✦ Is splitting pairs allowed? Is re-splitting allowed? If so, how many times?
✦ Is doubling down allowed? Is it allowed on any hand?
✦ Is doubling down allowed after splitting?
Table 4.1 shows you a summary of how different online casino house rules can affect a basic strategy player’s advantage.
Table 4.1 Casino Rules Effect on Player’s Advantage
Effect on Player’s
Rule Advantage (%)
Late surrender (single deck) +0.02 Late surrender (multi-deck) +0.07 Double down after splitting +0.13 Double down any number of cards +0.20 No resplitting of pairs –0.05 Dealer hits soft 17 –0.20 No doubling down on hard 9 –0.14 No doubling down on hard 10 –0.56 No doubling down on hard 11 –0.89 No doubling down on soft hands –0.14
Betting
There’s a reason that greed, not restraint or discipline, ranks as one of the seven deadly sins. It generally benefi ted early humans to gather all they could when resources were available. When a modern human sees a pile of money just begging us to fi ll our pockets, we can sometimes act on that impulse without thinking it through. Casinos know this fact and exploit it by presenting us with the illusion of easy money. So before you even think about betting, recognize that you, too, have the greed gene, and that you need to commit yourself to mastering it—or else it will master you.
If the preceding paragraph scared you a little, that’s good. If it seemed needlessly doom- and-gloomy, you need only visit a Web site, such as GamblersAnonymous.org, to see how quickly irresponsible betting can ruin lives. The fear gene is another important part of our creation. It’s what keeps us from walking off bridges, stepping on Superman’s cape, or betting the mortgage money on a hand of 21. It’s also an important counter to
the greed gene. You want to win, but you don’t want to lose big in a doomed quest for the mythical big score. The online dealer controls a lot of things about blackjack—the odds, the payout, the rules—to give itself an automatic advantage. As a player, you control how much of your money to give them. Don’t cede that power to the casino.
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
—Polonius speaking to his son in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Before betting, fi gure out a number that balances your greed and your fear. This is the amount of money you’re willing to lose, blow, fl ush down the toilet, never see again, which is how you must look at any wager. Once you come up with this number, divide it by 10. That’s the high end of your average bet. Don’t just look for tables that have this number as their minimum bet. (That’s greed, again.) If you want to play for hours and practice, consider a quarter table where you can enjoy hours of fun. When playing online, you’re free from the casino’s disparaging names for nickel-and-dime players and from the drive to push you toward being a “high roller.” Think of your wagers as an entertainment budget, and you won’t be disappointed. Think of it as an investment you expect to see multiplied fast, and you surely will be disappointed.
Gambling books commonly advise you to set this Loss Limit, but overlook the more im- portant Win Limit. Yet people fi nd it easier to walk away from a table where they’ve blown all their cash than from one where they’re raking in the chips. It makes sense. When you’re losing, you’re disgusted and depressed and maybe a little angry. Who wants to sit there and suffer? You log off and go do something else. But when you’re enjoying the high of winning, you’re elated and happy. You want more, more, more! That high, combined with
Know the odds. You don’t want to score blackjack and only then realize you’re at a casino that only pays even money for it!
Chapter 4: Playing the Classic Game
greed, can impair your judgment. You must discipline yourself to walk away from the table when you’ve hit your win limit.
Types of Systems for Betting
Negative Progression:High risk. Instead of putting in more chips when you win, you put more in when you lose in an effort to recoup your losses. The phrase “throw good money after bad” comes to mind.
Insurance Betting:Medium risk. Decrease the bet after wins, as in after a big win.
Positive Progression:Low risk. The player bets more after wins. This puts casino money at risk, not your principle.
Learn to love the feeling of logging off a few dollars ahead. As you’ll learn in Chapter 6 on variations of blackjack, there’s no such thing as money for nothing. Any change the casino makes to the game of blackjack, they do for one reason and one reason only: to make it easier to take your money. Proof that online casinos don’t exist to show you a good time is that even the free versions of their games usually nag you to play for real money. Don’t let them pressure you into something you’ll regret later. In short, think with your head, not with your wallet’s hunger for more dollars. Place your bets to have fun fi rst, and set a realistic win limit you’ll be happy with as well as a loss limit you can shrug off.
