Beating Blackjack Basic Strategies

There are some basic rules to remember when applying strategy to playing Blackjack. At this point, you aren’t ready to begin counting cards so try to remember this system to get practice in on some basic steps. Start by remembering that Aces should always be considered having a value of one, unless they are paired with a seven, eight or nine. The term given to an Ace paired with a seven is a -soft- 18. Soft because if for some reason you hit on an 18, the Ace can be counted as a one making your point total eight instead of 18.

Strategy One: Beginning Moves Add up the point total of the cards you are holding. If the total is less than 11 points, hit. Once you receive the third card add up the point total again. If the total is twelve to sixteen, and the dealer’s up card is greater than six, hit. If it isn’t, stand on your twelve to sixteen. If the total is seventeen to twenty, stand. The exception to the last one is if one of the cards you have is an Ace. If that’s the case, and the dealer has an up card greater than eight, hit. If not, then stand.

Strategy Two: Intermediate Moves Continue using the strategies in part one and add the following to your regular play. If you are dealt a pair, split the two cards and play two hands. The exception to the pairs rule is if the cards are fours, fives or tens. If you get a pair of fours, hit. If it’s a pair of fives, and the dealer’s up card is a ten or an Ace, hit or double down. (Double your bet, get dealt another card.) If you get tens, stand. There is a seven percent chance of drawing an Ace in a full deck and those odds decrease if any of the Aces have already been used.

Strategy Three: Advanced Moves Incorporate the beginning and intermediate moves and add these. If your point total is nine, double down if the dealer’s up card is less than seven. If your point total is ten, double down if the dealer’s up card is less than ten. If your point total is eleven, double down regardless of the dealer’s hand.

Additional Advice Learning the rules of blackjack is easy, applying the strategies and learning to count the cards can take months, even years to fully master. You will need to practice your game by playing others, playing online, or just playing by yourself. As you learn to gain speed in decision making for strategies, betting and more you can then progress on to learning some basic card counting techniques.

You may wonder how playing or practicing blackjack online differs from playing with others. The answer to that depends on which site you are using. Some sites use a -one-deck’ shoe others use more. Keeping track of the -count’ of the remaining cards is important in card counting so it’s important to have some idea of how many decks are used. You may try different sites before you find your favourite online casino and the casino games that you prefer.