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There
are many small details to observe at the blackjack table, but most
players fixate on things that can't really help their game. Want
an example? The other night, three of us were sitting at the blackjack
table watching the dealer shuffle. At the completion, she called
out "rolling" to the floor and offered the six-deck pack
for a cut. I sliced it about in the middle, the dealer placed the
cards in the shoe, she "burned" the first card and waited
for us to make our bets.
First base then
pointed to the discard tray and said, "Can I see the card?"
"Showing the burn card", the dealer announced as she displayed
the 8 of hearts for everybody to see. First base seemed satisfied
with that and placed a $50 bet.
This is a common
request at the blackjack tables, yet I doubt that any of the requesters
know what to do with that information.
Here's another
typical scenario. One player has A/3 against the dealer's 8 up and
the next player has 6/4. The person with the 6/4 immediately gets
a second bet ready for doubling down which is the proper play for
his hand. But first, the A/3 takes a hit which is a 10 to give him
a hard 14. With that, he takes another hit and busts with the second
straight 10. Now the player with the 6/4 reconsiders and figures
that a small card must be "due", so he just hits rather
than doubles. Does he understand what he's doing? Most likely not!
Let's discuss
the value of seeing the burn card first.
Why do some
players ask to see the burn card in the first place? Some say they
just want to know what their first card would've been if that card
hadn't been burned. Others say they'll bet smaller if the burn card
is a little one because the cards tend to run in streaks -- and
they figure they're more likely to be dealt a small card. Still
others say they'll bet bigger when the burn card is a little one
because that leaves more big cards in the shoe for them to receive.
The only view
that makes any sense is the last one, but not enough sense to bother
with. If the burn card was a 5, then knowing that 5 couldn't come
out would reduce the house edge from 0.5% down to 0.4% on your first
hand of a six-deck shoe. But you'd still have a disadvantage, so
there's be no reason to make a bigger bet. If the burn card was
an Ace, your disadvantage would grow from 0.5% up to 0.6%. That's
slightly bad, but a whole lot more cards are about to come out and
the significance of that one burn card will quickly erode to almost
nothing.
Now if there
were say, eight burn cards and you could see them all, then you
might have something. If all eight were little ones (2 thru 6) you'd
actually have a 0.25% advantage on your first hand. Then you'd be
right to make a bigger bet. But fixating on one card out of a 312-card
shoe is much ado about nothing.
What about playing
your hand differently because of the last couple of cards that came
out? In a shoe game there are only seven hands out of 340 which
are so marginal that they might want to be played differently because
of the last few dealt cards. These are known as the Magnificent
7 Hands. The hand in the above example (10 against an 8), however,
isn't one of them. If you don't know some bona fide "advanced
basic strategy," you'll just shoot yourself in the foot when
you take it upon yourself to adjust the play of your hands on your
own accord.
And if you think
that two 10s in a row means a little card is now due, think about
this. When you have 10 against an 8, there are 167 cards out of
309 that will give you an 18 or better. If the last two hits were
both 10s, there are still 165. That's not nearly enough to make
a difference in your decision with this hand. |
