Dealer strategy in Blackjack

The thread addresses how would the game potentially change if the dealer was free to choose to stand or hit, or used a more complex decision card.

1. Is it a correct assumption that, that, without any knowledge of players' hands and actions, "Draw to 16, hit on soft 17" is the best possible dealer strategy?

2. Now, assuming all player cards are dealt face down (single or double deck), but the dealer knows how many players there are and how many cards they have (and technically also what actions did they take), what changes in strategy could the dealer make based on this information?

3. If cards were dealt face up, the dealer would of course be at major advantage, albeit decreasing with the number of players or hands. Is there any data on how large would that advantage be, specifically?

P90- you would also need to factor in player bet size. If $10 has 18, and $1000 has 20, the dealer should hit hard 19......

An interesting exercise perhaps, but who would play such a game?

Quote: FleaStiff

An interesting exercise perhaps, but who would play such a game?

If it existed? Changes in dealer behavior could always be compensated for by other changes in rules, from extra permissions to double-bust pushing and more. Actually under some conditions such a game could gain additional strategic elements (which is also why a casino would never offer it in a balanced form; it could at most be a friendly player-banked 21 variant).

Though I'm mostly interested in it just as a theoretical proposition. Or, more exactly, I'm interested in how much does the dealer being limited to a fixed strategy actually affect the game.

Yes. Theoretical. A casino would never permit dealers to have options... they have enough worries about collusion with players as it is.
And players do bad enough with dealers that are automatons.

Wouldn't the answer to your question be the inverse of how much a player makes his own edge change by the player mimicing the dealer's strategy of hit till 16 hold on all 17s?

This has been tried. See my page on Extreme 21.

Quote: FleaStiff

Yes. Theoretical. A casino would never permit dealers to have options... they have enough worries about collusion with players as it is.

Of course. It's mostly just curiosity about how much does the dealer being forced to adhere to a fixed strategy take away from casino advantage.

Quote: FleaStiff

Wouldn't the answer to your question be the inverse of how much a player makes his own edge change by the player mimicing the dealer's strategy of hit till 16 hold on all 17s?

It wouldn't. I don't think the dealer loses anywhere as much (if anything) by following H17 strategy in a face-down game. In a face-up game, he probably rather loses more, especially head-to-head. The positions are very different.

Quote: Wizard

This has been tried. See my page on Extreme 21.

Hmm. Blackjack doesn't even pay 3:2, but even money, and that arrives at an edge of just 1.16%, lower than no-blackjack 21? Not sure if I'm missing anything... does the reduction in edge come from 21-21 ties going to the player?