Blackjack

Blackjack has the property of being the only form of public gambling where the knowledgeable player is able to obtain a positive mathematical expectation. It does possess a memory and a conscience and is not democratic. In the mathematics leading to optimal Blackjack strategies, a premise is that of a strictly objective utility function. The mathematical expectation of an event that has probability of success p and probability of failure q is defined as pq. If, in addition, the event has probability r of remaining unresolved, only the objective utility function permits the retention of pq as defining the mathematical expectation. With multideck packs, cards are divided into four piles with shuffling between groups of two. Thus a subset of cards has zero probability of ending up in a certain portion of the shuffled pile. At the conclusion of a round and before the shuffle ensues, the clump of unplayed cards is typically broken into two and “plugged” into two different locations in the discard pile. Most shuffles are changed between the two quarters that comprise the top half of the played cards and between the two quarters that comprise the bottom half.