You’re at a 6-deck table, at third base. There are six players. You’ve seen six rounds of action (and you’re smart; you know six-player tables are dealt 19 cards on average per round, so you know you’ve seen more than two decks of cards by your turn – which means the cards are getting more predictable).
You’ve been keeping track of the relative number of 10s you’ve seen and you remember I taught you the number of 10s per round, in a balanced situation, should be six with six players. Watching the action in prior rounds, you’ve determined there were 10 more 10s than normal coming into this round. Plus, in this round, there were eight 10s dealt before your turn – already two more than normal.
This means the 10s account for significantly less than 31 percent of the deck (their normal proportion). And when the dealer’s up card is a 3 you also know that the fewer the 10s in the undealt mix the lesser chance the dealer will bust. So the 3’s likelihood of busting will be far less than its 38 percent normative rate.
You’ve also noted there’ve been more than two decks worth of 9s dealt since the last shuffle. In fact, there are three 9s in this round alone (there should be at most one or two, in a balanced situation). And because you read my books, you know this means the 3 is even less likely to bust (because the 9 is one of two cards that combines with the dealer’s 3 to make a 2-card bustable total and a 9 is now highly unlikely to be in the hole).
You might even have read Cutting Edge Blackjack and know my Ducks & Bucks method of determining when dealer up cards are strong or weak. Then you know the dealer’s likelihood of busting here is (without a 9 or 10 in the hole) at most about 28 percent – more in the range of the dealer’s 7, over time.
Also, the cards that would give the dealer a bad start –the 2s and 3s especially – are already on the table. So it looks like this dealer 3 is even less likely to bust and more likely to score high than normal.
So how should you play your 14 point hand?
We now know your likely overall losses if you stand on your 14 in this type of situation over time will be at least 72 percent – 28 percent = 44 percent. And probably more, again, since the 2s and 3s are not likely to be in the hole. You’re likely in the 50 percent losses range.
So you should hit your hand – especially since most of the cards now overdue (the mid-range cards) would (with the exception of the 8s) mostly help you achieve a decent score. You still might wind up a loser over time (some situations are losers no matter what) but you’ll cut your losses significantly with this state-of-the-art approach.
Richard Harvey is a world renowned blackjack researcher and innovator, expert player, blackjack coach and professor, columnist 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
