Blackjack Strategy

I was living in New Jersey in the late 1970s, when casino gambling became legalized in Atlantic City. The casinos that began opening there were clamoring for casino dealers. Soon, casino gambling schools began opening that taught students the skills necessary to become a casino dealer.

When you are dealt a pair of 6s in the game of blackjack you have two viable playing options:

Previous articles covered how I got started with blackjack, how I learned the basic playing strategy and card counting, my playing experience in Atlantic City after the first casino opened, and my first barring.

I usually get an email or phone call a few times each month from a blackjack player who asks me the following question: “Your article said to stand on (a specific hand). I’ve read in a book (or on the Internet) that you should hit that hand. Who’s right?”

“Have you ever caught anyone card counting?” As a croupier, working in London’s high end casinos, this was one of the questions I was asked most – often by people who’d never been to a casino, who wouldn’t even know how

When you are dealt a pair of 9s in blackjack you have two viable playing options:

In the previous article in this series about my personal experiences with blackjack, I explained how I first learned how to play blackjack, and how I mastered the basic strategy (circa 1969).

In this article you will learn how to play a hard 16 when you play blackjack. A hard 16 is a blackjack hand that contains either no Aces, or if an Ace is present, it counts as one. Some examples of hard 16 are:

I learned to play blackjack after I lost my meager bankroll in a casino on my very first trip to Las Vegas. Here’s how this happened.

Picture 44 electronic player terminals spread out in a stadium-configured arrangement in a casino. A live blackjack dealer stands in front of the stadium facing the players. Players (in this example, up to all 44) make their bets by touching the casino chips across the bottom of the screen on their interactive terminal.

Ever since Ed Thorp published his book Beat the Dealer in 1962 it has been an accepted that the diligent player can beat the casino at blackjack.

The first step in playing blackjack is to use the correct basic strategy and the deviations to from that strategy based on the ratio of cards that remain. Soft 18 in blackjack (A-7) is a commonly misplayed hand.

One of the hands that blackjack players sometimes misplay is soft 19. This is a hand that totals 19 and contains an ace counted as 11. Examples of soft 19 hands are A-8 and A-3-5.

One of the most frustrating hands in blackjack is a 16 against a dealer’s 10 upcard. How you play this hand depends upon the composition of the cards that make up your 16 and the playing rules.