re ee © B nipsifoecks goglecomayiboc Google | casino verte pontoon Books aja) (Bmx) “Ow nae pene <> Strategy Chart Analysis To get @ good feel for the game, itis necessary to develop a thorough understanding of the statistical properties, so I will explain how strategy charts are calculated in as simple terms as possible Computer-modeling can be used to simulate rillions of games in a matter of seconds, and all casinos in the Western world put their games through a rigorous process of computer simulation ‘and combinatorial analysis to determine the house edge before releasing them to the public. They usually outsource this task to software developers and mathematicians who specialize in gaming analysis. Occasionally, due 10 software bugs, they don’t always get it right. I am aware of casinos whose figures for this game are too high, which is ‘great for the informed player Ifthe management is not satisfied with the house edge, the rules are changed until the desired profit level is achieved. In some countries, such as ‘Australia, the house edge cannot exceed a certain threshold, and all rule changes must be government sanctioned before they ean be imposed. This is a time-consuming, bureaucratic process. ‘The only casinos that will simply put a new ‘game on the floor and wait to sce what happens are cither illegal, or in Eastem Europe or the developing world. When they get slaughtered, they pull the game from the floor. This is what happens ‘when a casino pays no attention to the mathematics So how does a simulator calculate basic strategy? A software data structure representing a four-, six or eight-deck shoe with a particular set of Spanish 21 rules is ereated, and the order of the cards in this shoe is changed after each hand using, a random-number generator, giving the same effect, as shuffling. In fact, any type of human shuffle can be exactly replicated by computer simulation. As cards are dealt in the simulated hands, the program considers the outcome for each hand from standing, hitting, splitting (if pair), doubling, or redoubling. This is done for hands of 2-6 cards ‘The program keeps records of amount won of lost per unit bet, number of cards, hand total, up card, hand type, and the play applied to cach. For each record and particular play, we eount up the number ‘of wins, losses, and ties and express cach as a proportion of the total. This needs to be done hhundreds of millions of times. for each possible hhand so that the results are accurate. This process is known as Monte Carlo simulation, EXPECTED VALUE Suppose we have 100-million records of hitting a ‘wo-card hard sixteen against nine in a standard ight-deck HI7 game. Out of these 100-million hits, we tied 6.0% ofthe time, won 24.1% and lost 69.9%. If our bet is one unit, we multiply each proportion by the amount won or lost and add these three figures together to arrive at what is known as the “expected value” (EV) for hitting a two-card hard sixteen against a nine. The EV can be viewed as the average return on a hand for a particular play, for a one-unit bet 2