Players at my recent blackjack seminar in Albuquerque expressed surprise when they learned that dealer up cards do not have a predictable, constant busting rate. In other words, contrary to the old school writers, the dealer’s 2 cannot be depended upon to bust 35 percent of the time in any one playing session, the dealer’s 3 cannot be depended upon to bust 38 percent of the time, and so on.
And without that, the old school formulations in the creation of basic strategy and card counting are invalid and essentially worthless.
One of the first Epiphanies to come out of my card behavior research was this fact: dealer up card busting rates vary, depending on the card mix. This is why so many players, trained in the faulty old school ways, think they’re being cheated when the dealer’s 4, 5 and 6 don’t bust a lot. They don’t realize that the busting rate of each up card depends upon the mix of cards at any given table (the order in which they are to be found, set in motion by the very first shuffle and subsequent shuffles).
One player was especially surprised when I displayed this stat about the dealer 10’s busting rate in my show:
And this is just one of many examples of card situations that reflect that likelihood:
When I realized that dealer busting rates were not predictably one constant identifiable number but variable, I wanted to find a way to get a handle on when they were most likely to bust within any particular round. Because we don’t care much about statistics that cover eight lifetimes of blackjack. Knowing how variable dealer busting rates can be, we need to know whether we’re in a round where the dealer will likely bust or not.
To that end, I invented a number of methods at several levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced) to pinpoint the dealer’s most likely result.
The entry-level Ducks & Bucks method is what the statistic above came from. It helps explain why every player hand in this card situation is a likely loser (the hole card in this situation most likely being either a 10 or 9 – the two cards most underrepresented on the table).
And do you not agree that, in a casino allowing surrender (folding and keeping half your bet), the final two players should have surrendered if that option was allowed? When you start with hands of 7 and 8 points versus the dealer’s 10 (the dealer’s 2nd strongest up card) and 8s, 9s, 10s and Aces are overdue, who’s going to win? Food for thought. (Hint: 8s and 9s give you stiffs, bustable hands; 10s and Aces give you point totals likely to be below the dealer’s.)
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Richard Harvey is an acclaimed blackjack strategies innovator, expert player, blackjack coach 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 www.blackjacktoday.com.