Hit or Stand
So you’ve placed your fi rst bet and have been dealt your fi rst two-card hand. Now you’ll need to decide what do to next. You can click the button to stand (also called stay). In this case, you stick with the numerical total you have because it has a high probability of winning. Your other option is to hit, or take another card in hopes of closing in on 21.
The typical computer program must hit on 16 and stand on all 17s, although some will hit on soft 17 (A, 6). Check this out at the online casino that you choose. Note also that the casino changes these rules—sometimes radically and always in their favor—for the fad blackjack games discussed in Chapter 6.
To beat the dealer and win the hand, you must know how strong your total is compared to the dealer’s total so that you know if you should hit or stand. You must take a look at the probability of each play option. Do you expect to win by standing? If the answer is yes, then will hitting, doubling, or splitting increase your chance of winning? If you don’t think you can win by standing, will hitting, doubling, or splitting help your odds?
Don’t base your decision to hit or stand solely on your two-card total, but also on the dealer’s up-card and the probability that you will win the hand. The dealer’s up-card
(absent in some blackjack variations where both cards are dealt face-down or doubled in others where both are dealt face-up) can be used to your advantage and give you the information and advantage necessary to triumph. You also need to compare your total to the dealer’s possible or likely total.
An important factor in blackjack is the excess of cards with a 10-point value (10, J, Q, K).
A player is 3-1/4 times more likely to draw a card with a 10-point value than any other individual card. Cards with a 10-point value comprise almost 1/3 of the deck (16 out of 52 cards), whereas there are only 4 cards each of Ace through 9. Because of this, the dealer’s hand has a high probability of increasing in value by 10 points with any given hit.
If the dealer reveals an up-card of 9, it has a 36 percent chance of totaling 19 and a 52 percent chance of totaling 19 or better.
Let’s take a look at the play options and what you should know when the cards are dealt.
For each option, you’ll view for the basic blackjack strategy—remember that these plays may change slightly, depending on the casino rules.
Let’s examine the Hit or Stand options in the following scenario:
Hit or Stand Scenario
Joel decides to bet $10 at an online casino blackjack game. The cards are dealt, and he discovers that he has J♣3♥. The dealer is showing a 10♠ as his
up-card. Joel knows that he doesn’t have the ideal 17 through 21, so he’s con- sidering hitting. He assumes that there are several 10-value cards still in the deck and that the dealer may have a possible 20. He decides to Hit.
Has Joel made the right decision to Hit? The basic strategy teaches us that you should always hit on hands valued between 13 and 16 when the dealer shows 7 or higher; there- fore, Joel made the right decision to hit. But what if Joel were to have A♣3♥ (hard 4,
soft 14) facing the same dealer’s 10♠? Would hitting still be the best option with a soft 14, where the Ace counts for 11 points?
I’ll cover the full basic strategy in Chapter 5, “Concepts and Strategy,” but here are a few basic rules you should memorize on when to hit and stand. Remember when you’re read- ing them to include the probability of the dealer’s hole card being a 10-value card.
Hard Hitting
✦ Always hit on 8 or less.
✦ Hit on 9 when the dealer shows 2 and 7 through Ace.
✦ Hit on 10 when the dealer shows 10 or Ace.
✦ Hit on 11 when the dealer has an Ace.
✦ Hit on 12 when dealer shows 2, 3, and 7 through Ace.
Chapter 4: Playing the Classic Game
✦ Stand on 12 when dealer shows 4, 5, or 6.
✦ Always hit on 13–16 when dealer shows 7 or higher.
✦ Always stand on 17 or better.
Soft Hitting
✦ Always hit soft 13 through 17, except when you can double down.
✦ Always hit soft 18 when dealer shows 9, 10, or Ace.
✦ Always stand soft 18 when dealer shows 2, 7, or 8.
✦ Always stand on soft 19 and 20.
