In a prior column I presented you with an example where the First Baseman got a 7 and King, the next player a 2 and a 6, the next a 3 and a 4, the next a 3 and a 5, the next a Jack and a 7 and the dealer had a 9 as the up card. I told you everyone was likely to lose and I then showed you why, based upon the mix of undealt cards that we could deduce from what had been dealt.
Today, I want to introduce to you a new invention of mine, a calculator that’s a great learning tool in figuring out problems such as the one above.
Typing in the cards to the calculator, based upon a 1-deck model, see what the calculator told us (in the graphic above; this is just a partial view of the calculator, which also gives you your likelihood of winning in the next round and more).
Normally the low cards (which I designate as the 2s through 7s) account for 46 percent of the cards. Here, as you can see, the high cards account for 57 percent of the undealt cards. And we’re not even including the Aces, which would help the dealer too; adding in the Aces, the cards that would help the dealer avoid busting account for 67 percent of the undealt mix (as opposed to 54 percent normally).
High cards would also result in the players with low totals achieve totals that are below the dealer’s likely score.
Interestingly, our outlook is a bit better with a 2-deck game, only because the cards on the table swing the undealt mix a bit less. Look at the results for the 2-deck situation. There, 53 percent of the undealt mix is high; with the Aces the bad mix (the cards that would help the dealer not bust) would account for 62 percent of the mix.
This imbalance calculator is now available for the price of a bet, at www.blackjacktoday.com/calculator.htm if you’re interested.
And FYI: If enough players are interested, I plan on giving an all-day table-intensive blackjack seminar in Denver in October. E-mail me at rharvey2121@netscape.net if you are interested in attending. A special early bird discount will be posted on blackjacktoday.com soon. All who come to the seminar will get a free Imbalance Calculator.
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Richard Harvey is a world renowned blackjack researcher and innovator, expert player, coach, columnist, blogger and bestselling author of Blackjack The SMART Way (the NEW Gold Edition), Cutting Edge Blackjack (the NEW Third Edition), NEW Ways To Win MORE at Blackjack and the audio book Richard Harvey’s Blackjack PowerPrep Session. Have blackjack questions? Send them to rharvey2121@netscape.net. For more info see http://www.blackjacktoday.com.
