Latest Cronley Article- "hitting 17 with dealer showing a 5-spot"
 

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...ory?id=4204621

I'm always a big fan of Jay, and found this article pretty entertaining.

It also got me thinking, what are some of the horseplayer "equivalent of hitting on 17 with the dealer showing a 5-spot"?

thoughts?

Hmm, since you asked...

For one thing, it would be a BIG mistake to NOT hit 17 against a dealer 5, if the 17 includes an ace that is counted as "11". Hitting improves your result by about 13% of a bet.

If we're talking about "hard 17", then it's difficult for a horseplayer to do something as stupid as hitting "hard 17" against a dealer 5. Hitting hard 17 against a 5 costs about 50% of your bet on average. Even with 15-25% takeout, it's tough to make horse bets costing 50% of your wager.

The article said "Many horse bets are the equivalent of hitting 17 with the dealer showing a 5-spot, of letting it ride on green at the roulette wheel."

I take exception to the 2nd half of that claim! The vast majority of horse bets are way worse than "letting it ride on green at the roulette wheel". Even with a double zero wheel, those roulette bets only lose at 5.2% on average. How many horse players (with the exception of absolutely everyone at derbytrail!) have cut the house edge to less than 5%?

--Dunbar

Funny that this was brought up because I was having this same argument with my future brother in law this weekend. He's preparing to unload on Bird at the Belmont because "a little more distance and he wins for fun". Now he could easily win the race but I told him to maybe wait to see who enters the race before throwing any real money down.

you were a good in law and explained he's most likely incorrect, right?

Unfortunately I did tell him that he may want to save his money but now almost wish I didn't because maybe he'll keep talking him up to everyone else and there will be more money to be made...........although his $10 win bet probalby change the odds too much.

I don't care what the dealer has up. I will never hit 12 or more. You can't win if you are over 21

There are some striking similarities between poker and horseplaying, Jennifer Tilly maybe being the most interesting.

Which of those last two posts are funnier?

The Jennifer Tilly one. The other one needed a happy face to be funny. Without it, it was scarily clueless.

--Dunbar

Good article. I even printed it out on paper to get the full effect so I wouldn't just scan over it.

But when we bet with a semi-informed (at least perceived) opinion aren't we taking what we think is an overlay? No rational person bets 0/00 and thinks they have an edge. . . So, is it really worse to at least try to extract some value from a bet than to take a documented underlay simply because, over time, we're more likely to lose less from the standard roulette house edge than our inept handicapping/betting?

That's an interesting question. The capper is using his/her brain more, but in the vast majority of cases the roulette player is getting the better ROI. So who's "smarter"?

What if the roulette player is deluded enough to think that a betting system (like Martingale) will give him/her an edge. Does thinking like that make the roulette player smarter than a -10% capper? Note they both THINK they have an edge.

As an aside...by far the biggest hourly edge I've ever had was during a 2-hour roulette promotion. In 2001, the online casino Casino-on-Net offered double the usual payout on "00" and "7". (in honor of James Bond). That turned the game from -5.2% to +87%. My 4 partners and I won over $300K in those 2 hours. Casino-On-Net paid out $4 million in total. (see http://www.winneronline.com/articles.../con_promo.htm)

Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the casino didn't lose more than it did. Casino-on-Net was the biggest online casino in the world at the time. Yet my little group took home 8% of the total win from that promo. My theory was that most people didn't look twice at the promo once they saw "roulette".

--Dunbar

Well, you keep hitting 12 to 16 and see how long your bankroll lasts.

This is not a debatable topic. Experts have programmed computers to play tens of millions of hands and figured out the optimal strategy (this is referred to as "basic strategy"). You are correct that if you have 13 or higher, you should stand if the dealer is showing 2-6. But if they are showing 7-10 or A, you should hit until you have hard 17 or higher. In other words, if you have 13 and the dealer is showing a 10, you need to hit. If you have 12 and the dealer is showing a 9, you need to hit. In both of those examples, you are going to lose money in the long run no matter what you do. Those are both big-time losing hands in the long run. But if you hit those hands, you will lose less money in the long run than if you stand.
If you don't believe it, program a computer to deal the hands several million times and you will see that you are a better off hitting those hands. If I were you, I wouldn't waste my time doing the work because it's already been done by many of the best mathematicians in the world and they all came up with the same results.

Rupert, your answer shows much more patience than mine would have. But I will add some resources and references.

Good sites for accurate basic strategy:
http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bjbse.php
http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack

Good place to ask a question and get some knowledgeable answers:
http://bj21.com/boards/free/free_board/index.cgi

Good books:
"Basic Blackjack", by Stanford Wong
"Professional Blackjack", by Stanford Wong
"Blackbelt in Blackjack", by Arnold Snyder
"The Big Book of Blackjack", by Arnold Snyder

"Professional Blackjack" has tables in its appendix that can be used to illustrate Rupert's example above. If you hit your 12's when the dealer shows a 9, you will end losing on average 34% of the money on those hands. Sounds bad, right? But if you stand on your 12's when the dealer shows a 9, you will end up losing on average 54% of the money on those hands. For every $10 you bet, you average $2 better when you hit 12 vs standing on 12. That's a huge difference in outcome.

--Dunbar