SPEAKER_01 0:06

Back with world-class blackjack tape number six. We're going to get into card play in a few moments here, and particularly into the tri-point strategy. But before we do that, I'd like to go back and tell you about the logic behind world-class play. What is it actually based on? What is this approach that we call world-class blackjack? To do that, I'd first like to talk about basic strategy, and I would like to compare it to a term that has crept into our language called military intelligence. And for those of you that have been there, you know that military intelligence is really a contradiction in terms. I found myself on a firing range at uh Fort Dix in New Jersey one day with a 3030 carbine rifle, a rather light weapon by military standards, and we were shooting at targets a hundred meters away, these flip-up targets. The problem was there was a steady 30-mile, maybe 40 mile an hour wind that day from left to right. This wind was so strong that we could not wear our helmet liners without our helmet because our liners would simply blow away. Well, finally the instructor yelled the command to commence firing. And of course, nobody did because nobody knew what commence meant. You'd you'd think that when you look at a bunch of soldiers from all walks of life, they'd say something plainer like, shoot now. Anyway, I began shooting at my target, and we had been very carefully instructed in precisely how to do this. There's a very structured way you fire a rifle in the military. But every time I would shoot at my target, the hit marker would go up in the target next to mine, which is a good twelve feet away from the target that I was shooting at. And I was getting a very good grouping in the wrong target following their precise instructions how to fire this weapon. It seems that, you know, the military only has one way of doing things, and when that way happens to coincide with what's going on, it works great. But very often it doesn't coincide to what's going on. In this case, there is no mention anywhere in our instructions of what to do in the case of a 30 mile an hour wind. I remember another occasion, occasion when uh we were going to take our first day of CBR training, chemical biological warfare, or something like that. This is where they dose you with CS tear gas, the most severe tear gas in the world. Well, we broke out and we got our our gas mass, and when I got mine, it was brand new. It was all in its little pouch, its little case, and so on and so forth, and so I strapped it on and went about my business. What they do is they put you in this big pit that's about twelve feet deep, and in the bottom is covered with a layer of uh a netting of barbed wire, and they put you underneath the barbed wire, and then they throw these tear gas canisters at you. And the object is as soon as they yell gas, you're supposed to take out your gas mask and put it on, and then crawl underneath this barbed wire to the other end of the pit. It's another example of military intelligence. But anyway, there I am under this barbed wire, and they throw these tear gas canisters down. So I whip my gas mask out of the case, and lo and behold, it's still in the cartons the way it came from the manufacturer. The mask is in one securely tied up carton, the canister is in another tied-up carton, and there I am with about seven minutes to live, about seven seconds rather to live, trying to rip this thing out of the cartons and put it together so I can put it on. Uh, which was totally impossible thing to do under the barbed wire. And you know they say you can't you can't get out of those pits. But I didn't have any trouble at all. CS tear gas is much like having a major embarrassing accident with a tube of bengay. I was motivated. Well, like the military way, the basic strategy is to design to fit one set of prescribed circumstances. When you happen to have that set of circumstances in the round of blackjack that you're playing, it works very well indeed. The problem is you only have glimpses in a game of blackjack of that particular set of circumstances. The circumstances surrounding most hands that you play are going to be a far cry from those set circumstances that basic strategy must have to function properly. Basic strategy works well when the cards are random and particularly when you have equal amounts of high cards and low cards in the entire round. It is designed to work against a dealer break rate of twenty-eight percent, which would happen if the cards were random. Basic strategy worked fairly well back during the days of single deck blackjack when the cards were far closer to random than they are today. But even in those days, basic strategy never performed in the casino nearly as well as it did on the computer, it just didn't perform as well in the casino world as in the on the computer, and we know why. Even in the days of single deck blackjack, the cards were clumped to a certain degree. The clumping wasn't noticeable to the eye then, but the cards were nevertheless clumped, and the players never got the advantage that the computers foretold, and they never were able to get an advantage over and above the casino odds. Let me explain it to you a different way. Suppose we were to take a shoe of six decks of cards and take all of the twos out of that six decks and then go ahead and play blackjack. Well, if we were to run that scenario through a computer to have the computer determine the best way, the most optimum way for us to play, it would come up with a chart quite a bit different than the basic strategy chart that we're used to today. Because twos