The Effect of Cover Betting on Advantage by Penetration
I put together an Effect of Cover Bettting
chart to give some idea of the cost of various amounts of cover betting.
The results are from one half-billion round Blackjack sim. There were
four players as follows:
Yellow: No cover Blue: No bet increases after a loss, no decreases
after a win; but reset to one unit after a shuffle Green: Same as above
but also no bet change after a push and no jumping bets up or down by
more than two units. Red: Same as above but bet not reset to one after
shuffle and Insurance Cover. (index of 4 for a BJ, 3 for a twenty and
2 for other hands.)
All players had a spread of 1-8. A two unit bet was allowed at TC
of +1 Which is earlier than in BJ Attack's sims as the heavy cover player
probably wouldn't have a chance with slower ramping. The y-axis is advantage.
X-axis is penetration from 1% to 84%. Six decks, S17, DAS. TC accuracy
was half-deck. All players played in all seats.
Note: The Red player had a disadvantage of .7% in the first hand.
This is because he was not allowed to reset his bet after a shuffle. The
other players all had .38% disadvantage of the first hand. (Which was
fortunate as that's what my calculator says the BS advantage should be.)
I've also included a Percentage Chart This
chart shows what percentage of the total loss due to cover betting can
be attributed to each type of cover, by penetration level used by the
Red (heavy cover) player. Red is the loss due to Insurance cover and not
resetting your bet after a shuffle. Green is the loss due to no jumping
bets or changing a bet after a pass. Blue is the loss due to no increases
after a loss or decreases after a win. The Red area shows the large effect
of not resetting the after shuffle bet for low penetration games. The
Green area shows the effect of not being able to jump bets quickly at
high penetration levels.
No surprises here. Cover is expensive.
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