Your Guide to Online Blackjack Strategy

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Online Blackjack- An Introduction

Have you been to casinos for playing poker games? Well, even if you have been playing them on online casinos, you can say a ‘Yes’. If you have been to a few casinos (offline or online), you would have definitely heard about or seen some players playing the blackjack game. It will be difficult to find a casino player who hasn’t heard about blackjack, given the popularity of this card game. You need to have a solid blackjack strategy to perform consistently well at this game.

Of course, you cannot win always! But, having a sound blackjack strategy will help you to win more and lose less. This is because the game of blackjack is based majorly on logic and maths. So, you cannot win unless you have a great understanding of how the game unfolds with regards to different moves and strategies. Here, let us first get an overview of how this game is played, and then look at some useful blackjack tips for beginners, and finally check out few blackjack strategy options that can enhance your chances of winning blackjack.

How to Play Blackjack?

While playing blackjack, your major aim is to beat your dealer’s hand by fulfilling either of the following two conditions:

The total of face value of your cards does not exceed the face value total of cards held by the dealer.
The face value total of your cards does not go higher than 21 when the face value total of cards possessed by the dealer goes over 21.

Unlike many popular poker games such as Texas Hold’em and Omaha Poker, you do not compete with other players on the table, but, only with the dealer.

You need to remember the following face value rules for your cards:

Ace is counted as 1 or 11 (ace is counted as 11 till the total of your cards exceeds 21, which is when you can start counting your ace as 1).
The picture cards like J, Q, K are each considered to be of face value 10.
Rest of the cards carry a face value equivalent to the corresponding number on the card.

There is no relevance of suits in blackjack, where generally not more than 7 players play on the casino table. Basic steps followed for the game of blackjack:

Players start placing their bets using chips.
Two cards are dealt to every player on the table by the dealer, including himself. One of the cards is placed face-up and the other is placed face-down.
You (and every player) needs to decide whether to split, surrender, double down, stand, or hit. Stand means you are happy with the sum for your cards and are confident that it could fetch you a win. Hit means you are willing to receive one additional card from the dealer. Split means you have received a pair and want to play two separate hands by splitting the cards of the pair for each hand. You can choose to double-down after the first two cards in order to double your initial bet and draw only one card. Surrender option means folding up your hand, which is available if the dealer does not have a blackjack hand and the player hasn’t drawn any card (after the initial two).
Dealer gets the opportunity to play last and he either has to stand on 17 through to 21 (sum of face value of cards) or hit on 16 or less.

This is a basic overview of how the game of blackjack is played.

Blackjack Tips for Beginners

Some of the useful tips are highlighted below:

Be wary of the house edge associated with the blackjack game that you play. There is a house edge for every blackjack variant and this denotes the advantage for the casino. You need to choose variants of this game that have lower house edge – the lower the house edge, the more chances you have at winning! A useful way to avoid giving away your winnings back to the dealer / casino is to stop playing as soon as you are into profits.
Before you make your bet for any game of blackjack, make sure that you are thorough with the rules of that particular variant. Remember every blackjack variant has certain different rules which you need to be aware of beforehand. So, keep checking the rules.
Do not focus on using a single basic blackjack strategy for all blackjack game variants. You may have to explore different blackjack strategies for different variants.
Opt for casino sites and poker platforms like Spartan Poker online that offer good payouts for blackjack players.
Keep an eye on the various bonus opportunities that may be available for different blackjack variants on online casinos. You may benefit by using such bonus amount to win big in blackjack games.
There is no blackjack strategy that can help you to win whole day long if you keep playing the game even after being in considerable profits. So, always adopt a smart approach and quit the game as soon as you are under some kind of profits. Keep accumulating the wins by playing small and look at winning big in the longer run!

Different Types of Blackjack Strategies

There is no single best blackjack strategy that suits every player and every variant of blackjack. You need to understand the various strategies available and their usage at the opportune time for the right game variant. Let us have a look at few good blackjack strategies that you can use.

1.Conservative Blackjack Strategy for Beginners

This is ideal for you if you are still getting used to the different ways of playing blackjack and are not fully confident of winning more. Keep track of the streaks that you experience in the blackjack game – be it a streak of losses or a streak of wins.

