One of the most appealing aspects of blackjack is that there’s some element of skill involved. With many casino games, you are entirely reliant on luck, but with blackjack your actions affect the outcomes of hands.

Blackjack is one casino game where a combination of luck and skills can do wonders, and many Blackjack players have had their own “from rags to riches” stories to boast to the rest of the world! When players choose to play slots, they rely entirely on luck – which is not the case for more complex games such as Blackjack. Blackjack basic strategy is a set of rules and guidelines which allow you to maximize your winning odds. It is very hard, if not impossible, to make a profit playing Blackjack, especially in the long term, if you’re not employing the basic strategy. The basic strategy can be displayed either as a table (multiple tables) or as text.

Blackjack is still a game of chance; it’s just that luck isn’t the only factor that determines whether or not you win or lose.

• Blackjack Strategy Each decision you make while playing blackjack has a positive or negative impact on your potential profit or loss. Every situation you have while playing has a single best way to play. If you make the correct play it either makes you the most money in the long run or loses the least amount of money in the long run.
• Casino Blackjack Strategy. Online casino blackjack is one of the most strategic casino games that you can play. Vingt-et-un is French for the number 21, which is also a name for Blackjack. The game was introduced in the early 18th century and since then has been one of the most strategic and skilled games played in casinos.
• Single Deck Blackjack Strategy. With a single deck, early surrender and all of these other rules allowed, the player would actually enjoy about a 1% advantage over the house when playing with perfect strategy. Of course, casinos never offer tables that favor the player or tell them how to win with blackjack strategy cards.

What this means in practice is that you can actually improve your chances of winning. More accurately, in fact, it means that you can decrease your chances of losing.

Every decision you make, such as whether to hit or to stand, will have a direct impact on the result of a hand.

If you consistently make the correct decisions, you can reduce the house edge to a level where the casino’s advantage is almost obsolete.

On this page we explain how basic blackjack strategy can help you make correct decisions each and every time you play.

We explain how it works, how to use it, and we provide a sample strategy chart. We also look at a few blackjack strategies that don’t work.

How Blackjack Strategy Works

You have some information to work with every time you have a decision to make at the blackjack table. You know what cards you have, and you can see one of the dealer’s cards. Based on this information, it’s possible to work out the probabilities of what could happen next.

This is because there’s a fixed number of cards in the decks, and a fixed probability for each of those cards being dealt.

This is done by comparing the probabilities of all the possible combinations of cards that could be dealt, and determining how these combinations would impact the final outcome of the hand.

Once you know how the different actions you can take will affect your chances of winning, you can then choose the optimal one. There’s always a correct mathematical decision to make, and taking it enables you to keep the house edge to the absolute minimum.

That is essentially the whole point of blackjack strategy.

The problem with basic blackjack strategy is that it’s not always easy to establish the correct decision accurately. There are some complicated mathematical calculations required.

Blackjack Casino Rules Vegas

Unless you’re a genius, there’s a very small chance of you being able to make those calculations every time you play a hand. Thankfully, you don’t have to make any calculations.

These rules tell you exactly what action you should take in any given situation, based on the cards in your hand and the exposed dealer card.

By following them, you can apply basic blackjack strategy without using any math at all. All you have to do is learn the rules.

Given that there are hundreds of different situations you can find yourself in at the blackjack table, learning the rules for what to do in each one isn’t necessarily easy.

It might be pretty obvious that you should stand if you have 20 and the dealer is showing an eight, but situations such as having 12 when the dealer is showing a three are perhaps not so clear.

If you want to apply basic blackjack strategy perfectly, then you need to know what to do in every possible situation. This is where the use of strategy charts comes in handy.

A blackjack strategy chart is a matrix that shows all the possible combinations of your hand and the dealer’s exposed card. It shows the action you should take when facing each combination.

These charts are based on the correct rules for employing basic strategy, so if you do what the chart says, you’ll be making the right decision every time.

The following is an example of how a strategy chart looks. Along the top you have the dealer’s card, and down the side is your hand. Each individual cell shows what action you should take for the relevant combination.

The chart includes a key for the action each symbol in the cells represents.

You’ll notice that some of the actions are dependent on certain rules. For example, splitting is the right decision in some situations only if you are allowed to double after a split. This is because there are variants of blackjack where some of the rules are different.

The perfect strategy will vary depending on the exact rules of the blackjack variant you are playing. The chart shown above is the correct strategy for playing an eight deck game where the dealer stands on soft 17.

