face down double down is kinda pointless or am i missing something??

BJill

BJill

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so mcluck added this face down double thing on the iconic21 tables (7 seat and the private one). tried it last night, had 11 vs a 6, doubled and picked face down because why not. card just sat there hidden the whole time the dealer played out. dealer busted so i won anyway and then it flipped a 4 lol

my question is does it actually change anything?? like odds wise. or is it just there to make you sweat. and why would anyone pick face down over face up
 
old casinos used to do it like that, nothing new. you cant hit after a double anyway so whats the difference mate
 
@chapman has the important part. Once you double you receive exactly one card and your hand is finished, so there is no decision left for that card to inform. Face up or face down, it is the same card from the same shoe and the dealer plays to the same rules. The odds don't move at all.

ICONIC21 said as much in their own announcement: it changes when you see the card, not the rules or the maths.

Where it gets muddled is Pragmatic's version. They added Face Down Double Down to Prive Lounge Blackjack back in August, together with Split After Split, and the quoted RTP went up to 99.51%. That improvement comes from being allowed to split again, not from hiding a card. Worth knowing before somebody tells you the face down option is "better odds".

As for why anyone picks it: for the moment, nothing more. My wife thinks watching a card I can do nothing about is the most pointless part of my evening, and she has a point.
 
Newbie said:
but why doesn't it matter when you see it? i thought knowing more is always better in blackjack?!
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good question kid. knowing more helps when you can still DO something with it. after a double you cant, you're locked in
dealt pitch in reno for 15 years, double deck games, we tucked the double card face down under the chips all the time. old timers loved it, they'd squeeze it up at the end like baccarat players. half of them talked to it the whole time i was drawing
and the card never cared
 
ok but on a stream?? at a real table the card is sitting there in front of you even if its face down. online you're trusting a camera angle
whats stopping them swapping it after the dealer finishes and they know what they need
not saying they do. but if i ran a studio thats exactly where id hide something
 
Every shoe game I've played on the Strip dealt the double face up. Some double deck pitch games still tuck it like @notyourdealer said. Also fyi McLuck doesn't take Nevada, sweeps are a no go here, so I can't even try this lol
 
PokerDuke said:
whats stopping them swapping it after the dealer finishes and they know what they need
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dealers hole card is face down in every blackjack game ever made and nobody needed a new feature to swap THAT one. if a studio wanted to cheat they'd go after the card that decides every hand, not your double on 11
also a swap on camera with a pit and a compliance team watching? id have loved to see someone try that in reno. the eye would have had him before the shoe was done
 
its a retention feature and a cute one. Nataly is right that it buys them a few extra seconds of you staring at the screen
the real leak in most peoples blackjack is the side bets, 21+3 and friends, not whether a card is face up
 
is this a us only thing? been on william hill and b365 live tables this aft cant see face down anywhere. not that id use it but still
 
As far as I can see ICONIC21 hold Malta and Romanian licences, not a UKGC one, so their tables won't appear on British sites at all.
Pragmatic's Prive Lounge version is a separate question. I haven't come across those tables on bet365, though I haven't looked very hard either.
 
fair on the hole card. still...went back through my bovada notes. 11 doubles on live tables last month, won 2. TWO. all 10s and 11s against 5s and 6s
explain that
 
Interesting one. Does anyone know if any of the crypto casinos have the face down version yet? I read that Stake has its own dedicated ICONIC now, so I'd guess they'd be first, but I don't play there myself.

Thanks in advance!
 
Face up face down whatever. I run a 1-2-4 on bj after losses, doubles just speed it up. Tested it on Roobet last year, came out ahead
 
came out ahead over how many hands. 1-2-4 means three losses in a row and you're down 7 units chasing 1
blackjack streaks are longer than people think and the table max doesn't care about your feelings
 
Tried the Prive tables once, way above my budget so I left after a few hands. For normal stakes I stick to Evolution.

One thing people miss with Free Bet Blackjack: the dealer pushes on 22, so a lot of the "free" doubles and splits come back to the house right there. Read the rules before you think you found a bargain.
 
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