Blackjack Tips & Learning How To Win Big
The day twenty-one became Blackjack was the day everything changed. Which is to say, Blackjack is much bigger than merely ‘getting to 21’. If what Mario Puzo wrote in Inside Las Vegas is true and heaven is enjoying for all eternity, “an Edge against the House”, then there remains an argument to be made in support of a single and simple truth: any Blackjack tip truly worth its weight in gold should have only a single goal in view, and that is to by whatever means, beat the house.
And so today, instead of firing off an arsenal of completely random some-may-work-some-certainly-won’t (and it’s a heck of a load of effort to tell difference!) Blackjack tips, we’ll examine a precious principle of logic that when repeatedly practised, refined, and implemented correctly, actually works.
Expect A Perfect 10
The logic behind a basic Blackjack strategy is this. In a deck consisting of 52 cards, there are 16 ‘ten’ (10) valued cards. They are: four kings, four queens, four jacks and four tens. Every other card in the deck (save for the Joker, of course) is part of a suit, and each suit consists of 4 cards. Logic dictates that given the mentioned numbers, whether a player or dealer, you are 4 times more likely to be dealt a ’10’ than any other card in the deck.
In other words, when the dealer’s hand is in the lower range, i.e. 2 – 6, he/she is way more likely to draw a poorer total (and possibly even go bust drawing cards!), than when his/her hand happens to be in the higher range, i.e. 7 – A.
The natural inclination, especially when in the beginning stages of learning the game, is to stand on 12 or higher, for fear of course of drawing that ever-dreaded 10-value card. This is not too bad a way of applying logic, but only when the dealer’s hand is weak. When the dealer’s hand is strong, a situation of ‘counting the cost’ comes into play. Any player choosing to be ‘hit’ in a case like this, is basically giving him- or herself a better chance to win.
Debunking The 21-Fallacy
Beginners often make the mistake of assuming that the primary goal in Blackjack is to get as close as possible to 21 without going over. This is a game-fatal mistake. The goal is in reality to beat the dealer. Its therefore no good to simply ‘do what the dealer is doing’ by hitting on 16 and standing on 17. Beating the dealer more often than not means gauging the dealer’s hand, as opposed to the player gauging his or her own hand in the hopes of hitting Blackjack.
What this means in practice is being willing to stand with a total as low as 12. Doing this may seem counter-productive, but only to those who don’t have a solid understanding of how the very basics of the game work.
Its as simple as this: understand the power of 10, and you’re halfway there to having any dealer beat.