| You have 18 against an 8 for $25. The player next to you offers you $26 for your hand. Should you sell it and take the $1 guaranteed profit or just gamble on maybe pushing, maybe winning and maybe losing? 5) You and the player next to you have been taking each other's action all day and now you have 7/7 against a deuce. What's your best percentage move? 6) Now you've got 17 against a 7 for $25. The guy next to you offers $24 for your hand. Do you sell it or play it? ANSWERS: 1) No. Splitting 7/7 against a 3 is proper basic strategy only because it loses less than playing a 14. But each 7 still loses money. As a bystander, you have no loss to reduce, so just stay out of this one. 2) Yes. Doubling down with 9 against a 7 is the wrong play for the person holding the hand because it makes less money than just hitting. But even when taking just one card, it still wins 53% of the time. Get your money over there. 3) Buy. Four times out of thirteen you'll lose $51 and nine times you'll win $24. Even when paying this 2% bonus, you'll still have roughly a 2% edge on the deal. The truth is, most blackjack players sitting at the table are just hoping to get lucky -- because that's the only way they can win. But many who have achieved a winning level of proficiency at 21 end up having a hard time finding a game. That's because many casinos won't deal to them due to their superior playing skills. Some of these blackjack mavens have discovered another game of skill that bears several resemblances to blackjack -- and that's Hold'em poker. Accomplished blackjack experts who don't even know how to play live poker have migrated into Texas Hold'em for two reasons: Hold'em, like blackjack can be beaten with top notch play. Its initial structure is similar to blackjack, yet Hold'em is less complex than most other poker games. Some purists will insist that blackjack and poker are two entirely different games. It's true that live poker has a psychological facet which just doesn't exist in blackjack. But with Hold'em more so than other forms of poker, winning absolutely demands that you adhere to certain textbook fundamentals, just as in blackjack. Violate those and you'll dig yourself a hole that even a mind reader couldn't claw his way out of. The point being, if you can learn to win at blackjack, you can probably learn to win at Texas Hold'em using many of the same skills. How are these two games similar? First, in both games you're dealt two starting cards. In blackjack, you can be dealt 330 different starting hands -- in Hold'em there are 169. A starting 20 in blackjack is a great hand while a 13 stinks. A pair of pocket Kings in Hold'em is a great hand in, while an 8/5 is a piece of trash. So in both games you can be dealt two good cards or two bad cards. |
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