Prediction in Blackjack

(Excerpt)

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Hole Card and Hit Card Strategies

Hole Card and Hit Card Reading

Minimal Accuracy Requirements for Hole Card reading (prediction)

Minimal Accuracy Requirements for Hit Card Reading (prediction)

Many players disillusioned with a losing performance by the card counting systems especially against multiple deck games tried the different methods focused on a hole card of a dealer and the hit cards for a player and a dealer. The players considered that approach to be more effective because it was focusing on “the situation at hand”. Instead of relying on the general knowledge delivered by a card counting about the relative excesses or deficits of the high and low cards in the vast mass of the cards in “the rest of the deck”, they were more interested in analyzing the current round. They argued that high positive or negative counts often misled a player about the cards coming in the next round or even next few rounds. The result was many incorrect playing and betting decisions. By studying the flow of the cards inside the round they tried to come up with the strategies, which could produce more precise playing decisions. Those strategies were based on the hole card and hit card prediction (reading, anticipation, recognition etc…).

Hole Card and Hit Card Prediction

An ability to derive some knowledge about a hole card or coming hit cards is something every player obviously would want to have. The information about a hole card or hit cards would give a player a basis for a correct deviation from Basic Strategy playing decisions by far superior to that of the card counting.

In the 1960s and 1970s there were many attempts by the players to get hole card related information. The players tried to take advantage of a sloppy work by the dealer when he was dealing cards or checking under his ace or a ten for a possible blackjack. The methods included psychology-based reading of the dealer’s “tells”, analyzing bent by the dealer’s cards (Wong’s “Warp” method”),  “spooking” from behind of a dealer and “front-loading” from the front to get a peak at the hole card and using “shiners” to get a reflection of the hole card. All these methods are obsolete now and can not be used in principle in the shoe games. A dealer does not check anymore under an ace or a ten and lets photo elements to do the work. In the shoe games the dealers don’t deal from the hand but slide the cards from the shoe over the surface of the table making it impossible to peak under the cards.  The only possible way left to get any idea about the hole card is to make a probability-based prediction.

Table 1 shows minimal accuracy for a hole card prediction (reading) required for deviation from Basic Strategy when a player has a stiff hand against a dealer high up card (7, 8, 9 or a 10) in a 6-deck game. The numbers are approximate and can be used as the good references for any shoe game.

Similar minimal requirements necessary for the deviation from Basic Strategy exist for the hit cards prediction. Again, a player does not have to be 100% correct with his hit card anticipation. For ex. a player has a stiff hand with a hand value of 16 against a dealer’s 10 up card. If his prediction of a high (7, 8, 9, 10 or an ACE) hit card is roughly more than 62% he can deviate from Basic Strategy and stand instead of hitting to avoid a possible bust. Suppose a player is correct 65% in his hit card prediction (reading). If he’ll stand instead of hitting, he’ll improve his expectation on this play by roughly +0.034%. His disadvantage will be less by 3.4% and he’ll lose 3.4 cents less on the average dollar bet in this scenario. Table 7 below shows minimal accuracy for a hit card prediction (reading) required for a player with a stiff hand to deviate from Basic Strategy when a dealer has a high up card.