are a dealer favorable card. They're not the most dealer favorable card, but they are a dealer favorable card. The first thing the computer would tell us is that taking the twos out changed the odds of the game somewhat in favor of the player. And then it would develop a whole new basic strategy chart to play a 12-card uh deck of cards, a deck minus the twos. By the same token, if we were to instead take the threes out, the computer would show a game that is even more favorable to the player. Uh perhaps the casino would still have odds, but they would have less odds than they had before. And if we were to take the fours out, even more so, it would be player favorable. And if we were to take the fives out, it would even be more player favorable. And the basic strategy chart would look significantly different. Now, suppose we were to leave all of those cards in and instead take the tens out. Well this would have a this would make a catastrophic difference for two reasons. One, there's four times as many tens as there is any other individual card in the deck. And second, tens are the most player favorable card because tens are the greatest dealer breaking card. A ten will break all five of the stiff hands, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. It is the highest value card in a deck of cards. Ten is the most player favorable card. We would find if we took all of the tens out and then played basic strategy that the player would have virtually no chance in the game whatsoever. By the same token, the dealer playing dealer strategy would virtually wipe us out playing basic strategy. It's quite easy to see that if there are no tins in the deck, the strategy dealer strategy is a strategy to play. It's far favorable than it's far more favorable than basic strategy. Basic strategy would be precisely the wrong strategy to play. It would be about the worst possible way we could play our cards if there are no tens. Well, the same mathematics holds true for individual rounds. There's no difference in playing a shoe of six decks without tens than to play one round without tens. If you have a round of cards in the game that has no tens in it, it's exactly the same as playing the shoe without any tens. The mathematics is precisely the same. Therefore, when there are no tens in the round, we would have to play our hand vastly different than if there are tens in the round. To play perfect cards, we could in fact, at home at least, put every single round through a computer. We could note what quantities of what cards are in the round, we could note what cards are missing altogether in the round, and put that round through the computer to determine the optimum way to play each round. There's a couple of problems, however, with trying to do that in the casino. Number one, it would take too long, we don't have that kind of time, and number two, computers are not allowed in casinos. But this may give you an idea of why some players have attempted to play blackjack with a computer strapped to their leg. Therefore, in world-class blackjack, we do the next best thing. We pay attention to the tens density in the round and we make our play according to the tens density. We vary our play according to the tens density. Now, to improve on that a little bit, we know that the last cards dealt are the latest information. We know that we are going to use the tens density information to make our play decision. Therefore, we simply look at the last five cards dealt. This has more bearing on the round than anything else. Also, it's a very convenient way to do it because it would be next to impossible to look at the tens density in every single round, the total round. It's much easier to look at the tens density in just the last five cards and have a preset way to play that hand according to that tens density, which is according to the latest information. So world-class blackjack is a method of quantifying the information that we need based on the TENS ratio to vary our play and make the best possible play according to the TENS density. Okay, before we get into the tri-point strategy, let's take a look at this dealer hole card situation. It probably should have occurred to me when I wrote NBJ that if an experienced blackjack player knows what the hole card is, if he knows whether the hole card is high or low, he doesn't need me or any kind of a chart to tell him how to make the play. For instance, if his hole card information tells him that the dealer has a pat hand, a hand of 17 or more, he knows that he can't stand with less than 17. He knows that he must hit until he has seventeen or better. The second scenario, the whole card information can tell us what to do, is when we know that the dealer is stiff. If the dealer is stiff and high cards are running, we know that the dealer in all likelihood will break. The worst thing we can do in blackjack is to break ahead of the dealer. So if we know that the dealer is very likely to break, we're not going to take a hit, a risky hit, in front of the dealer. We're going to let the dealer break. On the other hand, if low cards are running and it appears that low cards are going to run through the dealer, again we know that the dealer cannot break, and therefore our whole card information would tell us we've got to hit to 17 or better. Those are the three whole card scenarios, plain and simple. We really don't need any chart to tell us what to do. What we do need, though, is to know the reliability of our whole card read. Some games give us very reliable whole card reads, some have virtually no reliability in the whole card read, and there