Blackjack Casino Strategy Chart
The basic strategy for Multiple-Action blackjack (and similar games) is the same as regular blackjack. READING THE BASIC STRATEGY CHART (S) Dealer’s up-card is shown along the top of the chart. Player’s hand is shown vertically on the left side of the chart. The blackjack strategy chart is a tool which can guide a player into making the decisions which give you the best odds of tasting success when playing 21. Thorp first published Beat the Dealer, online blackjack did not exist so his optimal play strategies weren’t created with the Internet in mind. Blackjack Strategy Chart Using Basic Strategy Charts and Cards Blackjack strategy charts help players decide what action to take in any possible situation during a blackjack game. Charts are read with the players hand listed vertically on the left side of the chart with the dealer’s exposed cards variations listed on the top.
Here at casino-strategy.com we are determined to give you the best strategies that gets you the highest possible chances of winning. But that is not as easy as it seems.To get the most value and fully enjoy this article, you have to be familiar with the Basic Rules of Blackjack - if you're not, consider reading our article on it. Like every game that has decision points, Blackjack requires a strategy to get the most out of the game.
In Blackjack the number of situations that can occur is quite high. The dealer may have 52 different face-up cards dealt to them, and we could get 1275 different starting hands (counting the dealer's upcard). And we did not account for other players at the table (or us playing several hands at the same time) and the later situations that can occur after hitting or splitting our hand. In short, we have a lot of ground to cover and need to simplify our blackjack strategy chart quite a bit.
Here at casino-strategy.com we ran some simulations with the most common Blackjack rules and came to the following blackjack strategy card:
Multideck, Dealer stands at soft 17: Surrender and Double Allowed, No Surrender, No Double, No surrender or double allowed
Multideck, Dealer hits soft 17: Surrender and Double Allowed, No Surrender, No Double, No surrender or double allowed
Single deck, Dealer stands at soft 17: Surrender and Double Allowed, No Surrender, No Double, No surrender or double allowed
Single deck, Dealer hits soft 17: Surrender and Double Allowed, No Surrender, No Double, No surrender or double allowed
It's nothing new, you've probably seen blackjack strategy charts like this before. When you're dealt a hand, sum up its total value, look at the dealer's face-up card and find them in the blackjack strategy chart (don't forget to check whether you have a soft hand); now you should know what action to take. Say you hit maybe once or twice, what now? Well, the chart still applies somewhat, but may be a little bit inaccurate in this case.
Forming a strategy in Blackjack heavily relies on the cards we can see at the table - those cards can't be dealt again. Let's look at an example. For the sake of this example, let's only use a single deck - this will make the example easier to understand. The chart says that if you have 16 and the dealer shows a 7 you should hit. This may seem a little bit controversial, because you need to catch a 2, 3, 4 or an A not to bust - that's not a lot of cards. However, the chance of the dealer having a card worth 10 in the hole is so high you still need to risk it.
But what if you were not dealt 16, but got there from a 2,3 starting hand and hitting a 4, an Ace, a 3 and another 3. So your hand is 2,3,4,A,3,3. Just to make things worse, the guy on our left has an Ace and the guy on our right just busted his K2 hand with another T. In this case hitting would be the worst play. Remember, we needed 2,3,4,A (a total of 16 cards) but 8 of these are dead. The chance of us getting a favourable card (our ‘outs’ to a good hand) has been bisected. The chances of the dealer having a T in the whole has increased though (since we see all these dead low cards), but that's not nearly enough to make us want to try our luck for the remaining 8 cards. This is called card removal effect.
How applicable is this to a 6-deck format? Somewhat, but to a much lesser extent. While having 8 cards dead in a single deck format is ~15% of the cards, 8 cards dead in a 6-deck format is only 2.6%. This means that if you decide to follow our charts in a multi-deck environment, you more than likely won't be making a huge mistake - and even if a better option was had, the difference in expected value is probably only fractional.
For now we'll leave you with this, start getting familiar with casino-strategy blackjack strategy card and think about the situations you might want to deviate from it, but don't go ham, there is only a handful of those. If you're interested in how the blackjack strategy chart is built-up and evaluations of some special situations - take a look at our Blackjack Advanced Strategy Articles.
Do you want to test your freshly gained blackjack knowledge? Try out our very own blackjack trainer, the Blackjack Guru!
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 still a game of chance; it’s just that luck isn’t the only factor that determines whether or not you win or lose.
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.
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.
Blackjack Casino Strategy Chart Template
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.
Blackjack Casino Strategy Chart Example
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.