The mathematics of gambling Thorp E.

Thorp E.
Количество страниц: 75
Язык: Английский
Формат: PDF / RAR

Формат файла: RAR

Casino card games such as baccarat and blackjack differ significantly from casino games such as craps, roulette, and slot machines in that they are not independent trial processes-that is, the cards that already have been played do affect the odds on subsequent hands.
Consider for a moment the game of blackjack, where the cards used on a round are put aside and successive rounds are dealt from an increasingly depleted pack. The cards are reshuffled before a round if the remaining unused cards would be insufficient to complete a round or earlier, usually at the casino's discretion. What the early research on blackjack (contained in Beat the Dealer) showed and what has been confirmed repeatedly in the intervening 23 years is that the end pack provides favorable situations often enough to give the player an overall advantage.
While it is foolish to keep a record of past decisions at craps in order to determine which numbers are "hot" or "cold" (the dice have no memory), an ability to keep track of which cards have been played and knowledge of their relationship to the player's expectation can be beneficial, as long as the cards are not reshuffled after every hand.
The ability to keep track of the cards played does not alone guarantee gambling success at a particular game. Indeed, one of the chief tasks of this section will be to examine the usefulness of card counting strategies in baccarat, considering the bets offered and the nature of the game.
In Chapter 2, we will comment on blackjack systems, as well as statistical methods useful in detecting casino cheating. The latter subject is important to those who play the game seriously, because cheating incidents can erode any small edge the player may gain through the use of basic strategy and card counting.