Blackjack As

  

In order to understand how the best strategy is computed, lets have a look at the Blackjack rules. Blackjack is played with 1 to 9 decks of 52 cards each. The values of the cards correspond to their numerical value from 2-10. All face cards (Jack, Queen, King) count 10 and the Ace either 1 or 11, as the holders desires. A score with an ace valued as 11 is named soft-hand. A soft-hand score of 17 is denoted as 7/17.

The color of the cards does not have any effect.

By Masque Publishing. Authentic Vegas Blackjack with Match the Dealer bonus bets! Multiplayer online 21, chat, and FREE chips! Your Gaming History. Sticker – Blackjack Playing Card (3 Pack) $ 5.00 Add to cart; 25 Creedmoor Blackjack Spec Chambering Reamer (Dave Manson – Live Pilot – 0.115″ Freebore – 0.290″ Neck) $ 199.99 Read more; 25 CREEDMOOR Blackjack Spec Chambering Reamer with Flush-Grooves (CLYMER – Screw-Type Live Pilot – 0.115″ Freebore – 0.290″ Neck) $ 205. The best possible blackjack hand is an opening deal of an ace with any ten-point card. This is called a 'blackjack', or a natural 21, and the player holding this automatically wins unless the dealer also has a blackjack. If a player and the dealer each have a blackjack, the result is a push for that player.

Blackjack is Percy Jackson 's friendly, pure black pegasus. He often serves as Percy's main option of transportation. Blackjack and other Pegasi often go to Percy, who helps them with their, or other creatures' problems.

The goal of the game is to reach a score (=sum of the cards) as high as possible but not more than 21. A Blackjack (Ace and a card whose value is 10) beats all other combination of cards. If the final sum is higher than the sum of the dealer, the player gets a play-off of 1:1 of his initial stake. If the players combination is Blackjack, the play-off is 3:2 of the initial stake. If the sum of the dealer is higher, the player loses his bet. If the sum is equal, then nobody wins. If the player holds a score of 22 or more, he busted and thus he loses his bet immediately. If the dealer busts, the players wins independently of his final score.

Blackjack can be played from one to seven players against one dealer. The dealer shuffles the cards. Now all the players must place their bets. Then each player and the dealer receives one card. The cards all lie face up. Thereafter the player receive a second card. The player now can continue to buy further cards, one by one, until he believes that he is near enough to 21. If the player believes to have reached a score high enough he must signalize the dealer to stay, which means not to ask for any further card.

Doubling down

The player has some more possibility's other than buy and stay. If he reached a score of nine, ten or eleven with his first two cards, he can double his bet. However if he does so, he will be dealt only one more card.

Splitting

If the first two cards are of the same value, the player has the possibility to split his hand, which means that each of the cards are used to start with a separate bet. For each split hand, an additional bet equal to the first is required. There is one exception: If the player splits two Aces, he receives only one more card and in such a case a score of 21 is not considered as Blackjack.

Dealers turn

Once the last player has decided to stay with his score, the dealer starts to draw a second card. If his result is reaching a score of 17 or more, he will deal himself no further cards. If the dealer has a score of 16 or less, he must draw until he has reached 17 or more. If the dealer exceeds 21, he busts. This is the basic knowledge You have: The dealer can not split nor double; he must play according to strict rules: Dealer must stand on all 17. That's the players advantage! On the other side, if both the player and the dealer busts, these scores are not considered as equal and the player looses his stake. That's the dealers advantage!

How to compute the correct strategy

The analyst sees the shoe as black box which computes him a probability for drawing a card of a certain value. Say we have 6 decks of 52 cards, so the probability of drawing an Ace is 6*4/6*52 = 24/312 = 7.7%. The probability of drawing a second Ace without reshuffle is 23/311 = 7.4% and so on. As the game goes on without reshuffle, the probabilities to draw certain cards will raise or decline, depending on which cards have gone in the past. From our point of view the shoe behaves like a wheel of fortune with varying distances between the nails.

The first thing to do, is to calculate the probabilities of the dealers last hand. This computation is straight forward as the dealer has no way of doing any decision. So it is quit easy to find out the probabilities of his final score.

The next thing is to find out the probabilities of what would be if ... . If the players score is 16, what's the probability of achieving 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 or busting. Probabilities also have to be calculated for splitting and doubling.

