Blackjack Strategy - Home
Blackjack strategy for beginners. This is blackjack at its most basic. This will get you by. It doesn't maximize your blackjack odds but as a beginner you can’t master blackjack overnight. The beginner blackjack strategy will help you look respectable at the blackjack table and give the impression you aren’t a beginner.
Given you know the dealer has to live by certain rules you can make some consistent plays that will maximize your blackjack odds. The dealer will always draw cards until he hits 17 or better. Because of this these rules for the beginner will maximize your probabilities. Here are the hard and fast guidelines:
- Always watch for a weak dealer hand. The dealer has a weak hand when he has a 2 - 6 showing. Some hands like 5-6 are extremely weak beacuase the dealer has a very good chance of busting. Why, because he will likely draw 10, 10 or something where he has to take two cards with a 5or a 6. The strategy when the dealers hand is weak is to stand pat and stay with cards whether they look good or not. When a dealer has 2-6. You would stay on anything from 12 to 21.
- Always double down on 10 or 11 when the dealer is showing 9 or less when you have 10 and 10 or less when you are showing 11. You have strong hand, take advantage of it by doubling your bet.
- Draw until you have 17 or better if the dealer has 7 or better showing. In the more advanced strategies you'll learn that you might not want to stay with some soft hand combinations. Soft hands being hands with an ace (used as an 11). Except Blackjack.
- Always Split 8's and A's. Chances of busting with two 8's is high, and it's doubtful you want to stay with 16. Splitting Aces gives you the chance to go for two Blackjacks.
- Never split 4's, 5's or 10's. Fours aren't good, two 5's are 10 (a strong hand), and two 10's are 20 (a good hand)
Move on to the Basic Blackjack Strategy after you have mastered the Beginners Blackjack Strategy section.
