Black Jack Question

Jon,

I've once read that ***IF*** you insist on taking insurance, for God sake don't insure your 17, 18, 19, or 20. Instead you should insure your crappy 12-16 and HOPE the dealer has a Blackjack. The rationale was: You have to play your terrible hand (12-16) and could possible bust. However, if you insist on taking Insurance, then insure a crappy hand, hope for the dealer to get a blackjack and get your money back and not have to play out the 12-16 hand. If you have 17-20, don't insure it in hopes that you can play it out and likely win!

I see the logic but I just don't understand why people would take the Insurance bet. <sigh>

Well, really what that boils down to is, "I have a losing hand; let me make a second bet on this round and see if I can win that one." The insurance bet is really just a bet on the dealer's hole card. The counter-argument is always that a crappy hand isn't worth insuring; I remember insuring a stiff once and getting a ration of shit from the dealer and a few other players. The dealer did have the 10 in the hole, though.

But the bottom line is to never take insurance unless you're counting. If you are counting, make that bet on the hole card if the count is positive, whether you have a natural, a 20 or a stiff.

Not true. The payout on the insurance bet is entirely independent of the quality of the player's hand.

If it makes sense to insure a 13, it makes sense to insure a pair of queens. The insurance bet will resolve without regard to the players hand. And taking the insurance bet makes it no more likely that the player's hand will win or lose on its merits.

Take insurance whenever the chance that the dealer's hole card is a 10 is greater than 1 in 3. That's it. The player's hand is irrelevant to the question of taking insurance.

No argument at all here, Chilcoot. From a mathematical standpoint, it makes no difference. But when I've been going really bad at the table, and I'm holding a BJ against an ace, and either wasn't counting or was counting and deck was in the normal range, I have taken insurance on a few occasions. There is nothing more demoralizing when things are already going bad than to finally get that blackjack and win nothing. Not a good mathematical play, but as I said earlier, sometimes not bad for morale. I don't think I've ever taken insurance on any other occasion, unless I was counting and deck was very rich in ten-power cards.

As my buddy says, when the dealer offers him insurance on his blackjack...
Dealer: "Even money?"
Buddy: "No...Even MORE money!!"