Category: Questions

In blackjack, tens are obviously valued at 10 points, but so are court cards or, in other words, kings, queen and jacks. Depending on the rules of the game in question, a pair of ‘tens’ could mean, literally, a pair of tens, a pair of kings, queen or jacks or, in some cases, a ten and a court card or two dissimilar court cards.

In any event, where splitting is allowed, the player can stand, with a hand valued at 20 points, or split his cards into two hands, each with a starting value of 10 points. Some players split a pair of ‘tens’ regardless of the upcard the dealer shows, while others so only if the upcard is one of the weakest possible, such as a five or a six.

However, splitting not only not only doubles your outlay, but also significantly reduces your chances of winning. In a standard game of blackjack, in which cards are dealt from a six-deck shoe and the dealer stands on ‘soft’ 17, the probability of winning if you stand on 20 is 83%. By contrast, in the same game, if you split a pair of ‘tens’ – and thereby run the risk of winding up with two hands both worth less than 20 – the probability of winning each split had us just 63%. In simple terms, unless you are an accomplished card counter and the ‘true’ count is at least +4, the mathematically correct decision is always to stand on a pair of ‘tens’.

In flop-style poker, such as Texas hold’em, blinds are compulsory bets placed by the two players to the left of the dealer or, in ‘button’ games, to the left of the button, or disk, which indicates the dealer position. Blinds are so-called because they are placed before players have seen their cards. Typically, there are two blinds, known as the ‘small blind’ and the ‘big blind’. The player in the small blind position, immediately to the left of the dealer button, places a bet equal to half, or approximately half, of the minimum bet. The player in the big blind position, immediately to his or her left, places a bet equal to the minimum bet. These bets, posted before the cards are dealt, seed the pot and trigger the action in a hand.

The betting action begins with the player immediately to the left of the big blind position, a.k.a. ‘under the gun’, who may call, fold or raise, and so on around the table as far as the big blind, who is the last player to act pre-flop. If the pot is unraised, the big blind may check, in which case pre-flop betting comes to an end, or raise; obviously, folding the big blind in an unraised pot is a silly thing to do, as you effectively get to see a free flop. However, if a player has already raised, the big blind must call the raise, re-raise or fold.

The house edge is the integral mathematical advantage that a casino, or ‘house’, holds over the player in any game of chance. The house edge is the reason why a casino will always win, eventually, and the higher the edge the more profit the establishment can reasonably expect to make in the long-term.

Astute casino gamblers may already be aware that the addition of a green triple-zero to a double-zero roulette wheel increases the house edge from 5.26% to 7.69%, but even triple-zero roulette pales into insignificance when compared with some of the worst culprits to be found on the casino floor. Slot machines, for example, are easy to play and typically offer a house edge between 2% and 15%; the problem occurs if you encounter a slot machine at the ‘tighter’ end of the scale, because the fast rate of play means that you can lose money hand over fist.

Worse still, though, is the Big Six, or Big Six Wheel, which is often positioned front and centre in a casino and manned by an attractive, young employee in an effort to part customers from their hard-earned cash. That isn’t too difficult, with the lowest house edge available, under Las Vegas Rules, standing at 11.11% and the highest at 24.07%. Keno, in which players pick a few numbers and bet on them in lottery style, is another lucrative money-spinner, for the casino, offering a house edge between 25% and 40%.

In the world of casino gambling, many blackjack professionals have attained ‘legendary’ status by employing so-called advantage gambling techniques – the best known of which is card counting – to reverse the house edge and make vast amounts of money. Perhaps the most famous, or infamous, of them all was the late Ken Uston, who was instrumental in the development of ‘big player’ card counting teams in Las Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere in the Sixties and Seventies.

Born Kenneth Senzo Usui, in 1935, Uston was a gifted child, who excelled in many fields, including mathematics. Educated at Yale and Harvard, he was introduced to blackjack techniques by the book, ‘Beat The Dealer’, written by Edward Thorp and later mastered card counting under the auspices of blackjack professional, Al Francesco.

Francesco started a card counting team in the early Seventies and Uston was quickly promoted to ‘big player’ status, making him responsible for placing large bets, typically between $100 and $1,000 a hand. Uston reputed made over $60,000 a day for the team and during his career, as a whole, single-handedly won untold millions of dollars. In the late Seventies, after the so-called ‘Tuesday Night Massacre’, when Atlantic City casino operators banded together to outlaw card counting, Uston filed, and won, a law suit, securing a landmark ruling that card counting was skilful play, rather than cheating, and therefore entirely legal.