Blackjack Strategies

After playing Blackjack for a short while, patterns quickly become apparent. In comparison to most other casino games, the most widely-used systems and strategies for Blackjack are pretty straightforward in their approach.

Basic Blackjack Strategy

“Basic Strategy” is a complete set of plays used for Blackjack. By monitoring the flow of cards and knowing which cards have been played and which are still in the deck, the odds of winning will increase with the more hands that are played. Keeping track of all the cards can be quite a challenge, so players often use special “Blackjack charts” that show the best plays for each hand. Blackjack charts are easy to come by and will be highly recommended for any newcomers to the game.

Card Counting

“Card Counting” is perhaps the most famous gambling strategy. This approach involves tracking the ratio of high and low cards and can reduce the dealer’s usual advantage of 5% to less than 1%, making it one of the most is effective strategies for the game. In some scenarios, the advantage can actually increase in the player’s favor – up to 2%.

There have been many cases of people using the card counting strategy in Las Vegas casinos and walking away with huge sums of money. But there have also been plenty of card-counting controversies where players were illegally relying on technology. Although card counting is not against the rules of Blackjack, provided it is done without the assistance of technology, land-based casinos have been known to remove players using this technique.

The Composition-Dependent Strategy

Composition Dependent Strategy is quite a different approach to Blackjack. Here the order in which the cards have been dealt will be the deciding factor on how a player uses their hand. If there is just one deck and a player has a 10 and 2 as their first two cards, it is less likely that the player or dealer will receive another card worth 10.

In this particular scenario, the player would do better to hit, instead of going with a stand. However, Composition Dependent Strategy only really works for single deck games, as the more decks at the table, the more advantage that is given to the dealer. A game with six decks has an advantage just 1/10th of that for a single deck game.

So now that you know how the game works and what it takes to win, all you need to do is find the right online casino. Worth noting is that some casinos will give a slightly better advantage to the dealer, by allowing/disallowing certain plays in the game. The “hit soft 17” rule is one such “house” advantage, obliging the dealer to hit on a hand with an Ace and stand for a hard 17.

Studying the rules for each casino (and each table) will be vital if you want to get more out of the game. It will be worth sticking to single deck games when you are finding your feet with online Blackjack and playing without a strategy is easily the quickest way to lose your money, so be sure to have a game plan before you start. When you know how to play well, Blackjack can offer the most excitement you’ll find out of any casino game.