A question about Closers

[Legacy25GT]

I've never played Blackjack with anything but friends and family. Why in the worl would any other player care if I split a pair of kings? And why would it matter what seat I am in?

 

Each player is only playing against the dealer and the dealer has no choice about taking additional cards or not. Do people think it somehow magically affects the odds if the dealer gets the next card out of the deck vs. getting a later card.

 

Is this like how BA can magically end a no-hitter by mentioning it in the booth. BTW, his magic is very powerful, he even did this to Boston the other day from the booth in FL. The words "no-hitter" came out of his mouth, I immediatly flipped the TV to ESPN to check it out and somebody was getting a hit.

I've never been able to get the thinking either.... only reason people get upset, lets say dealer shows a 5, you split two 10s and get a jack and a king (which is good for you cuz you got two twenty point hands), and then the dealer flips a 10 and draws a 4 for 19 total which beats most the table, then everyone could say that IF you didn't split, the dealer would have busted with the jack that you took instead. So they only get mad because they can see what would have happened.... could just as easily work out that you split and eat up a couple low cards to get the dealer to bust on a high card.... but then you don't see any credit as a result.

 

I guess I see the analogy better now that I've written that out. I guess, if there is a point to having your best pitcher be your dedicated closer, is that due to the pressure felt more in the 8th than the 9th (maybe more in 1 or 2 run games) you want to have the guy who's the most mentally prepared to handle the additional pressure from the fans getting into it more in the last inning, and to also be able to bounce back after blowing a save or two.

 

I did the same thing with the Boston no-hitter... only I looked it up on MLB at-bat on my iPhone, and the line changed probably 2 seconds after I opened it.

[jeffy]

So they only get mad because they can see what would have happened.... could just as easily work out that you split and eat up a couple low cards to get the dealer to bust on a high card.... but then you don't see any credit as a result.

Ah, and also in the case where you did not split they don't see (unless they track things into the next hand) what might have happened had you split. So you would not get blamed in the case where not splitting resulted in a worse outcome than splitting would have.

 

I don't know how good that analogy is, but I can see where the fans would complain that the manager used the closer in the 7th, so now he is not available in the 9th and then they end up losing the game in the 9th. The fans don't see that had he not used the closer in the 7th, they might have lost the game then...they assume, probably without realizing it, that what happened in the 7th with the closer in would have happened anyway.