Blackjack has long been considered the hardest casino card game to master. This is because the cards don’t reveal their true value until after they have come out of the shoe. As such, you can never be sure whether you have a winning hand or not. In reality, the odds are always stacked against you.
Online blackjack players often fall victim to beginner’s luck. They play too aggressively, betting on every single card, increasing the house edge. The only way to win consistently is to adopt the proper strategy. And this is where our article comes in. We’ve compiled a comprehensive guide to online blackjack, from basic rules to advanced techniques. By reading through these articles, you’ll gain real insights into this exciting casino game.
Know your Blackjack Terms
You should know what:
- A soft 17 means that instead of hitting a blackjack and receiving 12 points, you earn an additional 2 points for each dealt 21 point. To use it, place all your chips on a 17 card, and if you get a soft 17, then you’re rich!
- A hard 16 means that instead of getting one extra chip with a blackjack, you receive four chips instead. If you get a soft 16, you lose and must return half of your current bet.
- An Ace pays 11 points. You can double up any combination of two Aces (AA), but doubling down on a pair of 10’s will result in a loss of the entire wager.
Learn Your Stats
You need to learn how to read a deck of cards. There are 52 different categories in a deck of cards. Each category contains 4 suits of 13 ranks. Each rank is made up of its own number sequence (Ace, Two, Three etc). Every time you shuffle the deck, the order of the suits and ranks remains the same.
The first 5 cards in a deck are numbered from 1 through 10. When used as reference numbers – ace is number 1, deuce is number 2, etc. You can tell which suit each card belongs to. For example, a 10 would belong to the club suit, while an 8 would belong to the spade suit.
Now that we’ve learned about stats and suits, let’s take a look at some common terms used in playing blackjack:
- Card Count
- Bankroll
- Dealer’s Upcard
- Split Cards
- Hit/Stand
- Odds
- House Edge
- Probability
Play Strategy
If you want to get better at playing blackjack, you should begin with the basics. First is knowing the rules. Rules govern everything we do during a game of blackjack. It could be stated simply like this: “the dealer receives no more than 18 decks of cards.” However, there are so many other aspects to consider when learning how to play blackjack.
Knowing the Hand Rankings
Here is a quick rundown of hand rankings.
- Straight Flush: 9+10+11+1232
- Four of a Kind: 3+3+3+315
- Full House: 4+4+416
- Flush: 5+510
- Three of a Kind: 6+612
- Two Pairs: 7+714
- One Pair: 8+816
- High Card: Any king or queen + 9 19
- Low Card: Any jack, J, Q, K – 1021
When you count hands, remember to include the Deuces and Tens. Always start counting with the highest card face up. Then work your way down the line.
Types of Straight Flushes
There are three types of straight flushes:
- High Straight Flush: One card that goes from high to low.
- Low Straight Flush: One that goes from low to high.
- Reverse Straight Flush: Both cards go from high to low. This type of flush occurs very rarely – approximately once in 1000 hands played.
Types of Full Houses
There are five types of full houses:
- Four of a kind in the following order: 4+4+4+417
- Four of a kind with jacks and queens: 4+4+4476
- Four of a kind followed by another set: 43467
- Full house and straight: 43697
- Full house and flush: 476987
How to Calculate Your Odds
To calculate the odds of obtaining a certain outcome such as winning a progressive tournament, you multiply the probability of drawing the specific hand by the total amount wagered. Remember, you only have to know the probability of the specific event occurring, not every possible outcome! So, if someone is betting $100,000 and has a 20% chance of winning, he’d win $20k, assuming he was correct 100 times out of 100.
In addition to calculating probabilities for outcomes, you also have to know how often they occur per hour of play. A player must learn his expected return over the course of hours spent at the casino table. In most venues where gambling happens, games last longer than one hour. If the average bet per hand is $15, then the gambler will lose $270 on hourly basis. He’ll make $0 if he stays longer than 25 hours – or just 35 minutes! That’s a pretty tough rule to follow.