Casino Games - Blackjack Strategy

Basic Blackjack Strategy

Check out our Desktop Blackjack Strategy Guide

Basic blackjack strategy is defined as the proper play of cards knowing only your hand and the dealer's exposed card. It does not involve card counting (an advantage lost in playing with 8 decks reshuffled after each hand) or remembering which cards were played previously.

The basic blackjack strategy is created through intensive computer simulations which perform a complete combinatorial analysis. In this method, the computer "plays" tens of thousands of hands for each online Blackjack situation possible and statistically decides which decision best favours the player.

Basic strategy is usually printed as tables with the dealer's up card the first row and your two card combination the first column. The other entries in the table tell you what to do (Stand, Hit, Double-Down, Split) with the different combinations of dealer and player's hands. Basic blackjack strategy tables for casino rules (8 decks, dealer stands on soft 17, double-down on any two cards, double after split allowed, no re-splitting of cards allowed, no surrender) are shown below for hard totals, soft totals, and pairs along with a legend.

Legend
S	Stand
H	Hit
D	Double
Y	Yes, split
N	No, don't split

Hard Totals
YOUR CARDS	DEALERS UPCARD
YOUR CARDS	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	A
17	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
16	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
15	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
14	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
13	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
12	H	H	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
11	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	H
10	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	H	H
9	H	D	D	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
8	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H