A few decisions would be slightly different if you were playing another game. These differences are, however, very marginal. If you follow the above chart for any variant, you will still play close to perfect hand.

Therefore, you stand a much better chance of winning more hands than you lose during a single session.

There are a few blackjack strategies that, for some reason, are popular among players even though they don’t work. These are as follows:

• Mimic the Dealer
• Never Bust
• Assume a Ten
• Progressive Betting

Mimic the dealer is a simple strategy where you simply act in the same way as a dealer would in any situation. You would never split, double, or surrender, because these options aren’t available to the dealer.

Basically, you would just hit on less than 17 and stand on 17 or higher, regardless of the dealer’s exposed card. This isn’t a good strategy at all, because splitting and doubling can be very advantageous to the player in the right situations.

Never bust is an equally simple strategy.

You just never hit if there’s a risk of going bust, so you always stand on 12 or higher. While this might seem like a safe approach, it actually increases the house edge.

A ten strategy works on the basis that you assume the next card will always be a ten, and that the dealer’s unexposed is a ten. Players often work on this assumption due to the fact that cards valued at ten make up around 30% of the deck (remember jacks, queens, and kings are all valued at ten).

However, 70% of the cards aren’t valued at ten, so you are still more likely not to get a ten. As such, this strategy doesn’t really work and increases the house edge.

Progressive betting is increasing or decreasing your bet size based on the result of your previous bet. This is a strategy that can be used in any form of betting, and there are several different progressive betting systems in existence.

They don’t have any effect on the house edge, because your chances of winning or losing a hand don’t change based on how much you bet.

They can also be very dangerous, particularly when aligned with systems such as the Martingale where you keep increasing your stake after a loss. One bad run can result in the loss of your entire bankroll.

Why Do You Need a Blackjack Strategy Chart?

Blackjack Strategy Chart 2018

If you have watched any of our how to play blackjack videos, then you will know that the game of blackjack has one of the lowest house edges in the casino.

However, this is only true if you are playing every blackjack hand correctly. You see, blackjack is a game of skill, as well as luck, meaning that if you know how to properly play your hands, you will achieve a better payback percentage (in the long run) than someone who sits there and guesses how to play their blackjack hands.

Actually, there is only one mathematically correct way to play your hand in any given situation and it is the blackjack strategy chart that will show you how to do that. The chart will tell you how to play your hand based on the total of the cards you are dealt and also, the dealer’s up card. Just find those two factors on the chart and it will show you how to play that hand. This means that there is no guesswork on your part and you have an easy way to play your hands in the mathematically correct manner!

Listed below is a link for blackjack strategy charts. You can print them out and take them with you to the casino so you know how to properly play your hand in any given situation. Good Luck!

Keep in mind that a casino’s mathematical advantage against you can change, depending on the number of decks they use and the rules of the game they offer. Playing a single-deck game would be best, while an eight-deck game would be worst. Plus, some rules are good for you (dealer stands on soft 17, doubling after splitting allowed), while some are bad (dealer hits soft 17, no doubling down allowed).

This also means that the correct strategy can change slightly based on the number of decks used and the rules enforced. Therefore, you will notice that there are six different FREE blackjack strategy charts that we offer you on our website. Be sure to check at the top of each chart to make sure you are using the proper chart for the game that you will be playing.

If you use your blackjack strategy charts correctly, you can easily lower the casino’s long-term advantage to less than 1%, which makes it one of the best games in the casino. Especially, compared to slot machines which have a casino edge of about 5% to 15%.

Blackjack Strategy Software

As a final word of caution, however, be sure that you only play blackjack games that pay you 3-to-2 if you are dealt a blackjack. Unfortunately, there are many casinos that now pay only 6-to-5, or even-money for dealt blackjacks, and they are usually found at the lower-limit tables.

If a casino only pays 6-to-5 for blackjacks, that raises the casino advantage by about 1.40%, more than doubling the casinos advantage! And, even worse, if they only pay even-money for blackjacks, that adds about an extra 2.30% to the casino’s edge over you, bringing it up to about 3.30%, making it more than triple the standard casino advantage of about 1%!

So, be sure to avoid any game that doesn’t pay you 3-to-2 for your blackjacks!

Blackjack Strategy At A Casino

Try an online casino for FREE! Use any of our great No Deposit Bonus Codes. No credit card needed, just sign up and start playing!