Editorial

Friday, 05 June 2009 06:50

With its solid reputation as one of the most popular of all casino games in the world today, blackjack attracts players of all skill levels wanting to try their hand at beating the house. A great part of this attraction and the game’s popularity stems from its relative simplicity combined with an element of skill that can be improved with knowledge and practise.

Another highly attractive trait of the game lies in the extremely good odds of winning when compared with other casino games. This means that players with even basic skills have the ability to reduce the house edge still further, making the possibilities of winning very good indeed. Here we show you how you can do this too.

With a little more than basic knowledge and the employment of some tried and tested game strategies, more experienced players have found it is possible to lower the house edge to the point where they can win with a much better consistency than with any other casino game. Getting to that next level is a lot easier than many people realise and it just means learning some hard and fast rules of the game, knowing the basic facts about blackjack and putting to use some solid working strategies.

A complete newcomer to the game sitting down at any table and simply playing without any form of discipline will be up against a house edge of just over 5%. So the first thing you should do is learn all of the rules of Blackjack before you even sit down at that table. Then find out about specific rules applied by different casinos, as some will offer slightly more beneficial ones than others, effectively lowering the house edge by a fraction of a percent, the size of that fraction depending upon the rule itself.

The first casino rule you need to be aware of is whether or not the dealer has to stand on soft 17. For those who aren’t sure what that means, soft 17 is an ace with a six. If the dealer does stand on soft 17, that’s fine, but if the dealer hits on soft 17, then the house edge goes up by 0.3%. This might not sound like very much to a beginner, but to an experienced player, this is the difference between walking away from a table in profit or not.

Moving on to the casino blackjack table, it’s important to know how many decks of cards are used in the shoe. Most casinos use a standard shoe containing six decks. If you can find one that uses fewer decks, then the house edge will be slightly lower. The less decks in the shoe the better your chances of winning. That’s because fewer decks generally mean a lower house edge and make it easier to count cards.

Counting cards is a skill that can be learned by anyone who can count low numbers and has a reasonably good short term memory, which means most people. However, this is a controversial mode of play and casino owners are none too happy when someone starts using this tactic on their blackjack tables, so an element of caution is needed when counting cards. The practise involves not memorising exactly which cards have been dealt, but by assigning a range of cards with the number minus one, one and plus one. Then as each card is dealt, it’s easy to keep a running total when you only have to add or subtract one from that total.

Card counters get caught when casino security staff observes them betting low on a series of hands then suddenly betting high for no obvious reason. This means they have reached a count total that stacks the odds in their favour. Card counters can stay under the radar by keeping bets modest, although it will take far longer to see a nice profit this way. Unfortunately, it’s human nature to get impatient and greedy, which leads to their downfall.

Other more acceptable methods of play involve knowing when to hit, split and stand and there are strategies that cover these three parts of play that will increase your chances of winning dramatically. For instance, to split nines or tens is risky, as is hitting on anything above 16.

When combined with some basic card counting skills and a low number of decks occupying the shoe, these playing skills together can reduce the house edge to below 2% and even as low as 1%. With an edge as low as this on such a popular game, you might wonder if casinos are losing a lot of money. However, the reality is that so few players take full advantage of this knowledge that casinos can easily afford to offer them. This can only be to the advantage of enlightened players who are prepared to do a little work by improving their skills and practising them to reap the potential benefits that a game like blackjack has to offer and that are literally there for the taking!