Blackjack Strategy is an important part of the Learn to
Play Blackjack program.
When you play the game you have a clear choice -- actually, you have
several
clear choices. You can play your own, self-styled blackjack strategy
based on
whim,
reason, your personal experience or some combination of all three.
Or
you can play basic blackjack strategy which is the best play of
every player hand against every dealer upcard, and which is geared to
winning
you the most money.
Or you can play a “kind of” basic strategy which is geared
to winning the most hands.
Basic strategy is geared to maximizing wins and
minimizing
losses -- of money, not hands. Sometimes utilizing basic strategy will
actually
lose you more hands!
And sometimes what “seems wrong” is the
right move to save
you some money in losing situations.
Let me give you an example of what we mean and why people
sometimes make the mistake of deviating from basic strategy because “it
doesn’t
seem to make any sense.”
Take the hand of Ace-7, a soft 18,
against a dealer’s
upcard of 6.
If you stand with the hand, you will win more
decisions than if
you double the hand. An 18 is a strong hand against a dealer’s 6, the
reasoning
goes.
If you double down, you can only improve your hand by
receiving an ace,
2, or 3; if you get a 10 it does not improve it and merely takes the
dealer’s
possible bust card, but receiving a 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 worsens the hand.
So
you have a soft 18 and you double down and you get a 4;
you now find yourself in the unenviable position of sitting there with
a 12 and
twice as much money out! Does this make sense? Maybe it does; maybe it
doesn’t.
But there’s no maybe when it comes to basic blackjack strategy as
always doubling down is what basic
strategy calls for in the above situation of soft 18 against a dealer’s
6.
If you double your soft 18 you will make the hand worse
almost 50 percent of the time, and you will lose more of your decisions
in this
situation because of that.
Yet, by doubling the amount of
money in action on soft 18
vs. a dealer’s 6 upcard, you will win 10 percent more
money in the long run than had you stood on your 18. You’ll
win fewer hands, but you’ll win more money. Which is more important to
you?
It takes many novice players a long while to understand, or
at least to appreciate, and acquiesce to the fact that basic blackjack
strategy
is about
winning.
Here’s another example of where “common sense” and “computer
analysis” clash head on. You have a 16 and the dealer has a 7 upcard.
If you
stand on your 16 and the dealer has a 10 or ace in the hole, you lose.
But
the
dealer will have a 10 or ace in the hole only about 40 percent of the
time. That
means about 60 percent of the time, the dealer is going to have a card
that
forces him or her to take a hit.
So why not stay on your 16,
a definite loser, the
overwhelming majority of the time when you hit it, and let the dealer
do his or
her thing?
The reason is as easy as saving $7 for every $100 you bet in
this situation! Your 16 against anything is a loser, no doubt; but your
16
against a dealer’s upcard of 7 will lose you $48 for every $100 bet in
this
situation if you stand, while it will only lose you $41 for every $100
bet in
this situation if you hit.
That’s a difference of $7. Yes,
you are going to
lose money on 16 vs. a dealer’s upcard of 7 no matter how you play the
hand,
but you will lose $7 less on the 7 if you hit.
Many players
erroneously think that blackjack is close to a 50-50 game with the
house.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The player loses
the majority of the
hands that aren’t pushes!
The statistics show that a player ties
approximately
8 percent of the time, wins approximately 44 percent of the time, and
loses
approximately 48 percent of the time.
Yet, in terms of money
bet, or monetary expectation and
house edge, a blackjack player playing perfect basic strategy faces
around a
one-half percent house edge -- translated that means one losing bet per
200
decisions!
The reason for such a seeming anomaly (you lose
the majority
of your hands but only half of one bet deficit in 200 decisions) has to
do with
the options that players can utilize.
These options,
doubling down, pair
splitting, hitting and standing when used according to basic blackjack
strategy
get more
money on the table in situations that help the player’s overall
monetary
expectation.
Sadly, the reverse is also true. When used improperly, all
the player options can give the house juicy edges against the player.
That
is
why when taking a look at casino blackjack statistics, it is the cash
cow of
the casino table games and it is the players who are being ground up
because of
their poor play.
Blackjack
strategy is followed by Decisions
OR
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to Learn to Play Blackjack Program
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