[Pontoon,Spanish 21] 11 vs Dealer's 10

[Pontoon,Spanish 21] 11 vs Dealer's 10

  17:40    Japanese Nokkie

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Pontoon (Spanish 21) Strategy

Is it dangerous to double down?

In the basic strategy of Pontoon under the European no hole card style, double down is NOT recommended as in Blackjack, but hit is.

However, isn't it exciting to double down in this situation?

Then I conducted a Pontoon experiment to calculate the winning percentages for both choices.

In the video, I collected only 20 data.

To get more precise result, I collected more 80 data after recording the video.

So I calculated the percentages based on the 100 data.

Result of the experiment

The first graph shows the percentages of each outcome when hitting.

The second graph shows the ones of each outcome when doubling down, including surrender when the hand's become 12-16.

The third graph shows the ones of each outcome when doubling down without surrender.

The results except for a tie

 are as follows:

Winning Percentages

Hit 45%    Double+Surrender 31%    Double only 45% (not 47% in the video)

The chip's fluctuation

Hit -9 chips    Double+Surrender -17 chips    Double only -18 chips

To sum up, hit is the most preferable choice.

Plus, this graph is interesting.

In the second graph above, at a rate of 49%, the player chose surrender after doubling.

From this, we would fail in doubling down on hand 11 at the same rate.

Besides, 37 out of 49 times, which corresponds to 75% in the last graph, his surrender was successful.

From this, the doubled hand is likely to become a rubbish hand (12-16).

The surrender on the rubbish hand seems quite effective to protect our chips.

After all, we should hit hand 11, not double down in Pontoon.

That's all for today.

I hope this article will be useful.

I'll be back soon.  Bye.

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