Smash Vegas

Whatever cards you hold, and whatever the dealer’s up card is, there is an optimal (best) way to play every hand of blackjack.  By learning the optimal choice for every situation we adopt what is known in the blackjack world as basic strategy.  You must learn this by heart for each game you play.  Whenever you deviate from it you are playing sub-optimally and are giving away money.

There are many rules variations in blackjack, and any variation will change the basic strategy for that game.  Below is a strategy table for blackjack played with 4 decks, where the dealer sticks on soft 17 (a soft hand is one made up of an ace plus another card, in this case 6).  Although designed for those rules, it doesn’t lose too much expected value from most rules changes, so it’s a good general case strategy to learn.  Note that a few obvious situations are missed out (always hit below 8, always stick on hard 18+ and soft 19+ etc.).

I know it looks complicated, but unfortunately if you want to play blackjack you need to learn basic strategy.  Try to learn the rough patterns to the chart and then start dealing yourself practice hands.  Or you could try play money blackjack online…

Continue to part 3 - game selection.

If you want a downloadable guide then here’s my PDF.