Splitting Pairs
If you’re dealt a pair (two 2s, two 8s, and so on), blackjack tables at online casinos allow you to split them and play them as two separate hands. When you split a pair in black- jack, you must make another bet equal to your original bet. So if you bet $100 and are dealt a pair of 8s that you want to split, you must wager another $100. You can expect that about 14 hands out of every 100 dealt will result in pairs, but only two of these hands should actually be split. The general rules that involve splitting are
✦ Always split Aces and 8s.
✦ Never split 5s and 10s.
Why, you ask? Take a look at Aces fi rst. If you have a pair of Aces, they give you two chances for blackjack, and two chances are always better than one. These Aces, once split, are dealt one and only one additional card. As you learned in Chapter 1, if you hit 21 on one or both of these Aces, your win isn’t paid out 3:2 like the usual blackjack win. The house considers it a normal win and pays out 1:1 on your original bet.
Let’s take a look at Eights. A pair of Eights gives you a rather poor hand of 16. While not quite good enough to stand on, it’s also not a great hand to hit with. The probability of re- ceiving a card with a greater value than 3 is extremely high. So once you have the chance, it makes sense that you would choose to split the pair of Eights, giving you two chances to make 18 instead of standing or hitting on the 16 that is currently in your hand.
♠♥♣♦ Note
In Double Exposure, also called Dealer Disclosure or Face-Up 21, any pair of 10-valued cards—a 10 and Jack, for example—
may be split.
If you’re dealt a pair of Fives, you should always stand. The reason is that, if you have two Fives, you have a total of 10. Remember that the majority of the cards in the deck have a value of 10. Therefore, there’s a good chance that you will end up with a 20 after the draw. If you were to split the pair of Fives, you’d be stuck with possibly hitting on a 15, which is also a poor hand.
As Tens, Jacks, Queens and Kings all have a value of 10, a pair comprised from these cards totals 20 before splitting. The only way to improve on a hand of 20 is to get black- jack, but the chances that you will get one or two Aces are very low. It’s a better idea to stick with the 20 and stand any time you have a pair of Tens.
As for the remaining pairs you will encounter, you should base your decision to split on the dealer’s bustcard. A bust card is the dealer’s up-card with which the dealer has a high probability of busting. Understanding the dealer’s busting cards is essential, as this up-card will affect the majority of your decisions. The dealer’s up-cards of 4, 5, or 6 are known as busting cards, as with these cards, the dealer has the highest probability of busting. With a probability of a 10-valued card as the dealer’s hole card, you can assume that the dealer will be holding a total two-card count of 14, 15, or 16. The dealer must then draw until 17 is reached, and the probability that the next card drawn will be greater than a 5, 6, or 7 is high.
If the dealer shows busting cards, you may be more inclined to split.
Table 4.2 shows the percentage chances that the dealer will bust with the associated up-cards.
Table 4.2 Dealer Bust Cards
Dealer’s
up-card 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A
Chance that the dealer
will bust (%) 35 37 40 42 42 26 24 23 23 17
Chapter 4: Playing the Classic Game
Suggestions for the remaining pairs include
✦ Split 2s or 3s if the dealer shows 2 through 7.
✦ Split 4s if the dealer shows 4 or 5.
✦ Split 6s if the dealer shows 2 through 6.
✦ Split 7s if the dealer shows 2 through 7.
✦ Split 9s if the dealer shows 2 through 6, and 8 or 9.
The basic strategy for splitting pairs appears in Table 4.3. The player’s pairs are listed vertically with the dealer’s up-card listed horizontally. Based on the table, you can see that you should never split pairs of Tens but always split Aces.
Table 4.3 Basic Splitting Strategy
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A A,A yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes 10,10 no no no no no no no no no no 9,9 yes yes yes yes yes no yes yes no no 8,8 yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes 7,7 yes yes yes yes yes yes no no no no 6,6 yes yes yes yes yes no no no no no
5,5 no no no no no no no no no no
4,4 no no no yes yes no no no no no 3,3 yes yes yes yes yes yes no no no no 2,2 yes yes yes yes yes yes no no no no
Dealer’s up-card is shown horizontally. Player’s pair is shown vertically.