Aim to raise your stake bit by bit after every win. Never get complacent after a win and raise your stakes in a hurry – the only reason being if you lose a lot at once, you would lose your confidence and subsequently, lose your patience to stay at the table for a long time. Always remember, slow and steady wins the race. As soon as you find yourself in profits, you can stop playing.

This blackjack strategy will ensure you get to play many blackjack games which shall improve your learning and make you more apt at playing this game.

2. 1-3-2-6 Blackjack Strategy of Betting

This strategy is again suited for beginners as well as for people who want to approach a systematic method of betting for blackjack games. In the conservative strategy, we spoke about increasing your stakes bit by bit after every game that you win. But, some players find it hard to decide what that ‘bit’ should be? Should it be 30% of original bet or 50% or more? This is where the 1-3-2-6 blackjack strategy proves to be useful. This is based on the assumption / finding that wins generally come in longer streaks in blackjack.

So, the numbers in the name of this strategy denote the sequence of betting you need to follow after every win. If you happen to lose a game in between, you will have to start again. For example, let us consider that you bet chips equivalent to $10 for a game and win the bet. Your subsequent next bet has to be $30. If you win that game as well, your next bet will be $20. If you happen to lose this game, then, you next bet will start again from $10.

This blackjack strategy ensures that you do not lose too much of money at once in a single game. Thus, it’s a strategy that gives you a complete step-by-step guide of how much you have to bet for every blackjack game. You don’t have to think much about betting and just focus on choosing the right option to play the game – hit, stand, double-down, split, surrender, etc.

3.Martingale Blackjack Strategy

This is not a basic strategy and it is not meant for beginners. In fact, this is a highly aggressive strategy meant for players who have good amount of money for betting and who are confident of winning more games on the table than they lose. This strategy can help you win big, but because of the huge risk, it can also make you lose big. So, only those who have an appetite to lose and are courageous enough can try it out to win big in blackjack.

This Martingale blackjack strategy is based on the assumption that you will win at least one game of blackjack. So, it asks you to follow just one rule:

“Keep doubling your bets every time you lose.”

Yes, you are reading it right! It is asking you to double your bet for the next game, whenever you lose a game of blackjack. How can this even work?

Well, even if you lose a few games on the trot, there is likely to come a round where you win. And when you win, your bet would be highest of all the previous rounds, giving you an opportunity to recover all that you lost and earn more if you happen to win more than just one game. So, it’s all about waiting for that round when you win – which shall change the entire equation for you. Clearly, this strategy requires you to have lot of money so that you can afford to lose lot of games on the trot and wait for that elusive win!

There is one more small rule applicable for this strategy which is:

“To stop once you go over your initial bankroll.”

On good days, this strategy can fetch you big money; while on bad days this strategy can ensure you are not losing much. Only when you are having your worst day (which hopefully won’t be too often), will you lose big time with this aggressive blackjack strategy!

4.Basic Blackjack Strategy

There exists a basic set of rules to play that inform you about the optimal way in which you need to play every hand that is dealt to you by the dealer – since the only information available to you is the dealer card which is face-up and your own hand. This set of rules is devised as per a mathematical strategy that allows you to minimise the amount that you can lose and maximize the amount that you can win.

In fact, there is a basic strategy chart available as well which gives you clarity on how you should play when dealt with different combinations of cards for your blackjack game. At the end of the day, this is a mathematical game and certain fixed rules like the ones implied for this strategy can work well for you!

The Verdict

The popularity of blackjack game is known to all. After going through the different tips and blackjack strategies discussed in this article, you would have realized that this game is not so complicated. You have simple options to play it, and some simple strategies available to try out for different blackjack variants. You need to smart and get more game time under your belt by playing more of these games at platforms like Spartan Poker online to give yourself the exposure to different strategies of blackjack. Unless you implement the blackjack strategies, you will not realize their impact in real game scenarios.

For the sake of repetition, there is no single best blackjack strategy that suits everyone. Try out the different ones and identify the strategies that suit you. If you are disciplined and keep the tips in mind for being successful at blackjack, you will end up winning more games than you lose. And that is the key mantra – target more wins and not high stakes and target less losses!

Head onto Spartan Poker now and play poker online in India!