The Effect of Cover Betting on Advantage by Penetration

I put together an Effect of Cover Bettting chart to give some idea of the cost of various amounts of cover betting. The results are from one half-billion round Blackjack sim. There were four players as follows:

Yellow: No cover Blue: No bet increases after a loss, no decreases after a win; but reset to one unit after a shuffle Green: Same as above but also no bet change after a push and no jumping bets up or down by more than two units. Red: Same as above but bet not reset to one after shuffle and Insurance Cover. (index of 4 for a BJ, 3 for a twenty and 2 for other hands.)

All players had a spread of 1-8. A two unit bet was allowed at TC of +1 Which is earlier than in BJ Attack's sims as the heavy cover player probably wouldn't have a chance with slower ramping. The y-axis is advantage. X-axis is penetration from 1% to 84%. Six decks, S17, DAS. TC accuracy was half-deck. All players played in all seats.

Note: The Red player had a disadvantage of .7% in the first hand. This is because he was not allowed to reset his bet after a shuffle. The other players all had .38% disadvantage of the first hand. (Which was fortunate as that's what my calculator says the BS advantage should be.)

I've also included a Percentage Chart This chart shows what percentage of the total loss due to cover betting can be attributed to each type of cover, by penetration level used by the Red (heavy cover) player. Red is the loss due to Insurance cover and not resetting your bet after a shuffle. Green is the loss due to no jumping bets or changing a bet after a pass. Blue is the loss due to no increases after a loss or decreases after a win. The Red area shows the large effect of not resetting the after shuffle bet for low penetration games. The Green area shows the effect of not being able to jump bets quickly at high penetration levels.

No surprises here. Cover is expensive.

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