Black Jack

History
Rules
Strategies

History

Though Black Jack originated in France, it has been one of the most popular table games in America for decades. Originally played as '21', the game was never as popular in the early American clubs and gambling houses as was poker or craps.

To increase interest in the game, some of the card rooms began to offer higher payouts for certain hands of cards; players who received an ace of spades with a jack of clubs or a jack of spades received a 10:1 bonus. Thereafter the game of 21 became known as Black Jack because of those 2 cards.

The game of Black Jack remained more or less unchanged until the 1960's when mathematician Edward Thorpe proved that the house edge could be virtually eliminated. With the help of computers, Thorpe and his colleagues calculated the most advantageous way to play every possible card combination.

Based on this research, a set of moves known as basic strategy was developed, and then modified by experts over the years.

Basic strategy led casinos to develop countermeasures to control losses, and today you will find slight variations in Black Jack rules depending on the casino you are in.

Rules

Black Jack is the most popular casino game of all. Black Jack's popularity is so high because if played right the odds are much higher than in any other game.

The rules are slightly different from area to area and from casino to casino. This means you have to make sure you inform yourself about the exact rules for Black Jack and guidelines each casino has, before you start gambling. In Black Jack you don't play against any other players, only against the dealer.

The main objective in Black Jack is to get a hand higher than the dealer's without going over 21.

The game starts with every player making their opening bets. Make sure to read the sign next to the dealer which indicates the minimum and maximum table limit . After all the players placed their bets the dealer will start dealing the cards. Starting with the player to his left he gives every player one card, face down, including himself. This is the dealers down card. Then he deals a second round of cards, face down but this time the card he deals himself will be face up. This is the dealers up card. You now can look at both of your cards and find your total by simply adding the values of your cards.

The values of the cards in Black Jack from 2 to 10 are at face value. Jacks, Queens and Kings count 10 and the Ace counts 11 or 1. The Ace always counts 11 except if your total exceeds 21; then the value of the Ace is reduced to 1.

A hand with one Ace having the value of 11 is called a soft hand and a hand with all Aces having the value of 1 is called a hard hand . In Black Jack for instance, if you get an 8 and Ace dealt it would be a soft 19 while an 8, 10 and Ace would be a hard 19.

Getting a start total of 21 is called a Black Jack and you have to show your hand immediately. If the dealer's up card is an Ace he checks for a dealer Black Jack first and then continues the game. Exceeding a total of 21, and already counting all the aces you have in your hand as one, means you are bust and lose your bet.

By turn each player will then have to make one of the following 6 decisions:

After all the players have made their decision the dealer will then play his hand. The playing of the dealer's hand must follow certain rules. He must hit on every total less than 17 or otherwise stand. Some casinos even let the dealer hit when he has a soft 17. The rules which the dealer has to follow will be written clearly on the Black Jack table, so there will be no confusion.

You win if either the dealer busts or has a total less than yours. The odds are 1:1. If the total is the same it's a draw or a push and your original wager is returned to you. A Black Jack beats an ordinary 21 and is paid 3:2 odds.

Blackjack is one of the most popular games if not the most popular casino game when it comes to Online Casinos. Playing Blackjack Online can be as good a thrill as playing it in a land based casino. Particularly as many casinos online allow you to play multiplayer blackjack with other gamers in real time.

Strategies

Paroli system
Basic strategy
Card counting
Shuffle tracking

Unlike most other casino games, Blackjack is a game whose outcome is greatly influenced by the player, right from the moment the player cuts the deck of cards. The dealer practically plays like a robot. He follows a set of rules and makes no decisions of what so ever.

There are 3 different approaches to the game a player can take using 3 different strategies:

Paroli System

This system is in a way the opposite of the Martingale system. You start with one bet and you increase your bet when you win rather than when you lose. However, you will need to plan a betting procedure that will help you remember how far you will let the bet build before you'll take it down to the initial starting bet and how much to raise after each win. This obviously depends on the type of game played and the odds of the bet. The advantage of this system is that it does not require a large bankroll. It lets the profit run and cuts short the losses.

Basic Strategy

Basic strategy is designed to be used against the baseline rules of Black Jack. With basic strategy the number of decks, used in a game have no bearing on the situation. Each recommended play does not guarantee that you will win, but offers the highest odds of winning with any particular hand. Understanding basic strategy can make the difference between winning and losing, and Black Jack is the only casino table game where players can employ skill to affect the outcome of their play against the house.

The most important decision a player has to make is whether to hit or to stand on their hand. There are a few straightforward rules for both hard and soft hands.

For hard hands, if the player's cards amount to 12 or higher, there are 3 rules:

For soft hands there are only 2:

Doubling down is the main method by which a player can eliminate the house edge so it is very important to remember when to utilize this option.

For hard hands, there are 3 basic rules:

For soft hands, there are also 3 basic rules:

There are 6 easy rules that apply to splitting pairs in basic strategy:

Card Counting

The technique of card counting allows the player to take note of changing probabilities and by altering playing and betting strategies accordingly, they can gain a statistical advantage over the casino. Learning the skill of card counting is relatively simple, and you don't need to have a photographic memory or a freakish mathematical ability. The card counting system described below is designed only as a rough guide to give you an idea how card counting is done. It is intended only to give an idea of how card counting is done, and is not recommended for actual practice.

