Notes

Basic BlackJack Strategy
Blackjack is much more than a playing game of guessing, which is contrary to what some gamblers might think. The majority of blackjack games are guessing games. With any blackjack hand, there is a right strategy as well as an ineffective strategy. Basic strategy is the correct strategy. The best strategy is the one that has the highest mathematical efficiency. That is, it will maximize your winnings while minimizing your losses over time.

You might have noticed that many other popular card games have no fundamental strategy. For play games , there is no standard strategy in poker. A poker player plays his hands based on whether or not the opponent has a powerful hand or might be bluffing, and whether they themselves are holding an extremely strong hand, or decide to attempt to bluff.

A fundamental strategy is not possible for any card game as long as your opponent can make decisions, regardless of whether those choices are good or not regarding how to play his hand. For hundreds of years there was no standard blackjack strategy as it was not a casino game that required the dealer to display a single card and then play according to the house rules. It was more of a game played in the poker style where both dealers' cards were concealed. The dealer was able to play as he wanted and players were able to fool the dealer by using their own play.

When the American casinos altered the rules of twenty-one, allowing one of the dealer's cards and require the dealer to adhere to a strict hit/stand strategy, an important thing happened. The game was transformed from being a poker-style game which relied more on the psychology , to one that was entirely mathematical.

The Reasons Why the Basic Strategy works ... The "Odds", Why Basic Strategy is Effective

To help us for this article, we'll start with the assumption that our dealers are playing a fair game. No sleight-of-hand, no chicanery. While we won't ignore the First Rule of Professional Gamblers we'll take a break from it so that we can understand the logic behind each game , and to reveal the fundamental strategy that eliminates most of the house’s mathematical edge. The majority of games played in casinos today are fair and honest. If business are faced with a game that isn't on your level, you won't even attempt to beat it.

For the honestly dealt game computer scientists have analysed every possible hand you can hold against any possible dealer upcard in order to determine the most effective basic strategy for playing the game. One thing that probably stunned the first mathematicians to do these computer analyses was the fact that a nearly perfect basic strategy had actually already been figured out and published by four GIs with desk jobs and plenty of time to spare during the 1950s. They had no computer however they'd worked for three years working with old-fashioned mechanical adders that ran through all possible outcomes of the hands they dealt. technology was the best Uncle Sam could ever get from the four GIs' salary!

We also are aware that many professional gamblers in Nevada were capable of figuring out basic strategies years before computers became popular. The method was devised by those who played hands on their kitchen tables. Certain decisions required thousands, tens or thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of hands. These guys, like most professional gamblers since then, never published their strategies since they were professionals. Blackjack was their main source of income and they'd logged hundreds of hours figuring it out. They didn't want to share what they knew.

One thing is for certain that casinos did not know the best strategy for playing the game. This was also true for those who had read some of the most popular books on the matter. A number of Hoyle's old guides advised that players always keep to totals of 15 and 16, regardless of what the dealer's top card was, to split tens and never to split nines, as well as to keep a soft 17. The "smart" players of the time, meaning people who had read any of these books on gambling written by some of these respected authorities were the ones who typically devised all kinds of bets that we understand today are extremely expensive.

Many people don’t understand the reasoning behind the strategy. Let me offer an example. When my hand totals 14 and the dealer has an upcard of 10, the blackjack strategy says to hit. This is the mathematically correct strategy. Sometimes business 'll be lucky enough to hit the 14, and then draw an 8, 9, 10, or 10, to stop. Then the dealer will turn over his hole card, which is a 6 and you'll realize that if you would have been standing on your 14 the dealer would have to hit his total of 16 and would have busted with that 10. You lost a hand by making the mathematically correct decision.

Some players might argue that there really isn't a basic strategy that is always correct. Blackjack according to them, is a guessing game.

To understand basic strategy, you have to start thinking like a professional gambler and that's why you need be able to comprehend the concept of "the blackjack odds."

Let me go over the basic logic behind a strategy with a different scenario which illustrates how the math of statistics and probability work. Let's suppose I have a jar containing one hundred marbles. 50 of the marbles are black while fifty are white. With your eyes closed, reach inside and pick one marble. But, before you start, you must make a bet of $1 that the marble you select will be white or black. If you get the color you picked, you win $ 1 If not then you'll lose $1.

Are you playing a guessing game?


Absolutely. It's impossible to determine the color of marble you'll choose ahead of time. It's good luck if you win. If you lose, it's bad luck.

What if you knew that 90% of the marbles in this list are black while 10% are white? What if you were to place a bet on white or black before you draw? An intelligent person would choose the black. Although it is possible get white marbles out but you are more likely to get one that is black. It could be a guessing exercise, but you're still likely to lose $1 should you get lucky enough to find the white marble, however If you wager on black, the odds are to your advantage.

Professional gamblers earn their living by thinking about "the odds" and only placing bets when odds are in his favor. In this case the gambler will be betting on black since odds are 9-to-1 in his favor. If best games bet on white, odds are 9:1 against you.

It is possible to lose money if the dealer shows a 10 upcard. But technology are against you if the dealer shows a 10.

If you take your decisions by playing your hunches, you may win some hands but you'll lose more hands in the long run. There is only one correct option for any particular play and that decision is made solely based on math. Probability laws determine your expectations for every possibility.



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