Blackjack at Jackpot Capital Casino can be a bit daunting at first for new blackjack players. We are still getting new gamers who developed a taste for online casino gaming during the Covid 19 lockdowns. As these new gamers travelled about cyberspace looking for a good online casino to lay their hat at, they found that they could play all of any online casino’s games without giving up their seat which doesn’t even exist in cyberspace.
The Online Casino Experience Creates Broad Interest in All Casino Games
This gave rise to new interest in other casino games. At land-based casinos, slots players tend to play slots and blackjack players tend to play blackjack. Craps and roulette players tend to stick with their favorite games as well.
Online casino gamers have access to all of our 300 or so games. This leads erstwhile slots players to try out blackjack and all the other games. Still, blackjack tends to confuse many gamers. So, we thought long and hard on it and we feel that we have come up with a great way to understand blackjack strategy: to separate blackjack strategy into categories.
Blackjack Strategy by its Nature Separates into Categories
This seems so obvious but if you take a look at any blackjack strategy card, you will see a lot of blocks of the same color and it is hard to ferret out the basic strategy amidst all of the colors and odd shapes.
How a Blackjack Strategy Card is Organized
Most blackjack strategy cards are arranged so that the dealer’s up card is at the top and the gamer’s hand is on the left side. Every blackjack player knows that his or her cards are important. What many blackjack players, especially new blackjack players, do not fully realize is that the best strategy often is based on the dealer’s card.
The Dealer’s Rules Play a Massive Role in Blackjack Strategy
Any time the dealer has a 17 or better without an ace (a hard hand) she has to stand. So, a player can win with 18 points against a 17 and there is nothing the dealer can do about it.
Some blackjack variations call for the dealer to hit with soft 17 which means that the dealer has an ace. This presents a small strategic advantage to the dealer.
The Player’s Rules Play a Massive Role in Blackjack Strategy
The player goes first until he or she stands or busts. The dealer always wins if the player busts. When the player stands, the dealer takes cards until she has to stand per the rules or busts.
A Working Definition of Blackjack Strategy is….
Blackjack strategy is a combination of the chances the gamer will improve his or her hand by taking another card plus the one dealer card showing. Sometimes with a given hand, the player will be best advised to hit and sometimes, with the same hand, the player will be best advised to stand.
We can reduce this strategy insight to the following statement: The gamer should always hit if his or her chances of improving their hand are better than if they stand. Now, with 20 points, the chances of improving the hand to 21 are 4 out of 49.
Now let’s look at a standard blackjack strategy card. We can see that there is a square within the card where the player has 13 through 17 points and the dealer has a 2 through a 6 showing. Within this box, the player should always stand.
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There is another box where the dealer has 7 through ace and the player again has 13 through 17 points and the box here adds a 12-point count for the player. With 17 points, the player should stand because the odds of busting are too high. But with 12 through 16 points, the player should hit if he or she is up against a card that with a 10-point card will give the dealer the upper hand.
So, in this specific case, it is better to hit than to stand even with heavy chances of busting. At the edge of this box, the player should surrender if the game allows surrender.
What is the Difference between Splitting and Doubling Down?
In both cases, these are strategies for improving your hand over the possibility that the action will actually weaken your hand. We should look at doubling down first. In this move, the gamer adds another bet equal to their ante bet and gets one card only. After you get that one card, you have to stand. So, it is obvious that with a low point count, doubling down is very poor strategy.
It is excellent strategy to double down whenever you have 11 points. This is one situation where there is no question. The strategy is slightly different if you have 10 points. Here you double down unless the dealer is showing a 10-point card or an ace. You could improve your hand but the dealer still has a slight statistical advantage.
With 9 points, you have to remember that improving your hand over the dealer’s chance to improve her hand more comes into play. So, with 9 points, you should double down only if the dealer has 3 through 6. You hit if the dealer has a 2. This sounds odd but it is proven by statistical analysis of millions of hands.
Should a Player Double Down with a Soft Hand?
A soft hand is one with an ace. Since the ace can be 1 or 11 points, you cannot bust hitting a soft hand. Interestingly enough, on most soft hands the correct strategy is to hit. You double down, and receive just one card, if the dealer has a 5 or a 6. Never double down with ace-9 for 20 points.
There are a few cases where you should double down with a soft hand if the dealer has a 4 or a 3. With the blackjack strategy card in hand, you can easily see these exceptional cases and learn them.
When Should a Player Split?
Splitting means making two hands from a pair. Gamers are told to split almost all pairs with a few exceptions. One exception is when the game does not allow doubling down after a split. You will need to refer to the strategy card to learn when to split 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, and 6’s.
With a pair of 5’s, you should double down and with a pair of 10-point cards, you stand.
There is a box on the strategy card that tells a lot about splitting play. Never split 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 6’s, and 7’s when the dealer has an 8 or better. Always split 8’s since 16 is a very poor hand for the gamer and always split aces.
Jackpot Capital Offers Several Variations of Blackjack
Each variation of blackjack has its own strategy so print out a strategy card and practice using it. We offer unlimited free play so you can practice blackjack at no risk.
Jackpot Capital also offers about 300 other great online casino games. As an online casino gamer, you have the flexibility to play all of our games over time. We encourage gamers to play all of our games to receive the full benefit of gaming at a top online casino.
Learning blackjack strategy is important when you decide to play blackjack. It is also important in real life!
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