Blackjack Strategy

“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

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

In this article you will learn how to play a hard 16 when you play blackjack.

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.