                  HOW TO BEAT ATLANTIC CITY BLACKJACK 
                      Copyright 1991, Michael Hall 
 
----------------> Part 1: The Basics 
                  Part 2: About the Strategy Charts 
                  Part 3: Postscript Strategy Charts (LONG) 
 
 
 
Help for the novice blackjack player 
==================================== 
The basic idea of the game is to get a total less than 21 that is 
higher than the dealer OR to not bust (go over 21) when the dealer 
busts. With basic strategy, you reduce the house edge to about -.45% in 
Atlantic City (or -.40% where late surrender is offered); it is the 
*best* way to play, unless you are counting cards. All hands are dealt 
face up in Atlantic City; don't touch the cards. A "soft" total means 
you have an ace and can use it as 11 without going over 21; hard means 
you aren't counting an ace as 11 in your total. 
 
Insurance is a side bet for up to half of your original bet. It can 
only be placed at the start of a round when the dealer has an ace 
showing. A basic strategy player should never take insurance. 
Insurance pays 2-1 only if the dealer has blackjack. 
 
With early surrender, you can give up half your bet to avoid playing 
your first two cards; late surrender is the same, except you still 
lose you whole bet if the dealer has blackjack. To surrender, just say 
"surrender."  
 
Splitting can be done only on your first two cards in Atlantic City. 
You push out a bet equal to your original, the dealer splits the cards 
apart and deals a card to the first one, which you play normally 
except that you can't resplit, and then the dealer deals a card to the 
second one, which again you play normally without resplitting. 
 
Doubling can be done on any two cards. You push out a bet equal to 
your original, and you will receive exactly one more card. 
 
Standing versus hitting is the most common and important decision. To 
hit you tap the table or draw your fingers towards you. Standing is 
indicated by a waving motion parallel to the table. 
 
 
About Atlantic City 
=================== 
All Atlantic City casinos use the same rules, except when they get 
special permission from the Gaming Commission to try something else. 
Atlantic City rules are no resplitting, split aces get only one card 
each, double down allowed after split, dealer stands on soft 17, 
blackjack pays 3 to 2, insurance pays 2 to 1, and 4, 6, or 8 decks 
are used, but you will find only 8 decks for less than $25 minimums. 
Until recently the absolute lowest minimums were $5, but now the Taj 
Mahal offers $3 tables during the day on weekdays. Late surrender was 
found only at the Claridge until recently, when Trump Plaza announced 
that it is offering it too. It is unlikely that early surrender will 
ever be offered again, because the casinos lost so much money when it 
was offered that the Gaming Commission declared a state financial 
crisis (or some such) in order to get rid of it and protect this 
source of New Jersey tax revenue. 
 
 
Help for the aspiring card counter 
================================== 
I recommend Stanford Wong's book, "Professional Blackjack" as a 
reference on the High-Low counting system; it is finally out as a 
paperback after 9 years of being a hardback. I also recommend Humble's 
"The World's Best Blackjack Book", which focuses on the Hi-Opt I 
counting system but which has lots of general information that any card 
counter should know, though the authors of this book are a little too 
paranoid about getting cheated. Hi-Opt I and High-Low counts are very 
similar, but I feel that High-Low is marginally better for most 
players. More advanced counts do exist (using more numbers than -1, 0, 
and +1), but they offer very little theoretical gain coupled with an 
increased chance for errors. Most professional card counters use 
High-Low or Hi-Opt I. An additional reference containing useful tables 
of information is "Fundamentals of Blackjack" by Chambliss & Rogenski. 
For example, they give a table that shows the effects of various rules 
on basic strategy expectation for 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8 decks. 
 
Here is how you do the High-Low count. Initialize running count to 
zero at start. Add one for each 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 you see and subtract 
one for each 10 or Ace you see. Divide running count by estimated 
number of unseen decks to get true count used in the strategy 
adjustment table. The strategy adjustment table is just a minor 
refinement; you get most of the benefit of counting from bet size 
variation, and you should do fine if you avoid strategy adjustments at 
first. 
 
The Kelly Criterion is a betting heuristic that minimizes your chance 
of going broke while maximizing your long-run profits, and for 
Atlantic City, this heuristic dictates that you should bet 
approximately  (TC*0.5 - 0.5)*.0077*BR, where TC is the True Count and 
BR is your BankRoll (i.e., how much money you've got on you.) 
 
On games with large numbers of decks, it is absolutely imperative that 
you abandon the table when the count goes negative. How negative? 
That's a personal decision and depends on your betting spread (difference 
between your lowest bet and your highest), but I would advise leaving 
eight deckers when the count hits -1. 
 
You should only take insurance if the TC is above +3 (more precisely, 
+2.8 for four decks, +3.0 for six decks, and +3.1 for eight decks). 
Don't be swayed by what cards you have (i.e., don't fall into the 
insure-your-blackjack trap); it's a side bet, so only the count 
matters. 
 
The maximum edge that most card counters claim to attain in practice 
is about 1.5%. In Atlantic City, you will need about a 1-8 spread 
(i.e., highest bet is eight times your lowest) to grind out any profit 
at all. My simulations show a .5% advantage (ratio of winnings to 
total amount bet) for a 1-8 betting spread, 7 players, -1 to +10 strategy 
adjustments, and abandoning counts of -1 or worse.  If late surrender 
is available, the edge improves to .66%. 
 
