When the player at third base hits a hard hand against the dealer’s top card of 6 and the dealer makes his hand when it should have broken, you feel like the world is about to fall on your head. If the dealer hits blackjack on the next hand, all we can say is that it is a disaster. Fortunately this is only in the short term because the next time a player does the same the results may be different.
Now, in the long run, regardless of how others play their hands, it will have no effect on your bankroll. Simply because it is based on thousands of hands that have been played, the cards break up and converge into actual probability numbers. The only thing that will remain will be the subjective and selective memory of the players who think that their results are based on the actions of other players, and not on their own game. Remember, the better you play, the more you win, it’s that simple.
To check this out for yourself, deal 3 blackjack hands from a standard 52-card deck. Make the dealer’s hand a down 10 and an up 6. Your hand can be any 2 cards, your co-player’s hand can be the same. Instead of waiting for the bench to break, pick up a card as if your co-player has taken a hit. Sometimes the card will help the dealer, which means you will lose the hand or it can be a card that the dealer beats and you will win. Do you see a pattern? No, there is no pattern.
Whether or not an extra card is used by the co-player after 1,000 hands, the dealer will break as many times as possible. This is what puzzles us, keep in mind that we are not blackjack experts nor do we claim to be. The question we often ask ourselves is: why do so many players want to play alone? It all comes down to selective memory and the desire to feel in control, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Unless you are a professional card counting professional, playing solo will cost you more than playing with a crowd. Makes sense?
On the other hand, if you play alone, you will get many more hands (approximately up to 240 / hour) than if you play in a group (up to 60 hands / hour). This is where it gets interesting, if you do the math you will see that when you play throughout the game you are playing with 4 times more hands than when you play with a multitude of players. In other words, if you are not a smart blackjack player, your money will be sucked into the blink of an eye.
Summarizing. When it comes to playing blackjack, it all depends on how long you play, how much you bet, and how many hands you have. Don’t worry about how other table players play their hands or how many players are at the table. In the long run it only affects you in the results of your blackjack.