Is Blackjack Hard to Learn Well?
Jackpot Capital online casino offers over 200 great games. We have found that many players have chosen to play games of chance, such as jackpot slots, instead of expanding their gaming horizons into the games of skill such as blackjack and video poker. In this article, we at Jackpot Capital Casino, will give you an introduction to blackjack.
We can’t cover every aspect of blackjack in just one article so you can see this as the first in a series similar to our series of articles on video poker.
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The Player Goes First
This is the part that has so many blackjack players, not just new players but many experienced ones as well, befuddled, bamboozled, and generally pixilated! You see, if the player, who goes first, goes over 21 points, he or she loses right away. It doesn’t matter what the dealer does later on!
So, many players stand with 12 points or more. This is poor strategy. We will get to the nuances of strategy in the next article but for now you need to understand that statistics state very clearly that there are many situations where the player should hit with 12 or more points.
The Rules Compensate Players for the Disadvantage of Going First
There are several nuances in the rules that help players overcome the disadvantage of going first. One big way the rules compensate players is by paying 3-2 for a blackjack. There are some casinos that have changed the return to player rate for a blackjack to 6-5, 7-6, or even 1-1. Keep in mind that this change is almost exclusively found at land based casinos which have such high operating costs that they need to find ways to get more money out of players. This is not the Jackpot Capital way!
There are other rules that serve to compensate players for the disadvantage of going first. Another such rule is the dealer has to hit with 16 points or less. There is a great deal of player friendly strategy for when the dealer is showing a six or a five. Let’s look now at one such situation.
Doubling Down
This is a powerful strategy play where you double your bet and get one card. The classic doubling down hand is an 11 but you can also double down with ten points, nine points, and so on.
A lot of strategy depends on what the dealer’s up card is. Even if you have a relatively weak point count, say seven points but the dealer is showing a six or five it is probably good strategy to double down. You might win double your original bet with a poor hand simply because the dealer often has an even worse hand! It is always to the player’s advantage to play a game in which he or she can double down with any two cards.
In many situations, the statistical difference for the player may be close to zero yet it is statistically significant in a game where the house advantage is also close to zero.
Splitting
This is when you have two identical cards and are allowed to split them creating two hands. The two most obvious rules of thumb are that you always split aces and you never split ten-point cards.
A variation on this rule allows the player to split again if they get the same card a third or even a fourth time. When you split cards, you play the hand out as if it were a normal hand. That means that you aren’t restricted to getting just one card; you can get as many cards as you want!
The best variation of the rule on splitting is when doubling down is allowed after splitting.
Surrender
This rule allows players to surrender half their bet and conserve the other half. It is great for players when they have a very poor hand and the dealer is showing a powerful card that will likely result in a win for the house.
Some blackjack games allow for late surrender which means that the player can surrender even after receiving a third, fourth, or even fifth card. Late surrender is also worth a small percentage advantage to the player but, once again, every small advantage that comes to players in blackjack is statistically significant.
As we have seen, some rules help players and some rules work to players’ disadvantage. It’s always best to play a blackjack game that has a return to player rate of close to 100%. This is characteristic of the blackjack games here at Jackpot Capital.
Is There ever a Time When I Should Hit with 16 Points?
There are many situations where you should hit with a very poor hand statistically but they all apply to games without the surrender option. In every such situation, you would surrender if you could. Here is one example: If you have 9-7 and the dealer has 10, you should hit but only if the game does not have the surrender option.
Are Betting Systems as Good as People Say They Are?
Betting systems do not work! Never play a system that calls for increasing your bet when you lose. The reason is that luck often comes in waves. The same is as true of poor luck as it is of good luck. So if you lose some money over the course of several hands you might lose a factor of that amount by raising your bet and continuing the streak of losses.
No player can win every time out. It is very poor strategy to lose more than you should by increasing your bets when you’ve lost a few hands in a row. Online blackjack is much better than land based blackjack because when you play online you can simply stop.
Go do something else.
When you’re at a land based casino, you have very little else to do so most players just continue playing when they really should stop. The same is true of slots players and gamers who play any of the casino games.
The rule of thumb is that when you play at an online casino, you can stop a lot more easily than you can at a land based casino.
Blackjack is the King of the Games of Skill
Many gamers revel in the challenge of reading hands and making the best statistical decision playing hand after hand.
One skill that players can use and that we will discuss more in the next article is card counting. When you master the basic strategy for blackjack and learn how to count cards effectively, you’ll be on an even plane with the house.
Developing great skill at blackjack can also filter out into your professional activities. This, too, is the subject for another article!
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