| There's a bet and a call -- now it's up to you. With the low virtually certain and both straights and flushes very likely, it's obvious that you need to make Aces full to win half and have nine live cards to do it with (one Ace, three 4s, two 6s and three 5s out of 44 unseen cards). That makes you just about a 4-to-1 shot. The pot contains $600 thus far. If you call (bringing the current pot to $700) and miss at the river, you'll fold losing just $100. If you fill up, counting your river bet and a $100 call from each of the other two players (with no raises), there'll be $1000 in the pot when it's over. If you could have won it all, you'd have netted 8-to-1 pot odds on your $100 fourth street call. But when you win only half, you'll get back just $500. After subtracting your own money, you'll have made only $300 profit, or 3-to-1 pot odds. And since you're a 4-to-1 underdog to fill, the surprisingly correct play is to just fold your three Aces on the turn! You're simply not getting a good enough price to fill. If the pot was 4-way action you might get paid off somewhat better -- but either way, you'd need to get in some raises and split a $1400 pot to make playing worthwhile ($700 for your half, minus the $300 you put into it). Then you'd net the required $400 profit. This example highlights the fact that when you're drawing to half the pot, several situations that may seem like an automatic call aren't really worth it. That's because: WHEN THE POT WILL BE SPLIT, YOU'RE GETTING LESS THAN A couple of weeks ago we discussed how to play your blackjack pairs above and beyond basic strategy by thinking outside the box. Pairs aren't the only hands that afford you the opportunity to make a little extra dough from places you never thought of. Here's a blackjack scenario that I know you've seen many times. Say the guy next to you has 11 against a face-card, or maybe he has 10 against a 9, or perhaps Ace/6 against a 4. Any way, he kinda knows he's supposed to double down, but maybe he's been getting hammered, or he might be short on chips, or whatever. So he decides to put just an extra half bet out there and doubles for less as kind of a compromise. There's your cue to move in. You see, all those hands are proper double downs because they'll win more often than they'll lose (among other reasons). So when you see somebody leave some space left unfilled on a good double, get your own chips over there and fill it up! Just say, "Here, I'll go with you on this one, partner," and toss him the rest of the bet. When doubling with 11 against a 10, you're a 6-to-5 favorite to win. With 10 against a 9, you're a 7-to-6 boss. And with Ace/6 against a 4 you've got 8-to-7 the best of it. When are you ever going to have that on your own hand before you even put down a bet? Don't let these, or any other proper doubles, go by unfilled. You can't make any money by just watching other people play their winning hands.My friend Easy Eddie has his basic strategy down cold. He hits when he's supposed to, he doubles when he's supposed to, and he splits all the right pairs. I guess he's taken his game as far as it can go without becoming a card counter. Or has he? Actually, plain vanilla basic strategy players can still do a few more little things to chop away at that last half percent of house advantage without taking that quantum leap into card counting. One of them is to truly optimize all their pair splits. Now wait a minute. If a guy splits according to perfect basic strategy, isn't that optimal? Well, no it's not—if you can think outside the box. You see, pair splits are a funny thing. Some pairs should be split because they make more money that way. But other pairs should be split simply because they lose less money than by not splitting, such as when you have a pair of 8s against the dreaded face-card showing. As much as you hate it, splitting here loses less money on average than hitting. But there are other pairs in this exact same category that don't look like losers, yet they are. One of them is shown below. DEALER 3/? |
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