As far as risk goes, a 500 unit bankroll (e.g. $2500 for $5 minimums) 
has a 81.5% chance of doubling before going broke. If late surrender 
is available, this improves to 89.3%.  You are risking quite a bit 
to win how much?  0.9 units is the average win per 100 hands; 1.3 units 
with late surrender.  So you could make about $5 an hour or so if you 
are willing to have more than a 10% chance of losing $2500 before 
doubling it. 
 
If you want to make money at blackjack, either join a blackjack team or 
play the single or double deckers in Vegas. 
  
                  HOW TO BEAT ATLANTIC CITY BLACKJACK 
                      Copyright 1991, Michael Hall 
 
                  Part 1: The Basics 
----------------> Part 2: About the Strategy Charts 
                  Part 3: Postscript Strategy Charts (LONG) 
 
 
 
Description 
=========== 
This article describes basic and High-Low strategy tables for Atlantic 
City rules with four or more decks. The strategy information was taken 
from Stanford Wong's book, "Professional Blackjack". The tables tell 
you the mathematically best play given a certain circumstance - 
whether to surrender, split, double-down, hit, or stand. 
 
 
Rationale 
========= 
I made these tables for myself, because I was unsatisfied with 
any I could find in published books. I am very satisfied with the 
result, so I thought I would share it with y'all. You may wish to 
modify the tables for your particular situation (different counting 
system, different casino rules, etc.) If so, you'll need to get the 
troff source from me, or else you can use the "Do Your Own Strategy" 
blank chart that is included. 
 
 
Caveats 
======= 
I do not guarantee that these tables are correct. If you find any 
mistakes, or have any suggestions, please let me know, and I will 
repost if necessary. Also, note that Wong computed his numbers for 4 
decks, and he assumes 4 decks = 6 decks = 8 decks for purposes of 
strategy adjustments. If anyone has High-Low strategy numbers that have 
*proved* to be more accurate for 6 or 8 decks, then let me know. 
 
 
How to print the tables 
======================= 
In a subsequent article, you'll find the Postscript gobble-dee-gook 
that hopefully can be understood by your printer. However, it's 
uuencoded and compressed. Save the article to a file. "uudecode" 
the file. "uncompress" the resulting file, high-low.ps.Z ("uudecode" 
and "uncompress" are UNIX programs that you hopefully have. There is 
no need to strip out the article header before running uudecode. If 
everything works, then you should wind up with a file named high-low.ps 
that has "%!PS-Adobe-1.0" as its first line.) Send high-low.ps to a 
printer that understands Postscript. (This includes the popular 
Apple Laserwriter II printer and many others.) There will be a few 
semi-blank pages, because the original text formatter, troff, is 
brain-damaged. What you want are the pages with the tables for 
"High-Low", "Basic Strategy", and "Do Your Own Strategy". 
 
 
How to use the Do Your Own Strategy table 
========================================= 
Use the Do Your Own Strategy table for memory recall practice or to 
devise a table with a different set of strategy adjustment numbers, 
perhaps for a counting system other than High-Low. 
 
 
How to read the Basic Strategy table 
==================================== 
Cross index your hand with the dealer's face-up card. If there is an 
"X", it means "yes, do the corresponding decision" - conversely, 
a blank means "no, *don't* do the corresponding decision." Read from 
the bottom up. First see if you should surrender (if this option is 
available), then split, then double, then stand. If nothing applies, 
then hit.  
 
For example, suppose you have two 8's, and the dealer has a 10 
showing. If you are playing at the Claridge (or Trump Plaza), you 
first see if you should late surrender, but cross indexing 8-8 with 10 
under late surrender shows that you should not. You then check splitting 
- the table shows that you always split 8's, since there are X's all the way 
across. However, if you split 8's and get another hand of 8's, then 
you cannot resplit. You then look up to see if you should double - of 
course not - and then you look up to see if you should stand; 8-8 
versus 10 is blank, so you don't stand and instead you take a hit. 
 
 
How to read the High-Low Strategy table 
======================================= 
Cross index as with the basic strategy table. Follow the basic 
strategy, except in these cases: 
 
1) If there is a positive number in the box and the true count is greater 
   than it, it means "override basic strategy, so yes, do the corresponding 
   action."   
 
2) If there is a negative number in the box and the true count is lower 
   than it means "override basic strategy, so no, *don't* do the corresponding 
   action." 
 
To conform to the above and to avoid confusion, zeros are noted as 
positive or negative. The somewhat counterintuitive use of a "Stand" 
decision as opposed to a "Hit" decision is again to conform to the 
above and to avoid confusion in the long run. 
 
This all sounds complicated, but it's simple once you get used to it. 
 
For example, using the previous example, you would deviate from basic 
strategy and surrender 8-8 against 10 if the running count were 
positive (greater than +0). You would always split 8's, but you would 
deviate from basic strategy and stand on hard 16 when the running 
count were positive. 
 
 
How to highlight the High-Low Strategy table 
============================================ 
I highly recommended that you use a highlighting pen to indicate 
basic strategy on the High-Low Strategy tables. Overlay your High-Low 
printed page on top of your Basic Strategy page. Press down so you can 
the X's through the High-Low page. Highlight everywhere an X shows 
through. Note that there is a basic strategy X everywhere there is a 
negative High-Low Strategy number, and there is a basic strategy blank 
everywhere there is a positive High-Low Strategy number (this would 
not be true for some ranges of counts larger than -1 to +6.) 
 
 
Still confused? 
=============== 
You can send e-mail to hall@rocky.bellcore.com if you have any 
questions on these charts. 
