Blackjack is the most popular casino table game in the world. A lot of its appeal originated with the publication of the book Beat the Dealer, which introduced the gambling world to the idea of card counting and won a few people a lot of money. Before I discovered poker, Blackjack was the game I played. I spent countless hours at the Blackjack tables of the card rooms and Indian casinos of southern California.
I have always been someone to look for an edge in the casino. When I was twelve years old, I came up with the idea of doubling my bet every time I lost in roulette. While this idea would work in theory with an infinite bankroll and no table maximum, it fails in reality because table maximums and finite bankrolls are a fact of life. I later found out that this type of system is widely known in the gambling world as a Martingale system and is always doomed for eventual failure. It is a shame my father did not know this when I sold him on my idea and sent him to Las Vegas with my plan in mind.
I believe this fascination with finding an edge is what led me to the game of Blackjack. I, too, had learned of card counters and many of the casino regulars I have run across in my gambling career have sworn they have an edge at Blackjack by counting cards.
The first step towards a basic card counting strategy is to memorize what Blackjack professionals call “basic strategy”. This means knowing when to hit, stand, split, or double down in every situation that presents itself at the Blackjack table. The card counting aspect involves altering the size of your bet when the cards remaining in the deck are favorable to the player.
Embarking on my Blackjack career, I soon found out that profitable card counting is virtually impossible these days. Casinos have made many rule changes since the early days of losing to card counters such as using multiple decks, lowering table maximums, reshuffling earlier in the shoe, and so on. The best that I could do was to learn perfect basic strategy and neutralize the house edge as much as possible.
The incredible thing is that over the entire time I played Blackjack, I do not recall a single other player who played perfect basic strategy at my table over any significant period of time. I soon realized that most of the house profits in the game come not from their edge against a player playing basic strategy, but from fools who deviate from this strategy and surrender a much larger edge.
If you are new to casino gambling and your goal is to minimize the house edge so that your money will last longer, I recommend Blackjack. It can be intimidating to walk up to any table game for the first time, but if you have mastered basic strategy, you will be well ahead of almost any other player you’ll ever play with. This strategy gives you the same advantage while playing online casinos as well. The strategy is not terribly difficult to learn either. You do not have to memorize every single situation, but can group them together. For example, you can remember that against a ten or a face card, you should always hit a 16 or below and always stand on a hard 17 or above. This one simple rule covers almost thirty percent of the situations you will encounter.
If you are not willing to learn basic Blackjack strategy, you are probably better off choosing a different game. While the house edge in Blackjack is very low against a competent player, it can be very significant against an incompetent one. That player would probably be better off playing a game where there is no strategic decision making involved, such as slots or roulette.
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