A minor mistake

Last night while playing blackjack I made a mistake regarding the taking of insurance. It was an understandable error, but one I have made before and vowed never to make again, which made it partcularly annoying.

Insurance is offered when the dealer's upcard is an ace. A player who thinks the dealer has blackjack can put up to half his bet on a line on the table, making a side bet on the dealer's hand. If the dealer has blackjack, the insurance bet pays two-to-one. The player loses his main bet but is made whole by the win on the insurance bet. (This assumes the player does not himself have a blackjack. If he doesn, he can choose to take "even money" rather than the higher blackjack payout, coming out twice as good as with the push he would have if he decline even money.)

Insurance and even money are both bad bets most of the time. Unless a player is counting cards, he should never take insurance or even money. But if the remaining deck is rich enough in 10-value cards, the bet is a good one. In my counting system, Knock-Out, insurance is taken when the cout reaches one below the number at which the maximum bet is put out.

Last night I was playing a double-deck game with the cards dealt face-down. I was sitting at first base. When the dealer offered insurance, the count, based on his upcard and my two cards, was where I had to take it. I put the chips on the line. But I hadn't looked to my left to see whether either of the other two players at the table had flipped over a blackjack. After I put the money out, I noticed that the player at third base had done just that, bring the count below the point at which I should have taken insurance.

I would have felt better about my error if the dealer had blackjack anyway, but he didn't.

A little mistake, but one with a cost.

More on L.V. Hilton blackjack

In a comment to my post, a reader asked whether the Hilton dealers hit soft 17. Yes, they do, on all games that I've seen there. This has become the standard rule in Las Vegas, with only a few exceptions, and gives the house an additional .2 percent edge compared with the dealer standing on all 17s. The reader also asked about penetration, a reference to what percentage of the pack of cards is dealt out. This is of interest to card counters for two reasons. First, the more cards that are dealt, the more likely that a high count will be reached. Second, the more cards that are dealt, the more accurate the information is about the composition of the remaining cards.

Penetration in double deck games generally ranges from about 50 percent (very poor) to about 80 percent (excellent). In most casinos, pentration is determined by the dealers, who place the cut card manually, usually according to a house standard. Other casinos, including the Hilton, eliminate variations in penetration by having the dealers use a notch placed in the discard rack (for double deck games) or shoe (six or eight deck games) to place the cut card. Double deck penetration at the Hilton appears to be between 60 and 65 percent, about average. A player can "improve" the penetration by spreading hands, which requires each bet to be double the table minimum.