Because the player knows the dealers first hand before deciding what to do, he can compare the probabilities of the dealers last hand against the probabilities of possible final scores for each intermediate score he has. With this comparison, winning expectations can be calculated, gaining information about the best playing strategy.

Knowing the best playing strategy and knowing the probabilities for each final score, the dealer and the player will reach, the total expectation can be calculated. The total expectation is the magic number playing Blackjack. If it is below zero the player has to place minimum bets as with this card distribution he will lose on the long term. If however the total expectation is above zero (unfortunately thats quite rare) the player has to place high bets.

Interpret the strategy tables

For each decision a player can do the best strategy can be computed. There are 20 possible conditions where the player has to take decisions. These are:

  • Buy or stay if the score is 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 7/17 or 8/18.
  • Double or buy, if the sum of the first two cards is 9, 10 or 11.
  • Split, buy or stay, if the first two cards have the same value.

All these decisions depend upon the dealers first card, making a total of 200. There are some fundamental rules, which never change and must always be obeyed:

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  • Alway buy if the score is below 12.
  • Always buy if the score is below or equal to 7/17. With a soft hand You can't bust, so there is no reason to stay if the score is 17 or less.
  • Never buy if the score is 17 or higher.
  • Never split 5-5. A score of 10 is a good point to start with, so use it.
  • Never split X-X. A score of 20 is too good, to take any further risks.
  • Never ever double a Blackjack.

For other decisions consult the expectation and probability tables computed on the Blackjack strategy pages.

Stakes height

The stake has to be placed before the player can see the dealers first card. So during that decision, very little information is available. The only information the player here, is the total expectation for the current card distribution in the shoe. If this is above zero, he shall place high bets.

This is our first blackjack game and trainer and I'm proud to finally add our version 2 with enhanced graphics and the ability to learn how to count cards to my website. The game is mostly self-explanatory. If you make an inferior play, the game will warn you first. I recommend that before you play for real money both online in person that you practice on the game until you very rarely are warned you a making an inferior play. If doubling or splitting is mathematically the correct play, but you don't have enough chips, the game will give the best advice for what you can afford to do. Do not change rules mid-hand. If you do, the change will not take effect until the next hand. The advice is based on my own analysis and basic strategy tables for one, two, and four+ decks. The deck(s) is(are) shuffled after every hand.

If you find any bugs, please contact me. A screenshot would be appreciated if you claim the game is misplaying a hand. I get a lot of incorrect reports that the advice given is incorrect. This usually can be explained by the user not using the correct basic strategy for the rules selected. I have also had many comments about the advice on a player 16, composed of 3 or more cards, against a 10. As a rule of thumb, the player should stand in that situation. However, that is a basic strategy exception. The game only knows basic strategy. Also, please note that it is a standard blackjack rule that split aces get one card each. If one of them is a ten, it is not a blackjack, it is just 21 points. That is how blackjack is usually played.

I would like to thank JB for his outstanding work on this game, and Dingo Systems for the cards.


Online Blackjack Bonuses

We constantly maintain a database of all the casino bonuses from the hundreds of online casinos we have reviewed, and we note which bonuses allow blackjack to count towards the wagering requirements. The below table shows a ranked list of the best money online blackjack bonuses, the ranking also takes into consideration wagering requirements, bonus amount offered, the quality of the site and more.

RankCasino NameBonus%WagerCashCodeCasino NameBonus info
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Blackjack Online FAQ

Q1: What are the rules in online blackjack games?

A: As in land casinos, they vary. Online help files are notoriously badly written and incomplete. The Wizard of Odds, we try hard to keep an accurate listing of rules for every brand of software and live dealers. You may find such rules, for every game, in our Software Review section.

Q2: Generally speaking, are the rules better in land or online casinos?

A: All things considered, I would say they are better online. For one thing, you almost never see a blackjack (ace and 10) pay 6 to 5 only online, while this is becoming the norm in land casinos in the United States.

Blackjack

Q3: What are the typical rules at live dealer casinos online?

A: Live dealer rules are very similar to what you would see in a land casino. The typical rules are:

  • Eight decks
  • Dealer stands on soft 17
  • Dealer does NOT peek for blackjack
  • No surrender
  • Player may double on any two cards
  • Player may double after a split
  • No re-splitting

Be careful double or splitting if the dealer has a ten or ace showing. At most live dealer brands, you will lose everything if the dealer gets a blackjack. Under this 'no peek' rule, the only time you should put more money out on the table against a potential dealer blackjack is to split two aces against a dealer 10.

