Famous blackjack teams like the MIT card counters have made the game one of the most infamous in the casino. While blackjack looks like a deceptively easy game to win, there are a few strategies that can help the beginner to maximize their profits at the gaming table. Before you start gambling your money on blackjack, be sure you can win some of it back by learning the rules.
The rules themselves are easy to learn, so there's no need to hyperventilate. Most people grasp the basic goal of blackjack—to make it to twenty-one without going over. In other words, if you can count, then you can play blackjack; it’s just a matter of how much you are going to win. Since all face cards are worth ten points, if you have one of those you are in good shape. Ideally, your face card will be paired with an Ace for a natural blackjack. Regardless of what hand you get, strategy can always improve it.
If you are not one of the lucky few with a perfect hand, take a good hard look at the numeral cards in your hand. Any high cards like nines or eights? Or are you stuck with low numbers like twos or threes? Don’t despair if you have low cards, you can always hit to raise your total. Actually, while they are not a player favorite, it's much safer to hit with low cards than with middling to high cards.
After dealing out the cards to the players, the dealer gives himself two cards. Here’s where the strategy comes in. One of the dealer’s cards is always face down so you can never be sure whether the dealer has a good or a bad hand. To be a successful blackjack player, you have to consider the dealer's hand. Unless you're card counting, the common strategy is to pretend that their face down card has a value of 10 and to then weigh your own hand against the dealer's hypothetical hand.
The best possible blackjack strategy is card counting, but it's a difficult concept to master. There are a variety of different counting methods that have been proven effective, but beginners should start out with a basic counting system like the Hi-Lo system. When a player uses this system, they add up the value of cards in groups of threes. Each group of three has a value of negative one, zero, or positive one. The theory behind this counting system is that cards can be grouped by high or low values. By keeping track of the value of the groups of three, you can get a general idea of how many high cards are remaining. You can then bet accordingly, risking less when there is a greater possibility of going bust.
If you have mastered the Hi-Lo counting system, you can move up to the Uston SS Card Counting System. It is basically the same as the Hi-Lo, but instead of using groups of three, the Uston system uses groups of six. In theory, by using groups of six, the Uston system ups the accuracy of the counting system to almost 100%. It also ups the difficulty because in order to use the Uston system a player has to memorize more values than the Hi-Lo system. It can be difficult at first to memorize all the combinations, but with such good results, the Uston system is worth the effort.
If you are the kind of blackjack player who doesn’t want to worry about a fancy card counting strategy, you may prefer to use a side count. Side counts are when a player only tracks certain high value cards, like Aces, and doesn’t bother counting any other cards. Card counting this way is easy and potentially profitable without overly complicating your time at the blackjack table.
