1. Personally, I wonder if I could get away with flat betting right off the beginning of a new shoe and avoiding all negative counts, especially in Vegas.
You can definitely get away with agressively exiting negative counts. That is how I play. I exit slightly later at about -1.5 TC. So that part isn't a problem.
The flat betting, even with an agressive exit, I am not sure turns the game +EV. It might be close but probably still slightly -EV. You gotta remember there is an aweful lot of rounds played with the count in the 'zero bucket' (between +1 where the game gets close to +EV and -1 where you would exit). Depending on exact rules and penetration, it is probably about 50% of hands in that zero bucket and at -EV. Then you would have to overcome that with only a small amount of hands played at +EV.
Instead of flat betting, if you just went with say a 1-3 spread, that would probably result in +EV with the agressive exit. You have to run some simulations to be sure.
But the agressive exit part is very doable, if you don't mind short sessions and moving around a lot.
Edit: the problem with reading Ian Andersen or any of the books from the 80's like that is the game is very different today. 6 and 8 decks instead of single or double deck and dealer hit soft 17 for a higher house edge to overcome are a couple of the bigger issues.
Quote: Bowler377I've heard of one situation in Ian Andersen's book where he described a card counter who flat bet, used all indices, (...)
Is your goal to win money?
I don't recall that being the goal for the plan described.
