Blackjack Strategy

Blackjack strategy is based on the simple mathematics. It’s designed to reduce the house edge to half a percent with fine tuning ones strategy depending on the casino house rules, for instance some blackjack tables in certain casinos allow the player to double down after splitting cards, other casinos don’t allow this, adjustments also need to be made depending on the amount of decks used in the game. Minor changes also need to be made depending on the type of blackjack game being played. For example most online casinos will have five or six different types of blackjack games available, each online blackjack game will have slight differences in gameplay.

Becoming a successful blackjack player firstly means getting an understanding of basic blackjack strategy in order to know which action to perform when being dealt cards. The tables below show the recommended actions to take depending on cards dealt to you based on the shoe containing between four and eight decks.

Key

S = Stand
D = Double
H = Hit
P = Split

Translating the actions the above tables indicate is simple. For example the chart tells us if we get a three and a five= nine to hit if your third card is a two, to double. If doubling isn't available then hitting is the only option.

The same works with the Pair chart, for example getting a pair of Aces you’re always going to want to split them however getting a pair of tens means you’re always going to stand. Remember the aim of the game is to beat the dealer and knowing which cards to bet on and which to throw away.

Rather than memorizing different combinations of cards and confusing yourself with trying to understand 270 different situations which could happen with 27 possible player hands, it’s much easier for anyone interested in playing blackjack to firstly focus on remembering some simple rules.

Firstly the best way to learn how to play blackjack is to start off by playing a single variation of online blackjack where the dealer uses multiple decks and stands on seventeen. Once you've found the online blackjack game variant the following strategic rules apply.

Before reading the bullet points below. The terminology of a soft hand is a hand using an ace as 11 rather than 1 for instance ace+3 4 or 14. The ace is blackjack counts as either a one or eleven so therefore if the ace is being used as a high card then the player can afford to take another card since the ace can always revert back to a one. Hard hands are the opposite if the dealer had a 10 and a 7 this is considered a hard seventeen

Soft Hands

  • Never hit when you have nineteen or twenty
  • Always stand on eighteen against a seven or eight
  • Always hit seven or higher
  • Always double against a five or six

Hard Hands

  • Never hit and always stand on nineteen or twenty
  • Surrender fifteen against a ten
  • Hit against a seven or higher
  • Hit a twelve against a two or three
Australians interested in playing online blackjack can find many articles which describes various online blackjack strategies, they are all essentially saying one thing. The goal in online blackjack is not to get twenty one but to beat the dealer.