The house of blackjack - home of the world's most popular card game. The Hard Hand, Red Sevens, a Soft Hand, the Push, taking Insurance, Early Surrender, a Hot Deck - sweet music to the ears of avid blackjack gamblers.

BLACKJACK STRATEGY

A good blackjack strategy is one that combines good bankroll management, proper use of basic strategy, and a healthy dose of knowing when to walk away. On this page we can outline some good blackjack strategy and some bad blackjack strategy; hopefully you'll find something in between that suits you right.

Strategies range from the simple and elegant, to the simple and dumb, to the complicated and elegant, to the complicated and pointless. That's a lot of strategies. How do you know how to find an effective one? First things first, most people looking for blackjack strategy are looking for one of two things: if you want to learn how to improve your game this page will tell you exactly how; If you want to learn about card counting visit our page.

The majority of well-played blackjack in the world revolves around something called 'basic strategy'. Basic strategy is, contrary to what its name suggests, the most advanced strategy available. In the middle of the 80s, when personal computers were becoming available, some mathematicians decided to teach a computer to play blackjack. The researchers decided to have the computer determine which player-decisions would be most profitable for every combination of an initial hand vs. dealer up-card that exists.

What we end up with is a chart showing us what to do for every opening hand. Take a look at the chart below. If you follow the column on the left down until you reach your two-card hand, then follow the row over to the right until you reach the column that represents the dealer's up-card. In the cell you've just found will be a decision: Either H (hit), S (stand), D (double down). Splitting rules are usually contained within their own chart that only references opening hands that could be split.

Table 1 - Hard totals

	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Ace
8	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
9	H	D	D	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
10	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	H	H
11	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	H
12	H	H	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
13	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
14	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
15	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	SU	H
16	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	SU	SU	SU
17	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S

Table 2 - Soft totals

	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Ace
A,2	H	H	H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,3	H	H	H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,4	H	H	D/H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,5	H	H	D/H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,6	H	D/H	D/H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,7	S	D/S	D/S	D/S	D/S	S	S	H	H	H
A,8	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S

Table 3 - Pairs

	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Ace
2,2	P/H	P/H	P	P	P	P	H	H	H	H
3,3	P/H	P/H	P	P	P	P	H	H	H	H
4,4	H	H	H	P/H	P/H	H	H	H	H	H
5,5	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	H	H
6,6	P/H	P	P	P	P	H	H	H	H	H
7,7	P	P	P	P	P	P	H	H	H	H
8,8	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
9,9	P	P	P	P	P	S	P	P	S	S
T,T	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
A,A	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P

Table 4 - Tag Descriptions

H	Hit - take a card.
S	Stand - do not take a card.
P	Split the pair.
D	Double down.
SU	Surrender if available otherwise HIT.
D/P	Double if available otherwise HIT.
D/S	Double if available otherwise STAND.
P/H	Split if double after split is available otherwise HIT.