In philosophy, you call an argument “specious” when it sounds like it makes sense but, upon examination, it makes no sense at all.
In math, it’s unfortunately true that too many specious arguments are made. Numbers that seem to add up and are bandied about like they’re the God’s honest truth later turn out to represent untruths.
This has been especially true in the application of math in blackjack. For decades mathematical truths that were really specious arguments and untruths have been accepted as being perfectly correct when they’re absolutely wrong.
One reason why the old school blackjack researchers and writers came up with faulty math is the way they did their research: with random number generators simulating the game. That produced all kinds of short-term anomalies that never occur in the real game.
They did not understand that short-term card trends only vary so much and that there are certain combinations that are statistically improbable if not impossible to produce in the casino game. And you must be alert to these.
You see cards, when shuffled in the standardized way they’re shuffled at the casino, will combine in just so many ways. Whereas a computer’s random number generator can easily produce a string of simulated cards in “dealing” simulations that include what you see in the card example here, the real game should never exhibit such consecutively-ordered cards unless: a) the cards have not been shuffled or shuffled well; or b) the cards have been rigged.
That’s not to say I haven’t seen this type of thing. In nearly 30 years of playing blackjack, I’ve seen situations similar to this twice: once at Foxwoods in Connecticut and once at the Luxor in Vegas. Round after round one suit of cards mostly in order would be dealt and then half of another in similar fashion. I attributed these anomalies to a poor shuffling of the cards by a dealer who was new to the game and not well trained.
However, with a poor understanding of likely short-term card trends, an old school player would not: a) be trained to be alert to such card trend anomalies; and b) would not react properly to such highly unusual card trends as exhibited in this example. And in fact that players at Foxwoods and Luxor continued to play against a similar such toxic mix of cards, losing hand after hand, oblivious to what was going on.
The proper reaction this kind of thing is to get up and leave the table. Most players will lose when the cards come out this way (especially in odd-number player combinations).
In state-of-the-art blackjack, we pay attention to short-term trends and expectations and are alert to such strange and disturbing card mixes. This is just one way we avoid losing situations that old schoolers unwittingly walk right into.
Richard Harvey is a nationally-acclaimed blackjack strategies innovator, expert player, blackjack coach and bestselling author. Have blackjack questions? Send them to rharvey2121@netscape.net. For more info see www.blackjacktoday.com.
