Memorizing the playing deviations is great, but unless you know what they mean, it’s worthless. I recently received this question from a premium member on our site, and thought I’d share it with you guys in case anyone else has had the same question:
“I need to know what the correct play deviation is for two different scenarios. One is a hard 12 against a dealers 2. What does the play become at a true count of 3. And the other is a hard 12 against a dealers 3 at a true count of 2. Thank you.”
Here’s my response:
“With both a 12 v. 2 and 12 v. 3, you are going to follow basic strategy, which would be to HIT, until it reaches the indicated count. At the indicated true count (3 and 2, respectively), you will deviate, which in this case is STAND. The theory behind it, is that when there are that many extra 10′s left, you will not want to risk busting your hand, and the dealer has that many extra 10′s to bust his hand with. Hope that helps.”
Deviations are tricky, because they all have different meanings. So make sure you understand both the Basic Strategy decision for each hand, then what the deviation for that hand means.
