Blackjack Advantage and Units Won/Lost vs.
True Count
When counting cards, the count is better for you at extremely high
counts with two esoteric exceptions (described at the end.) I’ve attached
a combination chart which shows Blackjack Advantage
and Units Won/Lost vs. True Count using Wong's Hi Lo strategy. The green
area shows the losses at negative values and gains at positive values.
Of course, the big gains and losses are at relatively low plus or minus
counts, because this is where the majority of hands exist. The red line
shows advantage. It is very smooth for the majority of counts, but goes
wild at the very high and low counts. This is despite the fact that this
is a simulation of one billion hands and the data has been smoothed (with
a quadratic B-spline algorithm.) Problem is, there just aren’t that many
hands at the extreme counts and the variance is obscene. Of course, if
you play long enough, you will experience a few wild counts. Your results
at those counts are essentially random. Unfortunately, the human mind
is more likely to remember such events, even though they have no meaning.
This is why people watch X-files and other silly TV shows.
Esoterica
- 1. If you are playing single deck Blackjack, and you and all other
players play without any variation whatever, then certain wild TC’s
will only occur with certain dealt card sequences. This will result
in automatic wins or losses at specific extremely high or low counts.
The odds of running into this situation are approximately zero.
- 2. If you are side-counting Aces and there are none left, you’ve
got a problem with a high count.
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