Hit or stand? Using the basic BlackJack strategy
When compared to places like Atlantic City and Las Vegas, Toronto isn’t well-known for its casinos. In fact, due to efforts to protect the income of the Woodbine Racetrack in Etobicoke (one of the few places in the city that does have casino games), the chances of an alternative gaming hub appearing are slim. However, at number 510 of 650 things to do in Toronto on TripAdvisor, the Woodbine isn’t all that popular with locals.
Still, the Woodbine does have blackjack tables, which makes it something of an oddity within the city. As a player, though, how much success is the average person likely to achieve at the game on the first attempt? Is it wise to even approach blackjack without at least a grounding in the game’s basic rules and strategy? The game of ‘21’ is well-known for its accessibility but there is a right and wrong way to play it – sort of.
While it’s unlikely to make much of a difference to complete newcomers, blackjack does benefit from a knowledge of its basic strategy. It’s possible to reduce the casino’s edge, i.e. the house’s advantage over the player, from 2% to as low as 0.5% by learning this detailed code. Try as you might, there’s no way to reduce it further, as the casino still needs to pay for its overheads, just like any business.
Hit or Stand
The basic strategy is not a way to ‘beat’ the casino or otherwise manipulate the odds of the game but a means of optimizing your chances of winning. This involves making sure that you make the most appropriate move in any given scenario. Put another way, if you know when to hit, stand, double-down, split pairs, or surrender, you’ll have the best shot at turning a profit.
The basic blackjack strategy tends to take the form of charts that can be printed off and studied. In an interview with Casino.com, blackjack guru Michael Shackleford summarised a few basic rules as follows:
- Hit on a low total.
- Stand if the dealer has a weak card.
- Double on a 10 or 11.
Of course, due to the fact that there are lots of different card combinations that can be dealt to both the player and the croupier, there are some complexities to the rules. As a starting point, though, this trio of tips is a useful way to get acquainted with the book-learning side of blackjack. As for surrendering, Shackleford recommends that the player should “definitely” surrender with a 16 against a ten.
Don’t bother taking the insurance bet.
As hinted at earlier, blackjack remains a game of chance so even the most well-thought-out plan can fail to produce the intended results. This isn’t exactly unusual for a casino game. Slots and roulette are also entirely luck-based, while roulette might be considered somewhat strategic due to the range of betting systems that can be applied to the standard gameplay. Poker is the one big exception to this rule.
Overall, blackjack can be as simple or as involved in a game as the player likes. It all depends on whether you’re playing casually or as part of a regular hobby.
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