For single deck games:

The principle behind card counting is that a deck of cards rich is tens and Aces is favorable to the player, whereas a deck rich in small cards is favorable to the dealer. A deck rich in tens and Aces is likely to bust the dealer more often.

To gauge the richness of the deck in high cards or lack of them, the player needs to keep track of the cards that are already played and assign a point value to each card. The calculation is quite complex, but basically the card counter will give a plus point each time the deck of cards becomes more favorable and a minus point each time it becomes less favorable. Basically, the high cards have a -1 point and the low cards a +1 point and the in between 0 point.

The counter then counts by adding and subtracting points according to the cards played and keeps a running total of the count called 'running count'. Then he also needs to divide the running count by the proportion of the size of the deck of cards left to get the 'true count'. Now he knows the relative richness of high cards in the remaining deck.

A positive count is good and a high positive count is best and the card counter will assess his hand, the ealer's up card, weigh up his options and intensify his betting accordingly.
To be a successful card counter you need to have a powerful memory and fast reaction while amassing information as you play. If everything works out well, you will be looking at a slow and tedious 1% average profit. If you wager large sums of money to make the 1% worthwhile, you are likely to be noticed by the pit boss and prompt frequent shuffling of the cards. Card counting is hard, not liked by the casinos and is not as rewarding as it may seem.

Shuffle Tracking

Shuffle tracking is the science of following specific cards through the shuffling process for the purpose of either keeping them in play or cutting them out of play. The concept of Shuffle tracking appears to have resulted from bored mathematician's research and computer simulation of shuffling cards.

A beneficial (to the player) shuffle for a one deck game is executed by dividing the deck equally into 26 cards and shuffling them together a minimum of 3 times. This allows the cards to be sufficiently intermixed to yield a fairly random distribution. An adverse shuffle prevents the cards from mixing completely.

The simplest example is the Unbalanced Shuffle. As its name implies, the dealer breaks the deck into 2 unequal stacks. For example, let's say you are playing 2 hands head on with the dealer and the last 10 cards in the deck are dealt. The result of the hand was that both your hands lost to the dealer primarily due to the high percentage of low value cards in the clump. Note that if you were counting, you would have bet a single unit since the deck was unfavorable. The dealer is now ready to shuffle the deck, and separates the deck into 31 cards in one stack and 21 in the other stack. The dealer shuffles the 2 stacks. If the shuffle is done from the bottom of each stack on up, the top 10 cards of the larger stack will remain intact without mixing with any of the other cards. Those 10 cards can remain in the order they were just dealt throughout the shuffle, only if the process of bottom to top shuffling is not altered. You are now asked to cut the deck. If you don't cut the deck, the 10 cards that were dealt last hand will be dealt as your first 2 hands. The result will be the same as your last and you will lose the 2 hands. However, if you cut the deck exactly at the end of those 10 cards, you have just altered the future to your benefit. Those cards will now be placed at the bottom of the deck. Should the dealer shuffle up early, you will avoid them altogether. In addition, if you were keeping count, you would know that the deck was favorable during the first 3-4 hands since there would be an abundance of 10's in the portion of the deck that will be played. You would accordingly increase you bet size to maximize your winnings.

Some dealers will unknowingly split the deck into unequal stacks. However, more often than not, they are required to split the deck into unequal stacks. If they are required to do this, they are performing the House Shuffle. The casino has trained the dealer to shuffle a particular way... on purpose! In the long run, the house will benefit from this because most players will not cut any bad clumps out of play. If you have played Black Jack in a casino, how much did you pay attention to the way they shuffled? Like most people you were probably unaware to it.

There are a number of shuffle methods, some of which have been labeled as: the "Zone Shuffle", the "Strip Shuffle", and the 'Stutter Shuffle'. The Zone Shuffle is particular to shoe games (multiple deck games) and is probably one of the most common shuffle methods. It is accomplished by splitting the shoe into 4 to 8 piles depending on the number of decks in the shoe. Prescribed picks from each pile are made in a very exact way with intermittent shuffles of each pair of half deck sized stacks. The net effect is a simple regrouping of the cards pretty much in the same region of the shoe as they were before, thereby preventing clumps of cards from being randomly mixed. If the dealer won 40 hands and you won 20, this trend is likely to continue until you are broke or until the unfavorable bias is removed through many shuffles.

What if the players are winning 40 hands and the dealer wins only 20? If the dealer has been mentally keeping track of how many hands each side has won in the shoe, the dealer will probably do one of two things. One is to keep the shuffle the same, but 'strip' the deck. When a dealer strips a deck, he/she strips off one card at a time from the shoe letting them fall on top of one another onto the table. This action causes the order of the cards to be reversed. The main consequence is to dissipate any clumping advantages (a bunch of tens in a clump) that the players may have. The second thing the dealer may do is simply change the way they shuffle to help randomize the cards.