HOW TO PLAY BLACKJACK

Rules. A blackjack game has a dealer and one or more players. Each player plays against the dealer. All players get two cards to begin and can ask for more until they bust (their total exceeds 21) or they stand (are happy with the total of their cards). Face cards count 10, ace may be 1 or 11. The dealer is dealt one card face up and one face down, and plays a fixed strategy: hit 16 or less (i.e., take a card), stand on 17 or more. The player loses if they bust, wins if they do not bust and the dealer does. Otherwise the player wins if her total is closer to 21 than the dealer’s. No money changes hands in the case of ties. If the player’s first two cards total 21, this is a blackjack and she wins 1.5 times her bet (unless the dealer also has one and a tie results).

Strategies for the player. Many people assume that the best strategy for the player is to mimic the dealer. A second conservative strategy is called never bust: hit 11 or less, stand on 12 or more. Each of these strategies leads to a player disadvantage of about 6 per cent, i.e., betting a dollar each hand, you will in the long run lose an average of six cents per hand.

Edward Thorp in his 1962 book Beat the Dealer describes a simple strategy that makes blackjack almost an even game. The strategy for the player can be described as: if the dealer’s up card is 2-6 play never bust, if it is 7-A mimic the dealer. The exception to this simple rule is that one should hit 12 if the dealer’s up card is 2 or 3.

Soft Hands. A hand that contains an ace that can be counted as 11 is called a soft hand, since one cannot bust by taking a card. With soft hands one should always hit 17 or less and even hit 18 if the dealer’s up card is 9 or 10 (i.e., 10, J, Q, or K).

Doubling Down. When the player has two cards she has the option of doubling her bet and asking for one additional card (which is dealt face down). With a total of 11 always do this. With 10 do it unless the dealer’s up card is 10 or A. With 9 do it against 2-6. [Some casinos only allow doubling down on 11.]

Splitting Pairs. At the beginning if the player has two cards with the same numbers (i.e., a pair) then she has the option to split the pair and play two hands. A pair of aces should of course be split but then blackjack rules allow you to only get one card on each hand, and getting a 10 does not make a blackjack. Never split 10’s, 5’s or 4’s. Always split 8’s. In the other cases split against an up card of 2-7 but not otherwise.