Double Exposure Blackjack

Habanero deals Double Exposure here across three boxes, all facing one open dealer hand. Play some rounds by the dealer's total rather than the upcard, and note how often a tie goes against you.

The first and heavier rule is that the dealer wins every tie. On an ordinary table a push returns the bet; here the dealer keeps it, whether the two totals meet at 17 or at 21. Ties are frequent because player and dealer aim at the same narrow band of finishing totals, so this one rule moves more money than anything else on the table.

The second is that a blackjack pays even money, one for one, instead of 3:2. A natural still wins at once unless the dealer holds one too. On the ordinary six-deck game, that payout by itself would add 2.27 points to the house edge, and here, without the ties rule beside it, it would still leave the player well ahead.

Tables differ on one detail: whether a blackjack against a dealer blackjack is a tie the dealer takes or a win for the player. The base set below gives it to the dealer.

The base set is six decks, no dealer hit on soft 17, doubles on any two starting cards and on split hands, resplit to four hands, blackjack pays 1:1 and the dealer wins every tie, tied blackjacks included. On exactly those terms the player, not the house, is ahead by 0.28% with perfect play. Each row changes one rule and keeps the rest.

Read together, the rows say that a table dealing the full base set would be one the player beats over the long run, which is why the tables that exist add at least one restriction on top.

The key point: Losing every tie and taking even money for a blackjack are not quite enough to pay for an open dealer hand; any one of the three restrictions in the table puts the house back in front.

Limiting doubles to hard 9, 10 and 11 is by far the costliest of them, taking the edge to 0.80% on its own. With the dealer's total in view, doubling becomes unusually well aimed: against a dealer who holds 12 to 16 and must draw, more two-card hands are worth doubling than when a card is hidden. A dealer who hits soft 17 and a single split cost far less. A table can combine several, so check which ones it uses. The price of the same rules on an ordinary table is set out in the blackjack odds guide.

An ordinary strategy chart reads one dealer upcard and allows for every card that might be hidden behind it. Here nothing is hidden, so each decision rests on the dealer's actual total, and that chart no longer applies. The hidden-card chart, with the reasoning behind its cells, is on the blackjack strategy page; Double Exposure needs a table of its own, organized by dealer total.

Three ideas carry most of that table. When the dealer shows a finished total of 17 to 21, the dealer will stand, so a lower player total has to keep drawing until it is ahead, whatever the risk of busting, and an equal total has to draw as well, since a tie loses. When the dealer shows 12 to 16 and must take a card, the dealer's chance of busting is high and the starting point is known, so standing on a weak total is right more often, and doubling and splitting become more aggressive. Soft dealer totals fall between the two and depend on the table's soft 17 rule.

The Double Exposure table in our library is Blackjack Double Exposure 3 Hand from Habanero, a three-hand version played against one open dealer hand. Open its rules screen before the first deal and match its soft 17 rule, its doubling limits and its handling of tied blackjacks against the rows above.

Playing three hands at once makes the results swing harder from round to round without changing the edge on each hand, and the multihand blackjack page explains why.