Formulating and Following a Blackjack Strategy

The game of blackjack, known also by the name 21, is a game that actually finds its origins in literature before ever becoming a real game. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, wrote about blackjack before it actually became a live game. Though once it did become a live game, in the 17th century, it almost immediately exploded across Europe, naturally landing in early America. Today’s blackjack can be played at nearly every live casino around and at thousands upon thousands of online casinos and blackjack-specific sites. If you’re personally a fan of blackjack, you may be wondering how, exactly, you can go about winning. Are there actually blackjack strategies that you can use to gain an advantage at the table?

Throughout this article, we’re going to be speaking about the mathematical probabilities that a strategy can help, as well as telling you things that you should and shouldn’t do at a blackjack table when using a strategy. Hopefully, if you can stick to a strategy and understand the basic mathematical principles at play, you can cut down on the house’s advantage and start to win more hands than you lose. This all starts with understanding what a blackjack strategy is and how it can help.

Can a Strategy Provide a Distinct Advantage?

Depending on how many decks of cards the online site is using, the house edge of blackjack will be from around roughly .35% to .63%. In terms of a house edge, this is very low and thus you can definitely deal with this. The basic gist here is that using a sound strategy means that you’re making the best choice mathematically based on what the dealer is showing and what your hand value is vs. the likelihood that you’re going to hit a 10 in the deck (which is the #1 card you’re going to hit most frequently). By crunching these few numbers, one can devise a blackjack strategy that makes them statistically more likely to win more hands than they lose. This is about the best you can ask for with any sort of gambling strategy. Winning more than you lose means that you’re walking away with money rather than losing money. Even if it’s a small amount of money, this is going to add up over time and help you build a nice bank roll.

Any blackjack strategy you adopt should be grounded in reason; it should be a mathematically sound model for playing the hands correctly based on your odds of winning/losing. There are no strategies that can guarantee a win every time. Even card counting at a live casino is a very long and slow process by which you’re building your stack by a war of attrition, winning more hands than the dealer over the course of hours. So before you learn and adopt any blackjack strategy, make sure you’re realistic and that you realize the deal here. The idea is to put you in a mathematically stronger position to win, not to guarantee that you’ll earn big money.

What Does Not Work in Blackjack Strategies

Blackjack is one of those games that exists as a combination of luck and skill. Although there is a huge element of chance at the blackjack table, it’s also about mathematics and thus it can be practiced and you can learn certain ways by which to win more consistently than you lose. And even if you’re only winning 60% of your hands, like 6 out of 10, imagine that you’re betting $50 a hand. Winning $50 every time you play blackjack is a great thing! Don’t get greedy and expect much more. Take your winnings and be satisfied.

As you begin to read about more and more blackjack strategies, you’re going to find a lot of things that people say you should do. Well, in the section below we’re going to tell you what you should do. For this section right here, we’re going to tell you what you shouldn’t do. Here is a list of things you should never do at an online blackjack table:

• Never try to count cards! Most online blackjack sites use at least a 5-deck shoe, and the cards are shuffled frequently. You cannot count them.
• Never rely on your “gut” feeling about a hand. Oh, so you think an 8 is due? Poppycock! You’re close to 8% to hit that 8, given none are in play, whereas you’re around 30% to hit a 10. Do the math.
• Never assume the dealer’s down card. You have information enough to act based on the card you can see. Don’t go guessing as to what you cannot see; this is a great way to lose.
• Never think you’re going to cheat the game by sitting down at the table with players you’re colluding with. This won’t work and will end up getting you banned.
• Never rely on any strategy that has you increasing/decreasing the amount you bet. What you bet has exactly zero sway over how the cards are dealt. Don’t get sucked into these traps.
• Never buy into any superstitious aspect of the game. Oh, but the last time you drank a Coke Zero and played at 3:15 p.m. you ended up hitting 3 blackjacks in 10 hands! So what? Leave the superstition out of the game.

A Simple Hand-by-Hand Blackjack Strategy

Now, in no way are we claiming that this sort of blackjack strategy is going to nullify completely the house edge and put you in a position to win guaranteed money. This strategy is about limiting your risks and making the best mathematical decisions based on your likelihood of receiving certain cards. It does not implement card counting, and there’s no sort of guesswork or gut feeling that’s going into anything here within this strategy. This is all based on your statistical probabilities of winning the hand or losing the hand based entirely on the card the dealer is showing.

The main thing you should remember about our strategies, or strategies that you read anywhere, is that you should never treat them as if they’re Commandments etched into stone from on high. What you should be after with any blackjack strategy is a template, a simple how-to guide that suggests moves to make with certain hand values vs. the dealer’s up card. From here, after you get these basic principles practiced, you should be able to create your own fluid strategy and begin to make different strategic moves that put you in a better position to win a hand. The best strategies are always fluid and flexible strategies that can shift and change based on how things are going at the table. In essence, you want to use this strategy as little more than a starting point from which to formulate your own fluid strategy.

Here’s a list of the hands you will get and how we recommend you play them vs. what the dealer is showing:

• Any hand value you have from 4-8, hit it no matter what the dealer is showing
• Any hand value you have that’s 9, see what the dealer has and if it’s 2 and from 7-A, hit it. If it’s 3-6, double down and then hit it
• With a hand value of 10, double down and hit as long as the dealer is showing anything but a 10 or an ace
• The same thing with 11: Double on everything the dealer is showing, except for an ace
• With a value of 12, stand on 4-6 showing from the dealer, and hit on everything else
• Hands of yours that are a value of 13-16 require you to stand with a dealer showing 2-6, but hitting the hand if the dealer has 7-A
• Anything over 17 is a hand you want to stand on, soft or hard
• For splits, always split up 7s, 8s, 9s and aces, staying on 10s, hitting on 2s and 3s and 4s. For 5s and 6s, split only if the dealer is showing 2-8, and hit on anything higher
• Never take insurance under any circumstance; it’s simply a waste of money

As you can see, this is a very simple strategy that helps you decide what to do with your hand based on what the dealer is holding. This is no way guarantees that you’re going to win these hands, but it will help you increase your odds mathematically. Playing a sound, tight game per the numbers puts you in a good position to win more often than not.

At Play Vegas Blackjack Online, what we hope is that you can use the information in this simple blackjack strategy to get the feel for the odds of winning while playing at a blackjack table. From there, you can begin to add your own little twists and spins on the strategy to create something new and exciting for yourself. Just try to practice all of this on a simulator, where you’re not putting in any real money. Get the hang of things first before you bet big on the game.