Nope You're Not Crazy

So have you been playing and noticed that the dealer gets an "inordinate" number of 20s? Well you're not imagining things. From CV Data:

What you're seeing here is the frequency that the dealer gets a 20 when they have a 10 card up. The simulation is 400 million rounds. Notice that 40 million times? That's almost 3 times the number of 19s, 18s or 17s. Matter of fact it is more than 17-19 combined. Dealer 20s are by far the most frequent single hand the the dealer gets. That face up 10 is deadly indeed.

In terms of parent, the dealer gets a 20 10% of the time that a 10 is showing, that's 3x more than any other hand over 16.

What Were The Odds of That?

So two nights ago I had a mini-epic loss that ended a three month winning streak. I've had "epic losses" before. So unlike that time, which I took a vow of silence for two weeks because it was the only thing I could speak of, this didn't phase me all that much. No doubt it still hurt the bankroll but still, It wasn't as emotionally devastating as before, and definitely not on the level of the loss I sustained due to Mr. I Split Fives.

However; what did make this noteworthy was one particular phenomenon. I had an entire "shoe" where I got no 10 pairs. I've never played a round of Blackjack where I never received at least 1 pair of 10 value cards (not including an Ace-9). Not only that, but during this "shoe" I had a true count way above +4 because i had nothing but low or neutral cards falling out the deck. Yet I missed every 11 double down opportunity (2 of them) and one 10 double down opportunity and had exactly 1 Blackjack to the dealer's 3. But the lack of a 10 pair, that's what stood out to me. What were the odds of that? I really don't know but lets look at a deck.

One deck of cards has 52 cards containing sixteen 10 value cards (four each of 10, J, Q, K). a 6 deck shoe has 6 times that or 96 ten value cards. To get a true 4 count, you had to have at least a running count of 16 with 4 decks left. If the count was zero with 4 decks you could guess that there were 64 ten value cards available. However with a +4 count, there is a high probability that there are more than 64 ten value cards remaining (hopefully in front of the "cut card"). Knowing this, how did I not get a single ten pair? How did both 11-double down's not pull a 10 or neutral card (7,8,9)?

One answer would be variance and "bad luck". It certainly was bad luck. For the time being I'll accept "variance" but I have to seriously consider something else. I play in a "racino" because I simply will not sit in a smokey casino. I tried it for months and decided I wasn't willing to risk lung cancer, emphysema or other illnesses (I had a nasty respiratory infection during this time, the likes I never had before) in order to make money. The nearest live dealer blackjack where there is no smoking is 3 hours away. Not something I can do on a regular basis. So that leaves racinos with Bally's Fusion tables which are hooked into the state lottery computers. These computers are "bingo" machines. With bingo machines you are either set to win or lose. The implications of this, which I discussed in other posts, is that it *may* not matter how you play, if you're to win, you'll win (I had a 7 card charlie once and was SHOCKED) but if you're to lose you'll lose. I've had people say how can that be since the computer doesn't know if you'll stand, hit, split, etc. My response is that it doesn't have to. If you're to lose, you'll either bust when you hit or the dealer will get whatever hand it needs to beat you (including a push, since pushes aren't wins).

My understanding is that such a thing is illegal in Nevada and New Jersey. I'm not playing in either location and I've been to AC and not seen these machines, so there's that. So I'm not going to say that I was a victim of the bingo machine (I play perfect basic strategy) but that no 10 pair was certainly eye raising to me.

Why You Mad Son?

So while earning my pay at the Blackjack table I was entertained by a person who took a seat to my left. He started complaining straight away as he lost hands or won hands. Why? Because apparently he was playing the side bets. Apparently I had a couple of matches that he had noticed and asked me if I play the side bets. I told him I didn't because the odds are pretty bad. He said "but you got a few".

OK.

Well he "got a few" but played the main game so badly that he ended up losing his buy in. An example was his surrendering of a hard 18 against an Ace. I asked him why he did that and he said "oh fuck it."

Look if you're going to voluntarily hand your money to the casino when the odds don't call for it, why be mad when you lose money on side bets where the house edge is an order or magnitude higher than the main bet?

As I left I asked the player, who had left and returned, still complaining, whether he had ever been to the wizardofodds website. He had not. I told him, if he's serious about making money he should. I don't expect that he will but it couldn't hurt to give him a tip.

When I just want to entertain myself and don't care about losing, I'll throw money into a slot machine. I hit the button and don't expect much. If I find myself up a decent amount, I'm surprised, cash out and go, but I don't get mad at the losing because I know I'm playing a losing game. But Blackjack is beatable so I take that game seriously and I don't expose more of my bankroll than I have to in order to make ev (expected value) and that means staying off side bets that have a negative expectation.