The Cut-Card Effect

From Stanford Wong's BJ21

Posted by Border Crosser on 31 Jan 1999, 5:36 pm

I've been trying to get my mind around the cut-card effect, but I still can't persuade myself that it exists. Could somebody please provide (or point me to) a concise explanation?

Is it more pronounced in single-deck BJ or in shoe games?

Is it more pronounced when unlimited resplits are allowed, or when no resplits are allowed?

Does it affect all hands played, or just the final hand of the pack?

Numerically, just how large could the cut-card effect be?

In an earlier posting (I think by MathProf) I read the tantalizing suggestion that perhaps the cut-card effect means there can be slightly different "basic strategies" for a given game depending on whether you are playing the whole shoe or just the first round. (Of course the differences, if any, would be only of theoretical interest, but this is the theory page!) Has this idea ever been explored? I suppose that borderline decisions such as soft 13 vs 5 and hard 13 vs 2 would be the only ones that might be affected.

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