How To Win At Blackjack
Let's be honest here. No one wants to bet real money at blackjack unless they can actually win at blackjack. This isn't charity; it's gambling. To that end, you undoubtedly want to know some winning secrets about the game. Well, we hate to break it to you, but there exist no "secrets" in this context. However, you can put different solid principles in place to increase your odds of winning.
One you have these basic principals down pat and are ready to start playing for real money, check out our list of the best legal online blackjack sites. We review the leading USA friendly online casinos that are the most reputable in the industry with most offering a special bonus just for 21 players.
Core Principles To Help You Win At Blackjack
The following principles and concepts are core to developing a winning blackjack strategy.
Study Strategies, Practice the Game, and Develop Your Own
We understand that the term "study strategies" seems necessarily nebulous, but it's really not. Allow us to explain. You see, there are literally hundreds of blackjack strategies you can find, none of which should be used verbatim during a game. There's so much more to an individual game beyond someone else's advice.
The goal is for you to learn and absorb different strategies that seem good to you. You want to take said information and put it to use in a game of blackjack. Find a play-money simulator and practice those strategic elements. As you run into scenarios where your strategy and the game seem to butt heads, then you'll learn how to adjust said strategy to the flow of the individual game. What this does is allow you to create your own strategy for playing.
This can only happen as you play more and become familiar with other scenarios. Think of football practice. Not only do players need to learn the Xs and Os, but they also need to practice against other pro players to get a feel for the game's speed and learn how to adjust.
Know Your Hands
We strongly recommend finding a blackjack hand simulator and playing with every possible combination of starting hands. The idea here is to get familiar with your hand values. By being familiar with the hand you're playing, juxtaposed against the dealer's hand, you're going to know how to proceed.
For instance, you will learn what to do with those middling hands with values of 12, 13, 14, and 15. You will know when to double down when to split when to stay, and when to simply pack things up and prepare for another hand. To win at blackjack, you have to know how to properly play your starting hand.
And were we to give you advice for every possible hand, this would stretch out to the length of an encyclopedia. The best advice we can possibly offer is to actually play the game and simulate the hand values so that you know what to expect.
Double Bets for Wins
"Winning" is a quantifiable, measurable, objective measure in blackjack, which can be shown demonstrably through the numeric value of your chip stack. For instance, starting with $100 and ending up with $150 is objectively winning.
Now, whether or not you won 10 hands or 58 hands to earn that money is irrelevant to the stack. To this end, we're looking to make sure you can win more on the 10-hand side than the 58-hand side. The reason is that the more you play, the less your odds of winning are. So, utilize the double-down feature when you have solid hands so that you can win quickly.
There are two things you want to look for with a doubled bet: 1) Pay attention to what the dealer has and make sure the dealer will have to chase with hits (e.g., showing a 2-6); 2) Make sure your hand is solid enough to stay (e.g., 17 and higher). Winning doubled bets quickly brings you closer to a winning game.
Know When to Get Out
Other than suggesting you strategize and practice for any possible scenario, there's not a whole lot more advice we can offer you in terms of winning at blackjack. However, knowing when to get out of a hand is a very valuable tool. Now, this isn't like poker per se, where you can outright fold. But let's say the dealer is showing an 8 through a 10 while you have a total of 12 or 13. This type of hand is one you do not want to bet on further. Just get it over with ASAP and move on to the next. You cannot dwell on these sorts of hands. You want to get in, get out, and move on to another.
There is no surefire way to win at blackjack all the time. However, with this information above, you should be able to create some framework in which you can greatly improve your odds of winning. Create a blackjack strategy by studying and implementing other strategies; always practice; play off of the dealer; double to win more at a quicker pace; and never be afraid to abandon bad hands. Following these principles will make winning at blackjack a lot easier.
Keep in mind that there are also casinos that offer real live dealers. So if you are getting crushed playing against a computer random number generator, you should really consider playing the live dealer blackjack games. This is especially true for high rollers.
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