| If you just sit tight with your 18 here, you're a 3-to-2 underdog to win. But if you split the 9s, you become only an 11-to-10 underdog on each new hand. That works out cheaper overall. Another time you have a losing proposition no matter what you do is when you have: 10/2 against 3 Don't be silly enough to assume the dealer has 13 here. Yeah, four times out of thirteen she'll have the 13, but five more times she'll have 7, 8, 9, 10 or 11 (by having a 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 in the hole). In all, the dealer will make a hand five out of eight times when she has a 3 up. Not hitting 12 against a 3 is a telltale mark of an unskilled player.Blackjack players range in skill from strong to weak, but most are on the weak side. Of the 340 different hand situations you can be dealt in this game, the average veteran will consistently misplay between 30 and 60 of them. Those mistakes can triple or even quadruple the natural house edge that the casino has over the players.I just returned from a weeklong vacation in Vegas. While there, I played blackjack at nine casinos: Mandalay Bay, the Palms, Monte Carlo, Aladdin, Paris, Bally's, the Flamingo, Bellagio and Caesars Palace. One thing these casinos had in common was that they all offered the "surrender" option at their blackjack tables. For those of you not familiar with surrender, it allows you to get out of your hand if you don't like it (rather than play it) and just give up half your bet. This you must do on your first two cards -- and only after the dealer has checked her hole card to make sure she doesn't have blackjack. Now lots of hard core gamblers think of it as treason to ever give up a hand without a fight. But if you know when to run up the white flag, surrender will be a definite benefit to your game. That's because with some hands you have such a small chance to win that giving up half your bet works out cheaper in the long run. With the surrender option now so widely available in Las Vegas (and practically standard equipment in Atlantic City and Foxwoods), it's surprising how few otherwise "solid" players take advantage of it. In fact, at one point the dealer, a friendly pit boss and I were making cordial small talk when I had one of my larger bets up and received 16 against a 9. I knew I had to surrender it, but also knew few players would and didn't want to appear too knowledgeable, so I asked the pit boss, "Geez, ya' think this one is even worth tryin' to salvage?" I was hoping he would give me the correct play and I could obligingly follow his advice. I believe his reply was genuinely sincere when he said, "You mean surrender? You know the house isn't gonna' give you an option that's gonna' cost them money. You've got to hit the hand." Another fine mess I got myself into. So I reneged with, "I haven't won with a 16 since last Thursday -- take half my bet and let me out of this trap." |
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