is everything in the middle. When we are in a game that has very little reliability in the whole card read, we're going to put our faith and our trust in the try-point strategy. On any round where we don't know what the whole card is, we're going to put our trust in the try-point strategy. Now, if you're reading a whole card in every round of the game, you're kidding yourself. That's impossible to do. You're only going to be able to get a whole car read in certain rounds. Rounds that are very high ratio or very low ratio, or rounds where a definite pattern of cards, a definite clump or zipper ran through the whole card to give you a good indication. One of the most serious mistakes that NBJ players make is to try to read the whole card on every round. It cannot be done. You're only kidding yourself. So you can only use the whole card information when it is reliable information. Otherwise, we go to the tri point strategy. The tri point strategy is beautiful in its simplicity. It's on page ninety of your manual, and I strongly urge you to study that page until you have it down pat. It's a very, very easy thing to learn. However, I'll give you a short rendition of it here. If we simply look at the last five cards dealt prior to our play decision and count the number of tens, not high cards now, but tens in those five cards. If there were no tens in those five cards, we play dealer strategy. If there was one ten, which would be twenty percent tens, if there was one ten in the five cards, we're going to hit to fourteen against a dealer three through six up, weak cards up, we're going to hit to fourteen. If she has a strong card up, either a deuce or a high card, we're going to hit to seventeen. That's the toughest one to remember. And that one takes a little bit of study. If the dealer has two tens up, in other words, she there's 40% tens, we're going to play basic strategy. And I went ahead and put a basic strategy chart in the manual for your restudy. If the dealer has three, four, or five, or I'm sorry, if if the last cards contain three, four, or five tens, we're going to play safe strategy. That simply means that we're not going to take a breaking hit. Try point does make one important improvement to basic strategy. Anyone that plays blackjack knows the danger of hitting a twelve or Or uh a thirteen. We have found that the most dangerous twelve and thirteen to hit is a twelve or a thirteen that contain a ten. In other words, a ten deuce or a ten three. You will break on that combination of twelve and thirteen more than any other because it simply tells us that there are tens in that section of the shoe. We also know that the most dangerous stiff card that the dealer can have up is a two or a three. She will make a hand with a two or a three up far more often than she'll make a hand with a four, five, or six up. Therefore, what we do is if our hand is composed of a ten deuce or a ten three, we will stand against a two or a three. Otherwise, we'll hit against a two or three. All other combinations of twelve and thirteen that we might have, we will hit against a two or a three. This might sound a little bit confusing on tape, but it's all in a little chart on page ninety-one of your manual. Now let's improve from there. We talked, let's talk about dealer breaking. We talked about the rules of the game before, and we said that the only rule that favors the house is when you both break, the dealer wins. So we can improve on the try-point strategy by knowing about dealer breaking in our game, by knowing the history of dealer breaking in our game. For instance, let's take a game where the dealer never breaks, or let's say breaks less than one hand out of ten. We've all found games like that, particularly up in Minnesota, but they can be found anywhere. If we're in a game where the dealer simply never breaks, there is absolutely no point in ever standing with less than 17. Because when you stand with less than 17, in other words 12 through 16, you are betting one thing and one thing only. You're betting that the dealer is going to break. Well, if you're in a game where the dealer simply never breaks, either because of clumping or because of biases, or what is usually caused by a combination of the two, but if you're in a game where the dealer simply never breaks, you never want to bet that she will break. You're in a game that the dealer never breaks in. So we have the opportunity to greatly improve on the try-point strategy. Look at it this way. If we were able to accurately forecast every dealer break, we knew exactly when the dealer was going to break and when she was going to make a pat hand, we would simply stand and let the dealer break and win the hand on those hands, and we would hit to 17 or better on the hands we knew the dealer wasn't going to break. If we could accurately forecast dealer breaking, we would win every single game that we played, bar none. There's just no question about it. It's the essence of blackjack to know when the dealer is going to break. Let's look at how basic strategy attempts to do this. Basic strategy basically says whenever the dealer has a low card up, assume that she's going to break and stand on your stiff hands. The only exception they make is when you happen to have a twelve against a two or a three. But basically they say when the dealer has a stiff card up, a two through a six, assume that she's going to break. You need in order to play this game to understand how unrealistic this really is. First off, when the dealer has a low card up, she is just as likely to have a low card down as to have a high card down. There