6 May 98
5624 Elvas Avenue
Sacramento, CA 95919
Mr. Howard Miller
President
Tech Art
3855 W. Diablo, Suite 6
Las Vegas, Nevada 8 9118
Dear Mr. Miller:
This is my report on the house advantage against a player who uses the optimal strategy in your proposed new game "MAXTIME 21", rules for which are described on the enclosed fax, in terms of deviations from ordinary 21.
First, the MAXTIME bonus wager side bet has a house advantage of 9.20% for one deck and 10.73% for eight decks.
Now, to evaluate the main wager I used a computer program I have developed that cycles through every possible combination of player and dealer hands and computes the exact expectation on the basis of probability, rather than simulation. Indeed, a simulation would be very difficult to carry out, because it would be very hard to embed the correct strategy in the simulator for every possible multiple-card player hand. My program automatically finds this strategy, but I wouldn't want to try to print it out!
I find that the absolutely optimal strategy produces a house advantage of .68% in a single deck game, this in contrast to a .04% PLAYER advantage with ordinary single deck blackjack dealt with the same dealer stands on soft 17 rule. When eight decks are employed, optimal strategy by the player results in a house advantage of .96% in contrast to one of .57% with standard strip rules, dealer standing on soft 17. It would be very difficult for even a skilled player to achieve these figures precisely because of the difficulty of knowing the optimal strategy.
You may note that MAXTIME's rule variations reduce the single deck expectation by .72%, which is considerably more than the .39% that they reduce the eight deck advantage. This is because so many of the MAXTME innovations favor the sort of repetition of small cards which is more characteristic of multiple decks than single decks. Let me know if you have further questions in this matter.
Peter A. Griffin
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