Blackjack players are idiots

I admit that I don't understand the whole gambling thing. For whatever reason, I'm just not wired to get any thrill out of playing games that I know will lose me money in the long run. I probably average about $20 a year total on non-poker gaming. Even that is just a few bucks in a machine with a friend while we're waiting for a show to start or for our names to be called for dinner, or the required contribution for one of those two-for-one coupons, which are +EV. I realize that this makes me something of a freak among the poker players of the world, but that's how it is.

I played blackjack for about an hour once while here on vacation, maybe 15 years ago, never before or since. So my knowledge of the game is truly rudimentary. Basically, all I know is little bits and pieces picked up from TV shows, overheard conversations, incidental mentions that come up in my poker reading, etc.

A couple of years ago, Vegas Rex mentioned in a post (and, sorry, but I spent about 20 minutes just now searching for the post in question but couldn't find it) that once in a while he likes to split 10s, even though he knows that this reduces his expected return. He does it because it increased the little thrill he gets from the game. His post was about the dirty looks and hateful comments that this move draws from the serious blackjack players at the table with him. My recollection (though my memory could be tainted by subsequent stories I've heard) is that he mentioned that sometimes people even get up and leave in a huff because they don't want to share the table with somebody who does that.

I didn't exactly doubt his veracity, but I sure wondered why anybody would have this reaction. However, since then, I have at least four times overheard conversations in which "serious" players have said that they can't stand playing at a table with somebody who doesn't know what he is doing, and will leave to find another table to continue playing at. I'm bringing this up now because the most recent of these conversations was just last night, while playing poker at Planet Hollywood.

These complaints have not all been about "bad" players splitting their 10s specifically, but more generally about players who hit when the math clearly favors standing. The complaint is universally the same: the "bad" player gets a small card that helps him, but results in the "good" player getting a high card and busting, when he would have received the small card instead.

Every time I hear this, I want to have the complainer sent for mandatory psychiatric evaluation. If they pass a battery of mental health testing by a panel of experts, then the least that they should have to endure is a remedial course in probability and logic.

In the long run, it makes no difference whether you play blackjack by yourself or with a full table, nor does it matter how anybody else plays. You could have somebody at your table who takes hits every single time until he busts, losing 100% of the time, and it still would not affect you. Furthermore, it makes zero difference where you are at the table, with the allegedly "bad" players to your right or to your left. (This isn't true in tournament-style blackjack, however, because there the amounts that others bet affect what your best decision will be. That's a special case not relevant here.)

Of course it is true that what other players decide will affect what card(s) you get on this hand, but it does so in a completely value-neutral way. Yes, sometimes the guy hitting on 18 will catch a 3 that otherwise would have made you a winning hand, and instead you take a king that busts you. But so what? Exactly as often, the king and the 3 in the deck will be reversed in order, and he will erroneously hit, taking the king that instead would have gone to you, and you get the 3. It seems that the idiot blackjack players I've heard whining have highly selective memories, and only remember cases where they get hurt by the "bad" player's decision, and either don't notice or don't remember the equal number of times that they are rescued by such decisions--even though the math says that the number of events must be exactly the same both ways.

Naturally, it works the other way, too--i.e., if the "bad" player stands where he should hit, the "good" player will get a card that would have gone to the "bad" player if he were playing optimal strategy. Sometimes that change of fate will work to his favor, sometimes to his detriment. But the cumulative effect over time must be exactly zero, with just as many of the former as the latter.

This basic truth is so simple and obvious that I'm stymied to figure out how somebody could spend hours honing their mastery of optimal strategy for every possible combination of cards, and yet fail to understand it.

Getting upset at another player for how his play affected your blackjack outcome is every bit as looney as getting upset because the dealer (or a player) cut the deck too high or too low. Of course it affects everything that happens thereafter, but it does so in a way that has no systematic positive or negative value. The only difference is that you can see the "what would have been" outcome for how another player affects the current hand, and you cannot know the "what would have been" for how the deck was cut.

In poker, all sorts of things affect what cards you get: how the cards are gathered after the previous hand, the dealer's precise shuffle method, where the deck gets cut, who leaves or enters the game just before the cards are dealt, whether there is a card flashed during the deal, whether there is a misdeal, etc. But they all affect the outcome in an absolutely neutral way over the long haul, even though the change will be either for good or ill on any given hand. It would be completely insane to bitch at a player for sitting down to your right just before the deal on the grounds that he just changed what your hole cards will be. It's definitely true that his arrival did change everything (including what the board cards will be), but not in a way that affects your long-run expected value by even one red cent.

The next time I overhear a "serious" blackjack player griping about how some novice player spoiled the game for him, I'm going to put in a call to the Moron Police and have him hauled away for public stupidity.


Addendum

While writing the above, I had a vague recollection that I had written something along the same lines before. Why didn't I check? First, it was because I thought it had just been an offhand couple of sentences as a tangent while writing about something else. Secondly, well, frankly, because if I'm repeating myself, I think that deep down I don't want to know about it.

But then I was just chatting with Cardgrrl, and she asked, "Didn't you do a rant on that same subject already?" Dammit. That meant I couldn't avoid checking. And, of course, it turns out that I did. See here for that post, as well as a lot of useful comments from readers.

Oh well. At least I'm consistent in what bugs me and in the conclusions I draw.