Blackjack Strategy

Several years ago, I gave a blackjack seminar in front of an audience of about 100. At the start of my seminar, I posed this question to them. “How does the casino get its edge in blackjack?” 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Download Blackjack Strategy Chart for Double Deck Game
• Double-Deck Rules & Playing Strategy
• Double-Deck Card Counting
• Summary

Note: Click here to read Part 1 of this article.

As promised, at the end of this article you will find the questions with answers to the challenging 21-question test given to the elite blackjack pros at the 2020 Blackjack Ball. Give yourself one point for each correct answer. (If you got 13 or more correct, you did better than all the blackjack pros that took the test.) 

(Note: Several active players listed below used pseudonyms to protect their identity.)

I was not able to attend this year’s Blackjack Ball because of my wife’s unexpected surgery that occurred the week of the Ball. Nevertheless, my good friends Rick Blaine (co-author of the excellent Blackjack Blueprint book) and Max Rubin (co-host of the Ball) provided me with the details that I used to write this article.

When you are dealt a pair of 4s in blackjack you have three viable playing options:

• Hit
• Split or
• Double down

Which blackjack strategy you should invoke depends upon what the dealer’s upcard is, the number of decks of cards being used, and whether double down after pair splitting is allowed.

The basic playing strategy for a double- or multi-deck game where doubling down after pair splitting is not allowed (NDAS) is to

After nearly 50 years of playing blackjack, I could write a book that would contain all the misinformation on blackjack I’ve read in books and the Internet, and heard in casinos (of all places) and from fellow players. But rather than write the book, I decided instead to write this article for your enlightenment.

If there is one playing decision that seems to confound most blackjack players, it’s knowing when to split a pair (and when not to). Don’t believe me? Assume you are playing a six-deck game with the dealer standing on soft 17 (S17) and doubling down after pair splitting is allowed (DAS).

I’ve been asked the above question hundreds of times from blackjack players. What follows is a synopsis of what I tell them.