are just as many low cards in the deck as there are high cards. Two low cards, when the dealer has two low cards, she's relatively strong. Now when is the dealer most likely to get two low cards? When low cards are running. And as we all know, when low cards are running, the dealer cannot break. It is impossible for the dealer to break on any card under six, and it's virtually impossible for the dealer to break on any card under seven. Therefore, basic strategy really has it wrong two ways. We'll find that at a certain level of clumping the dealer will break more with a high card up than with a low card up, particularly when she has a ten up. Why is this? Well, because when the dealer has a ten up, at least she has one breaking card in her hand. If she has a five up, she has yet to have a breaking card in her hand that we know about. Here's another way to look at it. A dealer is going to have a low card up thirty-eight percent of the time because thirty-eight percent of the cards are low cards. Yet we know from math that even if the cards are random, the dealer is only going to break twenty-eight percent of the time. Why would we put any trust in a system that says to bet the dealer will break thirty-eight percent of the time when mathematically she only breaks twenty-eight percent of the time? That other ten percent gives us guaranteed losses. Because when you play that the dealer is going to break, when you stand with less than 17, the only way you can win is when the dealer does in fact break. So we only want to stand with less than 17 when we're pretty darn sure that the dealer has a very good chance of breaking. We certainly don't want to stand with less than 17 when the dealer has her smallest chance of breaking. We know that clumping and dealer biases have a great effect on dealer breaking in the game that we're playing right now. We know that the dealer seldom breaks as much as the mathematical 28% of the time. It varies greatly from casino city to casino city and even from casino to casino, and it varies greatly with the number of players in the game and the length of time the cards have been played and so on and so forth. The best way to know how often the dealer is going to break is to simply monitor dealer breaks. We need to know the dealer break ratio in the game that we're playing so that we don't bet that the dealer will break more often than she actually is breaking. We want to bet that the dealer will break the same percentage of the time that the dealer is in fact breaking. If the dealer is only breaking 10% of the time, we want to bet that she'll break 10% of the time. If she's breaking 20% of the time, we want to bet that she's breaking 20% of the time. Now, the try-point strategy is based on dealer breaks of 1 out of 4 to 1 out of 5 hands. If the dealer is breaking 1 out of 4 or 1 out of 5, that would be 20 to 25% of the time, we can play straight tri-point strategy. It's when the dealer is breaking more than that or less than that, when we definitely want to know about it and we want to pay attention to it and we want to vary our play accordingly. Therefore, the best way to know how often the dealer is going to break is to look at the history of that game. We need to monitor the dealer break so we know what the break ratio is in that game right now. Break ratio remains relatively constant throughout the game. It stays the same, it only changes over long periods of time. We've come up with a very, very simple way to do this. We take our chip pile, our red and white chip pile, that we use to gather the signature of the game. Let's just review that for a second. We make a little pile of chips on the side, and when they're like say red and white, any color will do, but let's say red and white. So what we do is after a low ratio round, we put a white chip in the pile. After a high ratio round, we put a red chip in the pile, and we start a new pile for each shoe of the game. At the end of the shoe, we are looking at the exact signature of that game. It's a simple way to gather the signature of the game flawlessly. Now, since we have a pile of chips there anyway, and since we need to know the dealer break ratio in order to play that game effectively, we simply offset a chip in the pile every time the dealer breaks. Therefore, at the end of the round, while the dealer or at the end of the shoe while the dealer is shuffling, we have the time to go back and look at the exact dealer break ratio. The best way to do this, the simplest way to do it, is just look at the chips in the pile in groups of ten. Sometimes there'll only be ten chips in the pile. More often you'll have a few more than that. But look at how often the dealer broke in ten chips. If she broke once in ten, that's a ten percent dealer break ratio. If she broke twice, that's a twenty percent dealer break ratio. If she broke three times, that's a 30% dealer break ratio, and so forth. How do we use this information? Well, it's very simple. If the dealer is breaking less than normal, we want to favor hitting. In all the close plays, we want to favor hitting. If the dealer is breaking more than normal, we want to favor safe strategy. We don't want to take a breaking hit in front of the dealer. So the close plays we're going to play safe strategy. If she's breaking the normal amount of times, the try point strategy is the way to go. So the dealer break history merely gives us some Kentucky windage for improvement to the try-point strategy to those of us that pay attention to the dealer break ratio. The dealer break ratio is the most significant thing in the game of blackjack to determine