Blackjack is a casino game that more than anything else is about odds. Basically, it’s about the risk of you cracking compared to the chance that you’ll get a better hand than the dealer. The former the risk of cracking if you take out a new card is easy to calculate.
As long as your hand is worth 11 or less, there is no risk that you will get over 21 if you take a new card, and you will then either double, take a new blackjack or, in some cases, split. Under no circumstances should you stay if you have 11 or lower, as you will always get a better hand if you draw another card.
The risk of getting fat starts with 31% if your cards are worth a total of 12, and then increases to 100% if you have 21. But staying with 12 on the hand is rarely a good idea, as the risk is high that the dealer will get a better hand. We call this type of calculation a Blackjack system .
However, there are exceptions if the dealer’s open card shows 4, 5 or 6, the odds are best that you will win if you stay otherwise take another card. If you are 13-13 then you should stay if the dealer has 6 or lower, otherwise take a new card. There is a special rule here if the casino allows you to give yourself the opportunity to give end the hand against giving up half your bet without a fight then you should do so if you have 15 and the dealer 10, or if you have 16 and the house, 9, 10 or 11. If you are 17-20, you should always stay.
Advanced Odds and Strategies
This is just the basis of the math that underlies blackjack, and there is much more that you need to learn to really understand why you should play the way you do. For example, we have not gone into detail on when to split your hand, which is a chapter in itself. For a more mathematical review of odds and probabilities in Blackjack and how to reduce the dealer’s advantage, but to start with you can read here with us at online casino which describes the probabilities and the odds in blackjack in a pretty understandable way. After studying that page, you will be ready to play blackjack in earnest.