The Blackjack List

If Surrender were offered it would of course have to be Early Surrender. The side rule is rarely offered. When it is in effect, a player who collects a hand of five cards two cards plus three hits without going bust is immediately paid even money, irrespective of the dealer's hand.

Blackjack can be played at home, rather than in a casino. In this case a fancy Blackjack table is not needed: Unless the players have agreed in advance that the host should deal throughout, to ensure a fair game the participants should take turns to be the dealer. The turn to deal can pass to the next player in clockwise order after every hand or every five hands or whatever the players agree.

If playing with a single deck of cards, it is desirable to re-shuffle the cards after every hand. Nightclubs and pubs in Sweden often offer a Blackjack variant that is less favourable to the players. All the essential rules are the same as in the casino version unless the player and dealer have an equal total of 17, 18 or In the casino version the player's stake is returned in these situations, but in Swedish pubs the house wins. First and foremost, as a general rule the player should never take Insurance. Unless using an advanced and mathematically proven strategy that will alert the player to the rare situations in which Insurance is worthwhile, it should be avoided as a bad bet for the player.

Next, it should be understood that every possible combination of player hands and dealer up card has a mathematically correct play.

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These can be summarized in what is known as a Basic Strategy table. However, certain plays in the table need to be modified according to the specific combination of rules in force. To be sure of playing correctly, it is necessary to generate a Basic Strategy table for the specific rules of the game being played. Various tools are available online to do this. We would recommend this Blackjack Basic Strategy Calculator. It should be noted that even playing perfect Basic Strategy for the rule set in play, the player will still usually be at a disadvantage.

Card Counting provides the player a mathematically provable opportunity to gain an advantage over the house. It must be understood that this does not guarantee that the player will win. Just as a regular player may win though good luck despite playing at a disadvantage, it is perfectly possible for the Card Counter to lose through an extended period of bad luck even though playing with a small advantage over the House. The basic premise of Card Counting is that mathematically speaking, low cards on average are beneficial to the dealer while high cards favour the player. There are many subtle reasons for this but the most significant are:.

So the Card Counter looks for times when there are more high cards left to be played than a regular deck would have. Rather than trying to remember each card that has been played, the Card Counter will usually use a ratio system that offsets cards that are good for the player against cards that are good for the dealer. The most commonly used Card Counting system is the HiLo count , which values cards as follows:. To keep track the player starts at zero, adds one to the total every time a low card is played and subtracts one from the total when a high card is played.

It may seem counter-intuitive to subtract one for high value cards that are good for the player, but a high card that has been played is one less high card that is left to be played. Where the Running Count is positive the player knows that there are more player favourable cards remaining to be played. When kept correctly the Running Count will start at 0 and, if all the cards were to be played out, would end at 0.

This is because there are an equal number of high cards and low cards. Card Counting systems are generally not impeded by the addition of multiple decks to the game. At any rate multiple decks do not make it significantly more difficult for the Card Counter to keep track of the Running Count, since the Card Counter only needs to keep track of a single number, the Running Count. However many decks are used, the count begins at zero and would end at zero if there were no cards left, so no changes need to be made to the counting process.

Where multiple decks do make a difference is in how much impact a positive Running Count has to the player advantage. If there are 5 decks remaining to be played there are only 2 extra player favourable cards in each deck. To estimate the strength of the player advantage the Running count therefore needs to be divided by the number of decks remaining to be played. This figure is called the True Count. With the True Count the player has a consistent measure of how many extra player favourable cards are contained within the cards remaining to be dealt. The player can use this information to vary their bet and playing strategy.

Deviations from Basic Strategy are far less important than placing big bets when the True Count is high and low bets or preferably nothing when the True count is low or negative. It is important to note that sizing your bet correctly is critical to your long term success as a card counter. This requires substantial additional knowledge that is beyond the scope of this article.

How to Play

Instead we refer interested readers to the books listed below for an insight into this complex aspect of card counting. While Card Counting is legal in most jurisdictions, for obvious reasons casinos do not like players that can consistently beat them. They therefore employ counter measures and any players they identify as Card Counters will be asked to leave the casino.

The most common method used to identify Card Counters is to watch for a large bet spread difference between the minimum and maximum bet a player uses and to see whether large bets correlate with player favourable counts. Card Counters have developed several methods to help them avoid detection. The two most common are:. There are several variations on team play designed to be employed in different situations and to different effects. These are covered more fully in the reading resources detailed below.

Successful Card Counting is generally only profitable in land based casinos, not in online games. The strategy relies on the game having a "memory" in that cards are dealt from the cards remaining after previous rounds have been played. Online Blackjack games are dealt by computer and normally use a random number generator to shuffle the whole deck after every round of play. Games of this sort are not countable. There are some Live Blackjack games online, which are played over a video feed with a human dealer. These could technically be counted but there are several significant disadvantages that make this difficult or not worth the player's time:.

There is a great deal more to card counting successfully than we can reasonable cover here. Many books have been written on this subject and we will recommend some of the better ones below:. Blackjack Attack — One of the foremost mathematicians in the Blackjack field, Schlesinger successfully compares the strength of various counting systems in different conditions. It gets the shuttle high enough in the atmosphere for the shuttle to do the rest of the work. The rocket booster never makes it to space.

