Blackjack odds are percentage figures which represent your probability of losing or winning a hand. They can also represent the house edge or their profit margins as well. Usually probability odds don't mean much on the short term, but they clearly average out in the long term and this is why the casinos always win over the long term. 1,115 Followers, 594 Following, 875 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from David Berger (@davidbergerberlin).
Numbers Dont Lie
By Henry Tamburin
Dominator, who is my good friend and fellow blackjack instructor, will probably kill me when he reads this article. Hes always preaching to me that blackjack players 'dont want to know how the clock works, they just want to know what time it is, so dont bore them with a lot of numbers.' But Ive decided to risk life and limb and discuss some of the more important blackjack statistics in my column this month, because I believe it helps players better understand the fundamentals of winning blackjack strategies. Ive got to admit, however, that numbers are boring to most folks, so I crafted this article as a fun quiz (at least I hope you find it entertaining, as well as informative). So lets get going, and Dom, if you are reading this
have mercy on me.
1.Ignoring ties, the percentage of hands that you can expect to win when you play blackjack is about:
a. 45 percent
b. 48 percent
c. 50 percent
Answer: b. When you ignore the 9 percent of the hands that tie, you can expect to win 48 percent of the hands dealt to you, and lose 52 percent. Notice that you will lose significantly more hands than you win. So how do you win money playing blackjack? For starters, the average amount of money that you win on the winning hands is slightly greater than a single betting unit because the latter are sometimes hands where you get a blackjack and are paid at 3-2, or you double down and win double the amount of your bet. Losing hands, on the other hand, often lose only a single betting unit. The result is that monetarily you will be close to, but not quite even when you play (this assumes that you use the basic playing strategy for all your hands). If you want to go a step further and win much more money on winning hands compared to the amount you will lose on losing hands, so that overall you show a gain, then youve got to learn card counting.
2.If you are dealt three consecutive hands, what is the chance that they will all lose, excluding ties?
a. 1 percent
b. 14 percent
c. 30 percent
Answer: b. You have about a 14 percent chance of losing three hands in a row when you play blackjack. Surprised? Most players probably guess 1 percent because they figure the chance of this happening is very low. Well it isnt, so dont panic and abandon the basic playing strategy when it happens.
3.How frequently does a player get a blackjack?
a. Once every 15 hands
b. Once every 21 hands
c. Once every 30 hands
Answer: b. The game is 21 and you can expect to get a blackjack once in every 21 hands. This brings me to the point why I harp that you should never play any blackjack game that pays 6-5, instead of 3-2, for a winning blackjack. Suppose you play two hours worth of blackjack on one of the heavily advertised, $10 minimum, 6-5 single deck games. Lets assume you are dealt 100 hands per hour, so over the course of two hours you played 200 hands of blackjack. Getting a blackjack once every 21 hands means that you should theoretically have gotten about 10 blackjacks. Sometimes youll get more blackjacks in two hours of play, sometimes less, but on average youll get 10. Each of those blackjack hands cost you $3 on a 6-5 game (the difference between getting paid 3-2 vs. 6-5, or $12 instead of $15, for your $10 wager). So you forked over $30 to the casino for the privilege of playing a single deck game (yeah, right). Save your money and avoid playing any 6-5 single deck games.
4.How frequently does a basic strategy player bust?
a. Once every six hands
b. Once every eight hands
c. Once every ten hands
Answer. a. A basic strategy player can expect to bust about 16 percent of the time or once every six hands. When a player busts, he always loses. Not so with the dealer (see next question).
5.How frequently does the dealer bust?
a. One time out of every seven hands
b. Two times out of every seven hands
c. Three times out of every seven hands.
Answer: b. The dealer busts about 28 percent of the time, or about two times out of every seven hands. Unlike a player bust, the dealer often wins when she busts, because players who act first and bust automatically lose (this is how the house has a built-in edge in blackjack). The 28 percent is an average over all possible dealer upcards. In fact, the dealer will bust significantly more times when she shows a 2-6 upcard (about 42 percent with a 5 or 6 upcard), and much less with a 7 through Ace upcard (with an Ace, its only 17 percent after checking for a natural). Because the dealers chance of busting is higher when she shows a small upcard, you should not risk busting a 12-16 stiff hand and should always stand (with two exceptions - its slightly better to hit a 12 against a dealers 2 or 3). However, when the dealer shows a strong upcard from 7 though Ace and has a much lower risk of busting, you should be more aggressive and hit your stiff hands until your hand totals 17 or more (even if it means you risk busting).
