I'm agreeing with Norm with if you have 16vsT and can't surrender you are screwed. It's a horribly negative expectation hand. How screwed? How horrible? With surrender available, you'd need to be down to around TC-7 to hit instead of surrender, a point that you should have wonged out unless there was some reason to stay. Thinking about the difference between -1,0,+1 whether to stand or hit when surrender is not available is not worth giving much thought to. Surrender, otherwise stand if surrender is unavailable is the way to go. The index is very broad brush compared to actual composition dependent play. It's possible be at TC-2 with the optimal decision to stand, and possible be at TC+2 with the optimal decision to hit! This hand, 16vsT, is heavily impacted by surplus and/or deficit (4,5). You can think of one surplus (5) as being the equivalent of three {T} removed. You can think of one surplus (4) as being the value of two {T} removed in pushing you in the direction to hit. Without factoring in key card impact, you are somewhere in the ball park at best, and whether you are at -2 or +2, to hit or stand (when surrender is unavailable) isn't going to make a lot of difference. Not to worry though, since even if you go with the very exact composition dependent play, it's not having a huge impact and you are screwed no matter what.

A few examples of what I'm talking about as follows:

DD, no surrender, 16vsT, 1.25 decks remaining, TC+2, no (4,5) have been removed, five (6) have been removed (2 deficit).-----HIT
DD, no surrender, 16vsT, 1.25 decks remaining, TC+2, more than eight (4,5) have been removed, no (6) have been removed (3 surplus).----- STAND

6D, no surrender, 16vsT, 3 decks remaining, TC-2, lots of (4,5) removed, enough to assume a substantial deficit, surplus middle cards, surplus (6).-----STAND
6D, no surrender, 16vsT, 3 decks remaining, TC-2, very few (4,5) removed, lots of (6) removed with eight in the remainder (4 deficit), deficit middle cards.-----HIT

The difference between composition dependent perfect play and simply going with surrender, otherwise stand if surrender is unavailable, is not that significant for this hand. What you are talking about in the original post is even less significant than that, since the index itself that you are going by is sort of broad brush. Don't freak out about whether not ever hitting 16 is going to hurt you in the long haul, it isn't. You've heard of pragmatism? What you are debating is the opposite of pragmatism.

Tarzan writes ^:


Moses writes: 16vs10; Your buddy Flash is simply wrong, Wrong, WRONG at the suggestion of Always Standing in the single deck game - straight up. Surrender is not an option. RC-2,-3,-4 etc and up is actually a positive play. At 43% high cards remaining vs 57% low cards remaining, standing is ludicrous. I don't know how you manage to track 4,5 and 6. But if your 3 column count is flush with 2-5s, why in the world would you stand?