Blackjack: Take The Money and Run
by Henry Tamburin
Henry Tamburin's most popular book on blackjack contains three levels of playing strategies. 1) For the beginner, a non-counting strategy that will give you a slight edge in some blackjack games. 2) The intermediate level strategy contains an introduction to card counting. 3) The advanced level playing strategy is a powerful system that will give the blackjack player up to a 1.5% edge over the casinos. The book also contains advice on which blackjack games give you the most profit potential, the risks involved in playing blackjack, how to play without fear of getting barred, and money management discipline.
Find Single Deck Blackjack Online!
Intercasino has a single-deck blackjack table with very favorable rules, even though the cards are reshuffled after each hand. The difference between it and the regular blackjack game is that the dealer must hit a soft 17. The resulting house edge for this game is a very low 0.07% and is the recommended game to play.
The Awful 6:5 Single Deck 21 Game
There's an awful single deck 21 game that is spreading like wildfire in casinos throughout the US. It has a reduced payoff for a blackjack - 6:5 instead of the standard 3:2 - which results in a
Henry Tamburin is the editor and publisher of the Blackjack Insider Newsletter and author of the best-selling Blackjack: Take the Money & Run. He is also the lead Instructor for the Golden Touch Blackjack course, a feature writer for Casino Player magazine (and 6 other publications); an owner of a casino gambling publishing company (www.rsucasinobooks.com) and the host of www.smartgaming.com. For a free three month subscription to the Henry's Blackjack Insider Newsletter with full membership privileges go to www.bjinsider.com/free. Henry's website is www.smartgaming.com house edge that's eight times greater than a standard single deck game. The game is prospering because novice players and uneducated tourists have accepted the reduced blackjack payout. It's time, therefore, for knowledgeable players like you to do something about it. Otherwise, as one casino manager predicted, "by the year 2010 all blackjack games will be 6:5 single deck games."
Henry Tamburin is the editor and publisher of the Blackjack Insider Newsletter and author of the best-selling Blackjack: Take the Money & Run. He is also the lead Instructor for the Golden Touch Blackjack course, a feature writer for Casino Player magazine (and 6 other publications); an owner of a casino gambling publishing company (www.rsucasinobooks.com) and the host of www.smartgaming.com. For a free three month subscription to the Henry's Blackjack Insider Newsletter with full membership privileges go to www.bjinsider.com/free. Henry's website is www.smartgaming.com house edge that's eight times greater than a standard single deck game. The game is prospering because novice players and uneducated tourists have accepted the reduced blackjack payout. It's time, therefore, for knowledgeable players like you to do something about it. Otherwise, as one casino manager predicted, "by the year 2010 all blackjack games will be 6:5 single deck games."
When this game was first introduced at the Flamingo Hilton in Las Vegas I thought it didn't have a chance because I mistakenly believed that players weren't going to stand for the reduced payoff. But unfortunately I was dead wrong as players are flocking to play these 6:5 single deck games to the delight of casino operators.
Why is the public enamored with this terrible game? I believe it's because the majority of tourists and uneducated players have heard for years that "single deck blackjack games offer better odds." That's a fact and the smart basic strategy player can virtually eliminate the house edge in a traditional single deck game where blackjacks pay 3:2. The problem is that the traditional single deck blackjack game is hard to find these days so marketing the "new" 6:5 single deck games to the gullible public has been very easy.
Why is the public enamored with this terrible game? I believe it's because the majority of tourists and uneducated players have heard for years that "single deck blackjack games offer better odds." That's a fact and the smart basic strategy player can virtually eliminate the house edge in a traditional single deck game where blackjacks pay 3:2. The problem is that the traditional single deck blackjack game is hard to find these days so marketing the "new" 6:5 single deck games to the gullible public has been very easy.
How much does the reduced payoff in the 6:5 game cost a player? In terms of the house edge, it's about 8 times greater than the standard single deck game and 2.3 to 3.5 times greater than the 6-deck game (depends on whether the dealer hits or stands on soft 17). The chart below shows the comparison.
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Game
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Rules
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House Edge
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Standard Single Deck
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Dealer hits soft 17, BJ's pay 3:2, pairs can be resplit up to 4 hands, aces can be resplit once
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0.18%
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Standard 6-Deck
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Dealer stands on soft 17, BJ's pay 3:2, double down after pair splitting allowed, pairs can be resplit up to 4 hands, aces can be resplit once
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0.41%
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Standard 6-Deck
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Same as above except dealer hits soft 17.
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0.63%
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|
6:5 Single Deck
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Dealer hits soft 17, double down after pair splitting allowed, pairs can be split up to 4 hands, BJ's pay 6:5,
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1.45%
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Note: In a few 6:5 single deck games a player's blackjack wins regardless of what the dealer has (including a blackjack). This reduces the house edge in the game slightly to 1.24%.
Notice that the 6:5 games allow the player to double down after pair splitting which was rarely the case in the 3:2 standard single deck game. This is a player favorable rule that adds 0.14 percent to a players expectation. But paying only 6:5 for a blackjack costs the player about 1.4 percent. Get the picture? You gain 0.14% but lose 1.4%. My fellow gaming columnist Arnold Snyder said it best: "By choosing to play in one of these bastardizations of the traditional BJ-pays-3-to-2 game, you are essentially paying $1.40 for 14 cents worth of value."
Let me show you in dollars and cents what a 6:5 blackjack payoff costs you. If you bet $10 and get a blackjack in a traditional game (3:2 payoff on blackjack) you will win $15. In a 6:5 game that same $10 bet will net you only $12. So you're out $3 for every blackjack hand that you get. On average you'll get 4 blackjacks per hour so for every hour you play a 6:5 single deck game, it costs you $12. Do you want to hand over to the casino $12 per hour for the privilege of playing blackjack? Of course you wouldn't but that is exactly what you do when you play the 6:5 single deck game at a $10 minimum bet.
Besides the poor payout on blackjacks, the 6:5 game has these additional pitfalls.
1. The 6:5 payout rule hurts all players. That means the tourists will be adversely affected by this rule as well as the more skilled basic strategy players and card counters.
2. If you wager an amount that is not divisible by 5, your payoff for a blackjack gets worse. Suppose you wagered $8 and get a blackjack. In a 6:5 game you'll get paid $6 for the first $5 of your wager and even money for the remaining $3. In other words you get paid a net of $9 which is $3 less than what you would have gotten paid in a traditional 3:2 game. The reason for this is that a 6:5 payoff can only be paid out at the correct odds if the player wagers in multiples of $5.
3. Dealers are also impacted by the 6:5 payout. If you make a $1 tip bet for the dealer in a traditional 3:2 payout game and get blackjack, the $1 tip bet would earn the dealer $1.50. But in a 6:5 game, they only get even money because of the difficulty in paying off in small change (a $1 bet in a 6:5 game would pay $1.20).
4. Because the math doesn't work out with the 6:5 payoff, the even money option when a player is dealt a blackjack and the dealer shows an ace is prohibited. Most novice players and low rollers like to take the sure even money when they get a blackjack and in a 6:5 game they can't.
5. For the most part card counting is not profitable on a 6:5 game unless you can get away with a very big bet spread.
6. You'll not find a 6:5 single deck game on high limit tables. The reason is that high rollers wouldn't stand for a 6:5 payout (the per hourly added cost for a black chip player playing heads up against the dealer in a 6:5 game is about $180).
It's painfully obvious that this game is being marketed to tourists and amateur players that know very little about blackjack. So be forewarned and do not play any blackjack game where player blackjacks pay 6-5 (or worse even money).
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