how best to play your cards. Now, let's take a look at double downs. We know in the hit, we know in the stand. When should we double? I'm going to make this absolutely as simple as it can possibly be. Whenever we have a 9, 10, or 11, and high cards are running, you see more high cards coming out than low cards coming out. And third requirement, we have the dealer beat on the board. Our two cards in our hand beat the dealer's card. For instance, we have an 11 against a 10 or less. We have a 10 against a 9 or less. We have a 9 against an 8 or less. Anytime we have those three conditions, we have a 9, 10, or 11, highs are running, we have the dealer beat on the board, we double. You'll find that you'll win the vast majority of your doubles. Now let's take a quick look at soft doubles and an ace and another card. Okay. I want you to understand that soft doubles are not as good as hard doubles. They're a lot more risky. Because the only time you want to make a soft double is when you have a soft hand of, say, 14 or 15, and low cards are running, you stand a very good chance of drawing a good hand. The problem with all of that is when low cards are running, the dealer is very unlikely to break. So you're gambling that your pat hand is going to be better than the dealer's pat hand. Whereas with a hard double, you're looking for the dealer to break, number one, because high cards are running, and number two, you're looking to beat her hand, and you already have good evidence that you will beat your hand, particularly if you get the high card. We only want to make a soft double against a weak dealer hand when we are pretty darn sure that the dealer is stiff. The odds of soft doubles are so close that it wouldn't bother me in the least if you just decided never to make soft doubles again. Let's talk very briefly about splits. Splits must be taken individually. We can't group them and put them on a chart. They depend too much on the conditions going on in the game. And therefore, in the manual we uh talked about all the splits individually, when to split and when not to split. And I would strongly recommend that you get your split wisdom from the manual. But let me just take the two most common splits, splitting aces and splitting eights. Let's take eights first. It is totally unrealistic to split a pair of eights when the dealer has you beat on the board, when she has your two eights beat on the board. In other words, splitting eights against a nine or a ten is relatively dumb. In all likelihood, you're going to at best get eighteen, and the dealer already has eighteen beat on the board. You would only split eights when high cards are running, and in all likelihood, the dealer is going to have that card in the hole, and now you've compounded your mistake. You've lost twice on a hand that you should have only lost once on. We do want to split eights against eights. We're going for the push, and we do want to split eights against all cards lower. I like to split eights against an ace because at least we know that the dealer doesn't have the ten in the hole. If she has the ten in the hole, our split bet doesn't count. We get it returned to us. People think that a pair of aces is one of the best hands to get. Actually, it's not a good hand at all. However, it is a good hand if high cards are running. That's how you split aces. If high cards are running, you want to split the aces. If even if random cards are running, ace is not a bad split. It's certainly not a guarantee, but it's not a bad split. You're more than likely going for the push. If low cards are running, you just simply don't want to split aces because if low cards are running, you only get one card on each ace. If you get a pair of lows, you're going nowhere with that hand. You're betting the dealer will break. Therefore, the whole secret of splitting aces is only do it when high cards or random cards are running. Let's look at one last element of card play. What is the difference between world-class play and NBJ? It's we have already discussed the major improvement of using the dealer break information to improve our hands-one ratio. The other big difference is standing safe in high ratio rounds. We know that two-thirds high cards or 50% tens are represent the portions of the deck where the dealer is most likely to break. What world-class play does is it says, why take a breaking hit when you are most likely to break ahead of the dealer? Why take a breaking hit on a stiff hand when the dealer is most likely to break? Those two things improve our hands-one ratio to about close to 58, 59, 60% range. Now, out of all of that, if you can convert one hand out of ten to a winning hand, you have improved your player odds by 20%, more than enough to win any game worth playing in the casino. This is a vast improvement. This is world class blackjack. This is blackjack at its finest. Now let's get into betting, world class betting. Please go to tape seven.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

World-class card play. For further information or questions, you may contact Mr. Davis by phone. His number is 518-587-9219. In addition to these WCD tapes you are listening to, NBJ also has a broad spectrum of other products. These include Eclipse and Davis Quarterly Newsletter as well as other products in development. Also available are a wide variety of gaming supplies at discount prices. For further information on gaming supplies, please contact Keith Smith at 717-533-7992 or Bill Ray at 717-790-9729. This ends side B of tape three. Please go to Tape Four, Side A, entitled World Class Study. Thank you.