Basic BlackJack Strategy
Blackjack is more than just a playing game of guessing, which is contrary to what many gamblers might believe. The majority of casinos are games that involve guessing. There are two ways to play blackjack. Basic strategy is the correct strategy. A mathematically optimized strategy is the correct strategy. It maximizes your winnings while minimizing your losses over the course of time.
Many other card games like poker do not have a fundamental strategy. For instance, there is, no basic strategy for poker. Poker players choose their hands according to whether they believe their opponent has a strong or weak hand.
There isn't a standard strategy for any game of cards that is as long as your opponent has the ability to make decisions on what to do with his hands. For hundreds of years, there was no basic blackjack strategy as it was not a game played in a casino that required the dealer to display a single card and play his hand according to house rules. It was more of an poker game where both the dealer's and player's cards hidden. The dealer was able to play as he wanted and the players could attempt to bluff the dealer.
The American casinos introduced significant changes in the rules for Twenty-One . They required players to show the dealer's cards and require that the dealer follow the hit/stand method. The game was fundamentally transformed from a poker-style game that was based on psychology to a purely mathematical game-as far as the player's strategy was concerned.
What is the reason that the basic Strategy is Effective ... The "Odds" and the reason why Basic Strategy Works
For our purposes we'll begin with an assumption that today's dealers are playing a fair game. No sleight-of-hand, no chicanery. We're not likely to forget the First Rule of Professional Gamblers however, we'll temporarily ignore it until we can understand the logic behind the game and expose the strategy behind it that will eliminate the majority of the house's mathematical edge. The majority of the games that are played in casinos are fair and trustworthy. If you are faced with an unfavorable game, it's not on your level, don't even try to beat it.
Computers were used by mathematicians to study every single hand and upcard of the dealer to figure out the most basic strategy for the honest dealt game. The fact that the base strategy was nearly perfect shocked the mathematicians who were the first to use computers for analysis. This was because of four GIs who had desk jobs in the 1950s and plenty of time. Although they didn't have computers, they had used for three years mechanical add machines to calculate the various outcomes. It could have been the most price Uncle Sam ever got from four GIs' wages!
It is also known that decent hints of the correct fundamental strategy were worked out by a variety of professional gamblers in Nevada decades before computers appeared into the picture. These guys figured out the strategy by trading hands with each other on their kitchen tables. Certain decisions involved hundreds, thousands, or even thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of hand. Like most professional gamblers, these guys never published their strategies. Blackjack was their lifeline, and they'd spent hundreds of hours working it out. Why would they divulge to anyone else about what they had learned?
One thing for certain is that casinos did not know the proper strategy for the game, nor did players who read the most highly-regarded books on the subject. The Hoyle's guidebooks of the past advised that players stick the totals at 15 and 16, regardless of what the dealer's card was splitting tens and never split nines, and to not hold onto to a soft 17. The "smart" players of the time, meaning those who had read one of these books on gambling by an authority of this kind generally made all sorts of games that we recognize as extremely costly.
A lot of people aren't aware of the logic of basic strategy. Let me give an example. If my hand totals 14, and the dealer shows a 10 upcard, blackjack strategy says to hit. This is the mathematically correct way to play. Sometimes you'll hit the 14 and draw an 8 9, 10, or 10 and then bust. Then you will see that the dealer changed his hole card, which is an 8. This means that in order to hold your 14 the dealer has to be at 16. He would have flopped with the 10. Thus, by making the "mathematically correct" play, you lost a hand you would have won had you not breached the fundamental strategy.
There are some players who argue that there is no one strategy that is perfect all the times. Blackjack is, according to them an art of playing guesswork.
To understand basic strategy, you need to start thinking as a professional player, and that means you have be aware of "the blackjack odds."
Let me explain the fundamental logic behind the strategy with a different scenario that illustrates how the mathematics of statistics and probability works. Let's say I have a jar that contains 100 marbles. Fifty of the marbles are white, while fifty are black. You must reach in blindfolded and pull out one marble. But prior to doing so you have to place a $ 1 bet on whether the marble you take out will be black or white. You will win $ 1 , if you pick the right color. If not then you'll lose $ 1.
Are you guessing?
Absolutely. How do you know what color marble you're planning to pick out ahead of time? If you win, it's just good luck, and if you lose it's bad luck.
What if you found out that 90 percent of the marbles listed in this list are black, and 10% are white? Would you rather put your money on white or black prior to drawing? A smart person would pick black. There is a chance, of course, to get the white marble, however, it is much more unlikely to pull out one that is white than one of black. It's a guessing game and it's possible to lose $1 in the event that a white marble gets removed. If you're betting on black, the chances are in your favor you.
Professional gamblers earn their money thinking in terms "the odds", only placing bets when they favor his side. The bet involves the gambler betting on black as the odds of winning are 9: 1. If you choose to bet on white, odds are 9-1 against you.
There is a chance that you will lose If the dealer has an upcard of 10. However, the odds are against your chances in the event that the dealer has the number 10.
If you decide using your intuition You may be able to get lucky however you'll lose more hands in the long run. The mathematics is the only method of making a right decision about any play. The laws of probability determine your expectations for each possibility.