You never know when you’ll get dealt a pair of 8s or Aces and want to split them, so keep an amount equal to your original bet in reserve just in case. This means you must resist the urge to bet your last chip on the initial two-card hand when you’re down on your luck.
Let’s see how our blackjack player Joel is doing at his table.
Splitting Scenario
Joel bets $20 and receives a pair of Tens (10♥10♣). The dealer is showing a 6♠ up-card. Joel remembers that the 6♠ card has a high probability of busting.
He considers splitting his Tens against the dealer’s up-card, thinking that he will win twice his bet by splitting his pair of Tens. He decides to split.
Has Joel made the right decision to split his pair of Tens? No! Splitting Tens, while not necessarily always a losing play, is defi nitely a bad play to make. Joel should stand with his hand of 20. Joel has only a very small chance of winning the hand and making more money if he splits his pair of Tens against the dealer’s 6♠ up-card. He will defi nitely make more money in the long run if he stands on his 20.
Splitting pairs is one of the most powerful options available to blackjack players. However, you must check the table rules, as there can be some restric- tions once the cards are split. Be on the lookout for the following restrictions:
1. If pairs are formed on the newly created hands, additional resplitting may not be allowed.
2. Surrender is always prohibited on the newly created hands.
3. When splitting Aces, only one card can be drawn for each Ace.
4. Doubling down may be prohibited on hands formed by splitting.
5. An Ace-10 combination on a split hand scores as 21 but does not pay as blackjack.
Resplitting
Depending on the casino software and the game type (Vegas Strip Blackjack, Atlantic City, and so on), after splitting your fi rst pair you may be allowed to resplit if you get another pair from your next two draws, and therefore play three hands at once. Let’s look at the advantage of resplitting.
Imagine that you’ve chosen a table and you’ve placed your bet. You’re dealt a pair of Aces, so you split the pair to make two hands. Dealt to the fi rst hand is another Ace. Now what do you do? Without resplitting, you end up with a 12, as with Aces, you can draw only one card.
Chapter 4: Playing the Classic Game
If the table allows you to resplit, to make a third hand, take advantage of it. Some casinos will not only allow you to split all pairs, but to resplit all pairs once more for a total of three hands, or even twice more for a total of four hands. But remember, some casinos allow no resplits. If you’re dealt a pair of 8s, you may be allowed only to split and not resplit.
I’ll examine which casinos and which games offer resplitting in Chapter 5. For now, re- splitting means that you can branch into three, or even four, hands when new pairs are formed after the initial split. Resplitting is advantageous, as it gives you extra chances to obtain a win or blackjack. But does it really give you an advantage, or does it give the house an advantage? Remember—what sometimes looks advantageous to the player can be deceiving.
Table 4.4 shows the house advantage when splits are permitted for two, three, and four hands in eight-deck games.
Table 4.4 Basic Strategy Splitting House Advantage*
Maximum Number of Hands House Advantage (%) 2 0.50793
3 0.45620 4 0.43760
* The results in this chart are based on basic strategy with doubling allowed on any two-card hands; however, split Aces draw only one card and can’t be resplit.
As you can see from Table 4.4, the small percentage gain obtained from resplitting one time (from two hands to three hands) is approximately 0.052 percent of the initial bet.
Resplitting two times, from two to four hands, only gives you an improvement of 0.070 percent. If you were to bet even a few thousand dollars in one evening, the profi t that you would gain from resplitting could be minimal at best.
Then again, some splits are more benefi cial than others. There are times when the cards just don’t go your way and times when you feel like you can do nothing wrong, so you’re tempted to resplit on any pair. I’ve had nights of playing blackjack where most of my earnings were due to splitting and doubling on a single hand. Let’s rejoin Joel at the blackjack table.
Resplitting Scenario
Joel is sitting at the table with a very good hand—9♣9♠. He’s facing the dealer’s 5♥. Joel knows that if he stands with the 18, he would be expected to