This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to beating blackjack. Vegas was built on guys who looked at the wallet-size basic strategy a couple times after they bought it in the gift shop on their last vacation. It takes intentional practice to commit this stuff to memory. The chart you start with is not the chart you end with! Once you learn this chart you will have to learn additional rules and deviations that relate to the specific rules of the games you will be playing. The better you learn basic strategy the easier it will be to transition to the other rules-specific charts.

You need to know these strategy charts backwards and forwards, doing a handstand, in a hurricane, giving your drink order to a waitress, while listening to Count Von Count serenade you on Sesame Street.

Blackjack Strategy

Download Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart. This is why surrender is the first thing you have to think about when playing your hand. The second most important decision is whether or not to split. This will only be an option when your first two cards are a pair or if you have two ten-valued cards like a jack and a king.

Learn Blackjack Strategy

The last thing you should think about when it comes to basic strategy is whether or not to take another card. If the other options above are not appropriate for your hand then you would choose to hit or stand. Soft 20 A,9 always stands Soft 19 A,8 doubles against dealer 6, otherwise stand.

Soft 18 A,7 doubles against dealer 2 through 6, and hits against 9 through Ace, otherwise stand. Soft 17 A,6 doubles against dealer 3 through 6, otherwise hit. Soft 16 A,5 doubles against dealer 4 through 6, otherwise hit. Soft 15 A,4 doubles against dealer 4 through 6, otherwise hit. Soft 14 A,3 doubles against dealer 5 through 6, otherwise hit. Another option open to the player is doubling his bet when the original two cards dealt total 9, 10, or When the player's turn comes, he places a bet equal to the original bet, and the dealer gives him just one card, which is placed face down and is not turned up until the bets are settled at the end of the hand.

With two fives, the player may split a pair, double down, or just play the hand in the regular way. Note that the dealer does not have the option of splitting or doubling down. When the dealer's face-up card is an ace, any of the players may make a side bet of up to half the original bet that the dealer's face-down card is a ten-card, and thus a blackjack for the house. Once all such side bets are placed, the dealer looks at his hole card.

If it is a ten-card, it is turned up, and those players who have made the insurance bet win and are paid double the amount of their half-bet - a 2 to 1 payoff. When a blackjack occurs for the dealer, of course, the hand is over, and the players' main bets are collected - unless a player also has blackjack, in which case it is a stand-off. Insurance is invariably not a good proposition for the player, unless he is quite sure that there are an unusually high number of ten-cards still left undealt. A bet once paid and collected is never returned. Thus, one key advantage to the dealer is that the player goes first.

If the player goes bust, he has already lost his wager, even if the dealer goes bust as well. If the dealer goes over 21, he pays each player who has stood the amount of that player's bet. If the dealer stands at 21 or less, he pays the bet of any player having a higher total not exceeding 21 and collects the bet of any player having a lower total. If there is a stand-off a player having the same total as the dealer , no chips are paid out or collected. When each player's bet is settled, the dealer gathers in that player's cards and places them face up at the side against a clear plastic L-shaped shield.

The dealer continues to deal from the shoe until he comes to the plastic insert card, which indicates that it is time to reshuffle. Once that round of play is over, the dealer shuffles all the cards, prepares them for the cut, places the cards in the shoe, and the game continues. Winning tactics in Blackjack require that the player play each hand in the optimum way, and such strategy always takes into account what the dealer's upcard is. When the dealer's upcard is a good one, a 7, 8, 9, card, or ace for example, the player should not stop drawing until a total of 17 or more is reached.

When the dealer's upcard is a poor one, 4, 5, or 6, the player should stop drawing as soon as he gets a total of 12 or higher. The strategy here is never to take a card if there is any chance of going bust. The desire with this poor holding is to let the dealer hit and hopefully go over Finally, when the dealer's up card is a fair one, 2 or 3, the player should stop with a total of 13 or higher. With a soft hand, the general strategy is to keep hitting until a total of at least 18 is reached.

Thus, with an ace and a six 7 or 17 , the player would not stop at 17, but would hit. The basic strategy for doubling down is as follows: With a total of 11, the player should always double down.

Blackjack – Card Game Rules | Bicycle Playing Cards

With a total of 10, he should double down unless the dealer shows a ten-card or an ace. With a total of 9, he should double down only if the dealer's card is fair or poor 2 through 6. For splitting, the player should always split a pair of aces or 8s; identical ten-cards should not be split, and neither should a pair of 5s, since two 5s are a total of 10, which can be used more effectively in doubling down.

A pair of 4s should not be split either, as a total of 8 is a good number to draw to. Generally, 2s, 3s, or 7s can be split unless the dealer has an 8, 9, ten-card, or ace. Finally, 6s should not be split unless the dealer's card is poor 2 through 6. I live in a senior living community. Bingo and card games are the most popular activities played here. Frequently arguments happen over the rules of card games. I am very happy that I found your website on-line. It really is an outstanding website.

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