6.You can expect your initial two-card hand to be a hard 12-17 about:
a. 30 percent of the time
b. 35 per cent of the time
c. 43 percent of the time
Answer: c. About 43 percent of the time youll be holding a 12 through 17, and the only way you can win is if the dealer busts, or you improve your hand. So any time you hold a 12 through 17 its bad news and you should expect to lose. In fact, approximately 85 percent of your financial losses occur with these hands. The best you can do when you are holding a 12 through 17 is to play your hand optimally using the basic playing strategy to minimize your losses.
7.The dealer has an Ace upcard. What is the chance she has a 10 in the hole for blackjack?
a. 15 percent
b. 24 percent
c. 31 percent
Answer: c. The dealer will have a ten four times out of 13, or roughly 31 percent of the time. The remaining 9 out of 13, or 69 percent of the time, the dealer wont have a 10 in the hole. When you make the insurance bet, you are betting that the dealer has a ten in the hole when she shows an Ace. Assume you make a $10 insurance wager. Four times youll win $20 on the insurance bet (2 to 1 payoff odds) for a total win of $80. The other nine times you will lose $10 on your insurance bet for a total loss of $90. In other words, you lost more than you won. Therefore, its wise to never make the insurance bet.
8.The edge that card counters have over the casino is approximately:
a. 1 percent
b. 10 percent
c. 50 percent
Zahlenwerte Black Jack White
Answer: a. Most players are surprised at the tiny one percent edge that card counters have over the house. Oftentimes, depending upon the game and the card counting system being used, the card counters edge is even less. With an edge this small, it means in the short run, luck will play a great role in the fortunes of a card counter, even though he will show a profit in the long-run.
So how did you do on the questions? It really doesnt matter how many you got right or wrong, but whether or not I motivated you to play better. And I hope I did.
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Henry Tamburin is the Lead Instructor in the Golden Touch™ Blackjack course (www.goldentouchblackjack.com) and editor of the Blackjack Insider newsletter. For a free 3-month subscription to his blackjack newsletter with full membership privileges, visit www.bjinsider.com/free.
Born | 1871 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
---|---|
Disappeared | 1932 |
Cause of death | possibly suicide |
Other names | Blacky |
Citizenship | Canadian, American |
Occupation | Author |
Known for | Burglary, You Can't Win |
Jack Black (1871–1932) was a hobo and professional burglar. Born in 1871 in New Westminster, British Columbia,[1] he was raised from infancy in the U.S. state of Missouri. He wrote You Can't Win (Macmillan, 1926), a memoir or sketched autobiography describing his days on the road and life as an outlaw. Black's book was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight, but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book. Jack Black was writing from experience, having spent thirty years (fifteen of which were spent in various prisons) as a traveling criminal and offers tales of being a cross-country stick-up man, home burglar, petty thief, and opium fiend. He gained fame through association with William S. Burroughs.
Life[edit]
Jack Black is an essentially anonymous figure; even his actual name is uncertain. Some 1904 news articles name him as Jack Black, alias Tom Callahan,[2][3] while a 1912 newspaper article names him Thomas Callaghan, alias Jack Black,[4] and another gives his alias as Harry Klein.[5] One of his nicknames among criminals was Blacky.[citation needed]
After his last spell in prison, Black became friends with wealthy patron Fremont Older and worked for Older's newspaper The San Francisco Call. He worked on his autobiography with Rose Wilder Lane and eventually composed essays and lectured throughout the country on prison reform. He was also rumored to have received a stipend of $150 a week to draft a screenplay titled Salt Chunk Mary with co-author Bessie Beatty, based around the infamous vagabond ally and fence of the same name in You Can't Win. The play flopped, although he was able to attain some amount of popularity, which subsided quickly.
His philosophy on life was especially influential to William S. Burroughs,[6] Burroughs associated with similar characters in his early adulthood and mirrored the style of You Can't Win with his first published book, Junkie.
