Open Archive 2
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What you may have missed...
Posted by EE counter on 10 September 1997, at 6:13 a.m., in response to Basic Strategy, posted by Steve McEachern on 5 September 1997, at 8:57 a.m.
Steve,
You said:
>>>>Most experts say (a,2),(a,3) hits four but (a,4) doubles. My results show all should be doubled. And so does common sense. Look at the card combo's. There are just as many cards to turn a,2 into a standing hand as there are a,4. What factor have i missed????<<<<
What you stated is true. However, did you consider that with the low soft totals you may have a chance to draw another card if your first hit card is very low? For instance, with A,2, if you hit with an A,2,3, or 4, basic strategy dictates that you would draw again, which could possibly dramatically improve your hand. When calculating whether or not to double down with these low soft hands, you can't just look at the expectation you have after receiving only one hit card and make the assumption that if your expectation is positive you should double down. You have to consider the possibilities of being able to draw a fourth, (or even more) cards if you merely hit the original hand. For these low soft hands, your chance of actually winning the hand by just hitting is always going to be higher than your chance of winning the hand by doubling down, because you have additional opportunities to improve your hand if initially receive low cards. Therefore, assuming that your doubling expectation is positive (which I believe it is for the hands that you are talking about) you have to determine whether or not the increased expectation for the "just hit" option (resulting from the ability to maybe draw additional cards) is large enough to overwhelm the fact that you have doubled your bet when you take the double down option. You'll note that, with increasingly higher soft hand totals, you have less opportunity to take additional cards if you just hit your hand, which will tend to make doubling more and more attractive (until you reach the point where just standing is most attractive). The "crossover point" when the dealer shows a 4, with 6 decks, occurs between A,3 and A,4. Therefore, you would hit A,3 and double A,4. Both of these are very close decisions.
EE
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