The house edge under the rules above is 0.61%.

Q4: When are the cards shuffled in online blackjack?

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A: In a fully electronic game, they are probably shuffled after every hand. In a live dealer game, they are usually shuffled about half way through the shoe.

Q5: Oh really?! Even with only 50% penetration, what is to prevent me from counting cards against a live dealer?

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A: I've asked this question of some people in the business. Nobody would tell me exactly how they protect their game against counters, but they assured me that they do. If I ran a live dealer casino, I would run a test of every player to see how their bet size is correlated to the true count. Then I would carefully examine the play of such players with a strong correlation.

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Q6: How do 'probably fair' casinos accomplish so-called in blackjack?

A: It is rather involved, but here is typically how it is done:

  1. The casino will generate a random long string of characters, called a Server Seed, hash it, and give the hashed result to the player BEFORE he makes a bet.
  2. The player chooses a string of characters himself, called the Client Seed, or accepts a random default provided by the casino.
  3. The client and server seed are combined and hashed.
  4. The hashed result from step 3 will be parsed somehow, with the hexadecimal characters converted to base 10 and then mapped to specific cards if in a desired range.
  5. The game will deal cards according to their order in the hash from step 3. This hash should be long enough that running out of cards would be almost impossible.
  6. After the hand, the casino should reveal the Client Seed, which the player may verify hashes to the result provided before the bet. It is then a tedious process above to do all the math to convert the hash to actual cards, but the player may do that if he wishes.

I go into this in greater depth for a particular brand in my page on Blackjack (Encrypted Version).

Q7: I don't want to bother jumping through all those hoops to verify fairness in an encrypted game. Do you think that just the ability to verify fairness is enough to keep the casinos honest?

A: No. Encrypted or not, a casino could cheat the player in any game, except sports betting, any time they wished. In the case of an encrypted casino, the operator could choose a Server Seed that causes the player to lose after the bet is made. If the player catches them in a hash mismatch, which I think very few players bother to check, the casino can simply ignore the accusation or deny it without comment. This is exactly what happened to me at Wixiplay.

Q8: Your story aside, how common is cheating at blackjack, or any game, online?

A: In my opinion, it is quite rare.

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Q9: How can I improve my odds of not being cheated?

A: There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Internet casinos out there. In the absence of any serious government regulation, the industry has done a pretty good job of regulating itself. Between legitimate watchdog affiliate sites and some common sense, here are some ways to choose a reputable brand to trust with your hard-earned dollar:

  • Read the fine print. Most casinos have a good looking main page, but dig around the more obscure pages like terms & conditions. If you see a lot of spelling and grammatical mistakes, that should set off a red flag.
  • Ping customer support. If you can't think of your own question, ask anything, for example, 'Do you accept players from Kyrgyzstan?' See how long it takes for them to reply and measure their professionalism and courtesy of their reply.
  • Check reputable affiliate sites. Many affiliate sites promote whoever pays the most, but the good ones are picky about who they promote and will intervene in the unlikely event of a player dispute. We would like to think of ourselves as one of the good ones. A good way to avoid the worst of casinos is to check the blacklists of reputable affiliates.
  • Smart small. Players should always bet in moderation anywhere, but especially when opening a new account online with an unfamiliar brand. Dink around with a small deposit and small bets until you have built up some trust.

Q10: Any other words of advice before playing blackjack online?

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A: Whether playing online or in a land casino, use the appropriate basic strategy for the rules offered. The Wizard of Odds blackjack strategy calculator will give the correct basic strategy for almost any set of rules.
A much greater problem than outright cheating is online casinos faulting players on a technicality in the rules and seizing whatever funds they deem appropriate. This is a particularly a problem with bonuses. The terms and conditions for bonuses can be pages long and very restrictive in terms of allowed games, bet sizes, and types of bets. If the player loses, nobody ever checks, but after a win and withdrawal request, suddenly the play may be subject to careful review for compliance. Never assume that because you were invited to play a bonus via Email that you're eligible for it. Casinos typically blast everybody in their list. An easy rule to overlook is when a bonus is eligible for 'new money' only. Don't expect the casino to enforce this rule when entering a couple code, but do expect it when you actually make a withdrawal and they look for any reason to deny it.
While bonuses can make your money last much longer and increase your chances of winning, they are a minefield in terms of compliance. Read the rules carefully. If in doubt the way you play is compliant, then don't ask for the bonus in the first place.