Know Your Hands in Blackjack: Hard 16 vs. Dealer 9
This is another online game hand you don’t want to see very often, but is one of the “Illustrious 18” most important hands that depend on the count. Before we dissect this hand, here’s a note about the analyses we use in these articles. Due to the “effect of removal” , Blackjack probability calculations are slightly different depending on the number of remaining cards in the shoe. The effect of removing any particular card is much more significant with a partial deck remaining compared to 6 decks left in a multi-deck shoe. That is why Basic Strategy charts are slightly different for single deck, double deck and multi-deck games for the very close calls. However, approximate results are typically estimated for most hands by normalizing the Running Count to 1 deck equivalency and play per the True Count Index. That is why, in this series, we typically calculate the probability math for exactly 52 cards remaining (before the hand is dealt). In theory, the Running Count with exactl