Double Deck Blackjack Rules
Posted : admin On 3/19/2022Double Deck Blackjack Strategy Shoe Games Blackjack Strategy Rules tend to vary from casino to casino but the strategies displayed in these tables are applicable to all circumstances, with little adaptation. For example, we said that D stands for double down (or Hit, if not allowed). A $25 double deck game has the same rules. Rampart offers two blackjack games. There is a $5 six-deck game with surrender and re-split aces. There is $10 double deck game with double before and after split. There are four 3:2 blackjack games at Red Rock. For $10, players may choose between double deck and six-deck. Double deck blackjack basic strategy chart from Blackjack Review. Fine points include whether the dealer hits soft-17 and allows double after splits. The rules are 1 deck, bj pays 6/5, double on anything including after splits and on more than 2 cards if warranted. Split aces 4 times. Bonus payout 3-1 for 3 sevens no additional bet needed.
Good Blackjack Rules or Penetration – Greater Impact on Card Counting?
Double Deck Blackjack Rules. With double deck blackjack, two decks are in play. One interesting rule change is that dealers stand on soft 17s. In standard blackjack, dealer hitting is required there, and dealers have a chance to catch low cards like 2, 3, or 4, to make a strong hand.
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- Good Blackjack Rules or Penetration – Greater Impact on Card Counting?
There are many conditions in blackjack that make a game more or less profitable for card counting. Two of the most important conditions are the blackjack rules of the table and what is referred to by card counters as the dealer penetration. When counting cards you’re looking for the best combination of the two in order to maximize the expected value of your play.
Double Deck Blackjack Rules
Let’s start by defining what we mean when we talk about “good blackjack rules” and “good dealer penetration”. I will then go through a quick analysis of which condition is more important in maximizing your profit potential. As always, my main focus in blackjack is increasing profits.
Good Blackjack Rules
H17 or S17 – This refers to the dealer hitting or standing on Soft 17. We prefer the dealer to stand.
DAS – This refers to a player’s ability to double after splitting. If you split your 8’s and get a 3 to make 11, you want to be able to double down on the 11.
RSA – This refers to the player’s ability to resplit aces after an initial splitting of aces. If you split a pair of aces and get a third ace, you want to be able to split that into a third hand.
LS – This refers to a player’s ability to surrender. Surrendering allows you to forfeit your hand and get half of your bet back without playing out the hand. This is commonly used when on a player’s 16 versus a dealer showing a 10.
These are the main blackjack rule variations you will encounter, but it’s certainly not all of them. We’re going to assume you’re getting the full 3:2 payment on blackjack and you can double any two initial cards dealt.
Preferred Rules: To get the best of these rules, you want the dealer standing on Soft 17 and you want to have the DAS, RSA and LS options available to you.
Good Dealer Penetration
“Dealer penetration” is blackjack terminology used for describing how deep a dealer will deal into a deck (or multiple decks) before reshuffling. This is a critical concept in card counting. Penetration is determined by where the dealer places the cut card and it varies from casino to casino. A deeply placed cut card will show you a higher percentage of the cards in a shoe, therefore giving you more information to work with when tracking the count. It also causes high counts to occur more frequently and last longer. For basic strategy players, penetration really doesn’t matter. For card counters, the deeper the penetration, the more profitable the game will be.
Preferred Penetration: Typically a 6-deck game that deals 4 out of 6 decks is considered to have “poor penetration”. Dealing 4.5 decks out of 6 before shuffling would be “average penetration”. A casino that shows 5 full decks out of 6 before hitting the shuffle card has “good penetration”.
Therefore if Casino A is dealing 4 out of 6 decks before shuffling and Casino B is dealing 5 out of 6 decks before shuffling, Casino B is going to be a much more profitable game for card counting assuming the rules of the tables are similar.
Greater Impact: Rules or Penetration?
Often the choice comes down to this… Do you go play at a casino that has all the best rules but poor penetration, or do you go for unfavorable rules with good penetration? Although you want the best of both, what if you have to decide between the two? Let’s take a closer look at the relative performance under different rules and penetration levels.
Blackjack Dealer Penetration
Here we see the relative profitability of three different sets of rules at four different depths of penetration. For this example I’ve kept the parameters simple and consistent. I’m using a 6-deck game with a Hi-Lo card counting system, 70 hands played per hour, 4 players at the table and an optimal betting ramp from 1-10 units with no back counting or backing out of negative counts. Manipulating any of these parameters will obviously change the chart somewhat. This chart would also look different if we analyzed a single deck, double deck or 8-deck game instead of this 6-deck game.
Conclusion: You can see that if you have terrible rules on a game, you better have good dealer penetration if you want to make money. If you have great rules you can be a little more forgiving when it comes to the shuffle point. Then there’s the middle ground of semi-decent rules and average penetration. The lesson to be learned here is that to be a successful card counter you really need to know how to analyze the quality of a game. There are also many other blackjack conditions to consider such as the level of casino heat you will get at different betting levels with different betting ramps. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to cover some of these other issues in a future post. For now I hope this helps to clarify the decision between good rules and good penetration. Now go hit the tables and make some money!
Double deck blackjack doesn’t have the sexiness or allure of single deck blackjack, which many players look for as the ultimate in blackjack games. Having only two decks helps the player, but not as much as having just one deck; you can make adjustments based on the cards you see in your hand when playing double deck blackjack, but not as much as you can in the single deck game.
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But despite this, double deck blackjack is often a much better game for the player than single deck blackjack! This is because many casinos are careful to only offer single deck blackjack games with rules that are designed to hurt the player. The most common of these is the 6-5 blackjack rule, in which blackjacks pay 6-5 odds instead of the standard 3-2 payout. While a single deck game does give some advantages to the player, the 6-5 blackjack rule counteracts this advantage and actually makes the game worse than your typical blackjack game with six or eight decks.
These rule changes are less common in double deck blackjack, which means that a double deck game can often be the best blackjack option in a given casino. Sure, some live casinos have been known to try to tilt the odds slightly by adding rules that only allow the player to double down on 10 or 11, and allowing the dealer to hit on soft 17s. However, even with these rules, the games are at worst similar to standard blackjack games, and there are tons of double deck blackjack games that don’t take anything away from the player – especially online.
Sometimes, double deck blackjack will even give you advantages that you can’t find in a single deck game. As with single deck blackjack, double deck blackjack (in live casinos) is usually dealt face down to the players to help avoid giving away too much information during a hand. However, because there are two decks involved, the casino will often deal a few hands before reshuffling, meaning that you can actually get some meaningful information about the cards that have been removed from the shoe. Even for non-card counters, this information can come in handy, and for counters, double deck blackjack can be a real boon, especially if the casino normally deals through half or more of the shoe before reshuffling.
Double Deck Blackjack Strategy
Double deck blackjack is mostly played similarly to a standard blackjack game (Try out a free blackjack game). Because of the smaller pool of cards, taking one card out of the deck can greatly impact the odds of receiving another card of that rank, which does change some of the close decisions; however, most of the basic strategy rules you know for standard blackjack games still apply. Where there are changes, they can vary based on the exact rules being used in your favorite local or online casino.
Rules For Double Deck Blackjack
In the end, just how big is the impact of double deck blackjack on your chances? Compared to playing eight deck blackjack, double deck blackjack reduces the house edge by about 0.19%. This is a significant change, though not as dramatic as the 0.48% reduction seen in single deck blackjack games.