Disappearance[edit]
He is believed to have committed suicide in 1932 by drowning, as he reportedly told his friends that if life got too grim, he would row out into New York Harbor and, with weights tied to his feet, drop overboard.[7] In You Can't Win Black describes this state of mind as being 'ready for the river'.[8]
Quoted excerpts about Black and his memoir[edit]
You Can't Win is (...) an autobiography of a reformed criminal. It points a sufficiently obvious moral, yet one that too many at the present day are prone to forget. A deeper question is also raised, and that is regarding the validity of the practical aims and ideals of the majority of people in our modern world.
— The Builder Magazine, January 1927 – Volume XIII – Number 1
Jamboree author Black is a graduate of five penitentiaries, was pried loose from a 25-year prison term and helped to overcome his addiction to narcotics by mustachioed Editor Fremont Older of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin. This play is a dramatization of Black's book You Can't Win. 'Every character in this play is drawn from the personal experiences of Jack Black during his years as a criminal or as a prisoner. The types are real and these people actually lived.
Jack had been a sort of a reign of terror...just before the earthquake and fire of 1906. Every crime committed in San Francisco during the first three months of that year was ascribed to Jack Black.
— R.L. Duffus, The Tower of Jewels
He returned to New York and Fremont thought Jack did what he always said any down-and-outer should do, 'fill his pockets with rocks and take a header into the bay.'
Bibliography[edit]
- Black, Jack. You Can't Win. New York: Macmillan Company, 1926. Foreword by Robert Herrick. OCLC238829961
- _____. You Can't Win: the Autobiography of Jack Black. New York: Amok Press, 1988. Foreword by William S. Burroughs. ISBN0-941693-07-4OCLC153562506
- _____. Du kommst nicht durch. Berlin : Kramer, 1998. ISBN3-87956-240-7OCLC75910135
- _____. You Can't Win. 2nd edition. Edinburgh: AK Press/Nabat books, 2000. ISBN1-902593-02-2OCLC44737608
- _____. You Can't Win. [S.l.] : BN Publishing, 2007. ISBN956-291-509-3OCLC187421471
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Zahlenwerte Black Jacket
- ^Black, Jack (2000). You can't win. Edinburgh: AK Press/Nabat. pp. 183. ISBN978-1-902593-02-9. OCLC44737608.
- ^'Believe they hold footpad'. The San Francisco Call. 18 April 1904. Retrieved 2019-01-01.
- ^'Take footpad after battle'. The San Francisco Call. 1904-04-16. ISSN1941-0719. Retrieved 2019-01-01.
- ^'Two desperate criminals give Finn the laugh'. The San Francisco Call. 5 January 1912.
- ^'New Canadian treaty fails to save Black'. The San Francisco Call. November 15, 1912. Retrieved 2019-01-01.
- ^who wrote in the foreword to a later edition of You Can't Win, 'I first read You Can’t Win in 1926, in an edition bound in red cardboard. Stultified and confined by middle-class St. Louis mores, I was fascinated by this glimpse of an underworld of seedy rooming-houses, pool parlors, cat-houses and opium dens.'
- ^Ruhland, Bruno. Afterword. You Can't Win, by Jack Black. AK Press/Nabat, 2000. 272. ISBN1-902593-02-2.
- ^Black 1926, pp. 49, 50, 153.
Cited sources[edit]
Zahlenwerte Black Jackets
- Black, Jack (1926), You Can't Win, New York, New York, USA: Macmillan Company, LCCN26017437, OCLC238829961.
Further reading[edit]
- 'Out of prison', San Francisco Bulletin, February/March 1917.
- 'The big break at Folsom', San Francisco Bulletin, January 1917.
- Black, Jack 'What's wrong with the right people?', Harper's Monthly Magazine, June 1929.
- Black, Jack 'A burglar looks at laws and codes', Harper's Monthly Magazine, February 1930.
- 'Jack Black's Tales of Jail Birds', New York World, December 21, 1930.
- Jamboree, with Jack Black and Bessie Beatty; Elizabeth Miele, producer, 1932.
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jack_Black_(author)&oldid=992433158'