Blackjack Tips

Good Blackjack Tips

Blackjack is a skills-based game. The more skillful a player is, the better he will do at the game. This fact has led experts through the years to try and develop the ultimate gaming strategy and the result is a basic blackjack strategy, based on mathematical probability and tested through computer simulations. Essentially, the strategy will guide the player about the correct hand to play for every possible position in a typical game of blackjack. If the player follows the blackjack strategy to the tee, especially at online blackjack, the house edge can be reduced to a minimum – sometimes as little as 0.5%.

The basic strategy may need minor adjustments, depending on the blackjack rules of a particular game; however, it can usually be applied to most variants of blackjack. The blackjack strategy is usually divided into three main sections: How to play hard hands, how to play soft hands and how to play pairs.

A hard hand is a pair of two starting cards that do not contain an ace. The basic strategy dictates, for example, that if a player is dealt 8 or less, he should always hit. However, if he has been dealt a nine and the dealer has three through to six, he should double – otherwise he should hit.

If a player, for example, is dealt a soft hand (ie. one that contains an ace), of an ace plus a 2, he is advised to double if the dealer has a five or six, but hit in all other cases. Moves relating to pairs may show players that they should always split if they have a pair of aces or eights.