Monthly Archives : April 2016

Common Blackjack Mistakes

April 20, 2016 by admin | Filed in casino | Comments Off on Common Blackjack Mistakes

Blackjack MistakesPretty much every gambler I know plays blackjack. Some play it all the time, others only occasionally, but everyone I know, almost without fail, plays blackjack. The only person I know who gambles, but doesn’t play blackjack, is my old neighbour Karen who’s addicted to online slots and literally nothing else, so I think we can all agree that she’s a bit of a weirdo. Anyway, I’m getting off-track! My point was that so many people play blackjack… And yet the amount of people who play it right is actually pretty low. Now, I’m not saying we should all start counting cards like the kids from “21” – in fact, card counting wouldn’t even work if you play in online casino, such as the ones listed at realmoney-blackjack.com. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few things we could be doing better when playing our favourite casino game. That way, we could stop ourselves from making mistakes like…

1. Standing with 16 vs a face card

You have no idea how often I see this mistake, and it’s one of the worst ones! If you have a 2-card 16 and the dealer has a face card, then you should absolutely hit, always! So many people stand, thinking that they’ll inevitably fail if they hit, and ultimately they all end up losing when the dealer gets practically any of the 32 (!) cards which will result in their victory. Now, it’s important to note that if you hit, getting any of those aforementioned 32 cards or a six (bringing it up to a total of 36 cards) means that you’re pretty screwed yourself, but at least you have a fighting chance. Don’t get me wrong, 16 vs face is a pretty dire situation, but the correct outcome is always to hit in order to at least have a small percentage of winning as opposed to almost none. Now, if you have three or more cards as opposed to just two, then you could consider standing, but that’s another story entirely.

2. Following the Dealer’s Strategy

Now, this advice actually sounds very good on paper – dealers always win, so do as the dealer does and you should always win! Hit on 2-16 and stand on anything above it, that ought to do it, right? Well… Not exactly. Don’t forget that you’re playing first, so if you go over 21, the game is over regardless of the dealer’s cards! The dealer can afford to place himself or herself in a situation where he or she may go bust. You can not.

3. Taking the Insurance

As you know, if the dealer gets a blackjack and you don’t have one (even if you’ve got 21), you lose. To prevent this and minimize your losses you can take an insurance when the dealer has a face card or an ace… But honestly, my advice is to simply not do it, especially not when you’ve got a good hand. Don’t forget that the chances of getting a blackjack are low for both you and the dealer, so there’s no point in wasting money on something that has a very low probability of actually happening.

Who Said Maths Can’t be Fun

April 8, 2016 by admin | Filed in gambling, games | Comments Off on Who Said Maths Can’t be Fun

It is weird to think that gambling is usually seen as a light and easy activity, not heavy on the mind and exercised by not the smartest bunnies out there. At least that’s the general overall impression. But if you stop for a second and think, most of the games of chance (and even more so the ones that require some skills, like poker) are based on pure mathematics – probabilities, chance, chaos theories – that’s all science and it can be really fascinating if you look into it. So for today’s post I’ve decided to look at maths from a bit of a different angle than the usual boring one and uncover some really interesting things about numbers. Check it out.

You Think You’re Special? Not as Special as a Deck of Cards

Shuffling cards probabilities

Now you may have heard the bizzare fact that when you shuffle a deck of 52 cards, you will end up with an order that no one else has ever had before. Ever. In history. No kidding. Now, you may think it’s crazy but hear me out. Let’s start with the first card in the shuffled deck – it has 1/52 chance of being a particular card, right? Then the next card behind it has a chance 1/51 of being any of the remaining 51 cards. Then you add another one. And another one. So the odds add up and to save you the calculation – you have 132,600 possible combinations of just the first three cards of any deck. Adding the fourth card takes that up to 6,497,400. So for the total of 52 cards that’s 8.0658X10⁶⁷ (phew! That’s 62 digits of a number. Fancy!). And to put things in perspective, we can’t really assume how many times cards have been shuffled in human history (we exclude the possibility of aliens playing to make life easier), but let’s make the odds obscenely in our favour and say everyone (and by everyone I mean every single person in the history of Earth) has been shuffling decks of cards full time, all life long, still, the number of times is not matching the number of possible combinations. So, if ever you want to feel unique and special – shuffle a deck of cards – it’s the only combination like the one you end up with for all times!

What on Earth Monty?

Crazy logic with chances of getting a winning door

If you haven’t heard of the Monty Hall Problem…well, you’re lucky and I am just about to ruin it for you.
That paradox really bugged me for quite some time. Now, it is said to originate from some American TV show. Imagine you have 3 doors. Behind one of them there’s a prize, the other two hold nothing. You can pick one. Now, logically, your chances to grab the prize are 1/3. So off you go, you take a pick. The TV host (or whatever) then opens one of the remaining 2 doors – it turns out empty. So suddenly, there are just two left, one of which is your choice already and one definitely has a prize behind it. The question is – should you change your choice? Before you go bananas, rest assured there have been quite a few scientists being skeptical and in disbelief about what I am about to say. And it took convincing them with computer models replaying the situation until it is statistically confirmed. So, point is, you do actually have better odds if you change your choice.

Most people (me included) would think that once an empty door is out the way, your chances have increased to 1 in 2 automatically. Wrong. Your door still has the 1/3 chance. It’s the remaining other one that has shifted its chances to 2/3. I know, sounds crazy but it’s true.

The Mandelbrot Set

I am going totally geeky here but hear me out. You know those crazy people that would tell you maths and numbers are beautiful? I know, you wonder how. Well this might just give you an idea and a sort of a sneak peek into the way how scientists see the subject of their interest – we see dry numbers on a screen or a piece of paper. They see this:

You probably wonder what this is. The so called Mandelbrot set is a collection of numbers with the use of a simple formula (z -> z² + c). The crazy video above is a graphical representation of that – it is not created or designed by anyone– it is just those numbers going on forever, visually represented. Life suddenly makes more sense, right?

So there. Now you can go and have a deserved rest, spin some roulette or something, I don’t know, just try not to think of the numbers behind it all, hey!