Blackjack is a game of skill and understanding its basics will increase your chances of walking away a winner. Most beginners – and even some more experienced players – are prone to easily avoided mistakes that severely curtail their chances of winning.
One pitfall is deviating from basic strategy. Another pitfall is taking insurance bets that are mathematically unprofitable.
Basic strategy
A game of Blackjack in a casino involves placing wagers using a deck of cards. The player can place different kinds of bets, for instance, split, double, hit, take out insurance, and so on. Below you can find a guide on its basic strategy so you can make more money with each game!
With our tips over on the blackjack page, the house edge can be reduced to under one per cent, and with honest practice, control of your money and getting to grips with probabilities you can become a smarter blackjack player.
Another strategy is simply to commit to memory and practice with the basic strategy chart for your game of blackjack (the rules and regulations given to you by the casino will dictate which chart you should use). Memorise the chart thoroughly, and make sure you practice with the chart until you can play without looking at any charts; counting cards to achieve an edge against the dealer is an option for more experienced players, but should be left to the more – and dare I say more foolish? – among us.
Advanced strategy
But blackjack is not just luck, there is definitely a bit of skill. So there are definitely some strategies that will enhance your chance of winning and at the same time cut down on the eventual loss. Double down on 10’s and split or pair, will increase your chance of beating the dealer.
When you’ve gotten good at basic strategy, these strategies should be used. Also, try and learn to play at an optimal level, both in terms of length and in terms of playing well (so that you don’t feel the need to make any ‘impulse plays’ of the kind that are generally the product of novice players).
But then you need to go further than that, and use blackjack strategy charts alongside reading books by great players, or practising on a simulator online. Try practicing on blackjack side bets for an extra bit of fun. No, it’s not illegal to card count at any casino table (blackjack or otherwise); to the contrary, it is just an excellent way of shoring up your advantage while you are playing, you just need to become a better player first.
Bankroll management
Without good bankroll management, the game of blackjack, at any level from beginner to expert, is simply a seat at a table, free food, drinks and a few dollars cashed in for some brief and – at best – mediocre entertainment. Beyond the skill of playing a winning game, effective bankroll management is the single most important aspect of playing in a casino for real money. Good management involves both pre-game planning and in-game adjustments, and it works by boosting your winning potential, reducing losses whenever you suffer downswings, and growing all of this volume during any winning run where you manage to find it.
Specifically, you can strategise going forward by maintaining a record of each blackjack session, either on a spreadsheet or in the pages of a little notebook. There’s always a way this can help by letting players be more aware of their patternsof winning and losing so they can make appropriate adjustments to their betting strategy.
The other thing you need to do during your blackjack sessions is to calculate the risk of ruin (ROR), which is the probability that you’ve gone broke; expert blackjack players tend to keep this number below 1 per cent or so. Assuming you understand the rules of the game (because, for example, you know how to size your bets to the True Count), you should be able to work your way towards this.
Psychological play
Blackjack is luck-dependent. There will always be a house edge to overcome, but playing strategy can minimise it to less than 1 per cent. Focus should be on the decision, not on shouting: stack leaves already filling a pea banana compost Recently, we have been experimenting with quantitative pricing at the Pea Pod. We wanted to try daily limits on wagering, hoping they would make it more likely for some players to stick to their selected minimum, maximum and average bets per hour.
For instance, it is possible to reduce the house edge using hand interaction, where a blackjack player bets on another player’s unprofitable split, or buys part of a profitable double from another player, or negotiates the casino for a rebate on their losses.
In addition to basic strategy, you can improve your blackjack game through shuffle tracking and card counting, which gives you an advantage of about 1 per cent to 2 per cent in the long run, though you need to be aware of when to stop using systems to avoid greater losses, and you should set your bankroll prior to beginning play. And you must never think you can recover losses by gambling more than you planned or exceeding your planned budget.