The Greatest Myth in Blackjack Strategy Erik May 18, 2020 Game The greatest myth in blackjack is that when other people at the table misplay their hands, the dealer is more likely to end up with a strong hand and beat everyone, including those who played their hands properly. Let’s make the point concrete with an example. Let’s say you’ve been dealt a 15, which is a weak hand, and the dealer has a 6 showing. You decide, correctly, to stand. You still don’t like the hand, but standing is the lesser of the evils. The other people at the table also stand, until the final player, who hesitates for a long time with his 14, decides to take a hit. Everyone at the table groans. OK, why does everyone groan? Not because he made the wrong play for himself-which he did-but because there’s a folk wisdom about blackjack that entails that his bad play hurts the other players at the table. How? Well, on the alleged grounds that you “never take the dealer’s bust card,” which, to spell it out, basically means by taking a hit in his situation, he uses up a card that could well have been the one that would have been big enough to bust the dealer’s hand had it been left for the dealer. However, even a moment’s thought reveals the flaw in this reasoning. Even assuming the dealer has a large card underneath for a total of 16 or close to it, why is it more likely that the top card on the remaining deck (the one that will go to that last player if he takes a hit, or go to the dealer if he stands) is a big card than that the second card from the top is a big card? The answer is that it isn’t. Sure, the top card might be a Queen and the next card a 4, and by taking a hit that player will cause the whole table to lose. But it’s equally as likely that the top card is a 4 and the next card is a Queen, meaning the table benefits from the dealer getting that second card instead. Certainly the player has misplayed his hand and thus hurt his own chances by hitting a 14 when the dealer has a 6 showing, but the point is, he’s not hurt you or anyone else at the table one iota. So why do people-I would say the majority of people who play blackjack in fact-believe so strongly that other people taking a hit in a situation like that decreases the chances of the dealer busting, and thus hurts the whole table? There are two reasons. One, most people don’t learn a game like blackjack by reading books and delving into the logic and mathematics of it. They pick it up by tagging along with their parents, boyfriend, older sister, fraternity buddies, etc. the first few times they play, and they learn by observing and listening to the advice of these more experienced players. In this way, common beliefs get passed along to each new generation-both common beliefs that are correct, and common beliefs that are fallacious. So why do people believe something provably wrong like this? Because “everybody says so,” “that’s what I’ve always heard,” “my ex-husband used to go to the casinos all the time and he knew all about those games, and he always told me ‘make sure you never take the dealer’s bust card,'” etc. Two, there is a natural psychological tendency to notice confirming evidence and ignore disconfirming evidence for things you already believe. So most people who believe this myth about blackjack will swear up and down that it’s been confirmed by their own experience. That’s because they remember all those times a person took an unnecessary hit and the dealer ended up with a 20 or 21 as a result (e.g., the top card was a Queen and the next card was a 4), whereas they quickly forget all the times the dealer busted because of that misguided hit (e.g., the top card was a 4 and the next card was a Queen). Even if one of the latter cases is called to their attention, they’ll say something like, “Sure that can happen, but that’s a fluke. Almost always, when the last player takes a hit like that, he takes the dealer’s bust card and the whole table loses.” The moral of the story is: Learn the game as best you can, play your own cards so as to give yourself the best mathematical chance, and don’t sweat what anyone else at the table does. (That is, don’t join the lynch mob that invariably forms if someone at a blackjack table splits 10s.) This idea that how others play their hand can help or hurt you is no more than a superstition. The less you focus on something irrelevant like that, the more you can focus on your own play and really trying to make the best decisions with your own hand, because in the end, that’s all that matters. There are no end to the myths and fallacies surrounding Blackjack or any form of gambling and is only a matter of perception as to how people look at it where some enjoy it while others condemn it for destroying lives and sowing seeds of hatred but Blackjack and poker online terpercaya are two games that continue to be popular.