Blackjack Card Strategies
Blackjack is presently the most popular casino gambling game in the entire world. The game is largely played online with decks of 52 cards, and is actually an American derivative of a world wide family of blackjack games called Twenty-One. This family of blackjack games also includes the British version of blackjack, Pontoon, and the European version, Vingt-et-Un. In the United States, however, the game has developed somewhat different, in part because of differences in state gambling laws and in part because of different preferences among players.
A good blackjack player should have a general strategy for playing the game. The most important strategy involves choosing your starting hand. You should always choose a hand when you are fairly sure that your opponent will have at least as many cards as you do, to prevent him or her from using any of his or her cards to bluff. The starting hand is generally referred to as a “low pair”, because it represents the hand that you would likely be dealt if you were the dealer.
A second, and very important, strategy for playing blackjack is to play it without going over your set limit. Although most people who regularly participate in blackjack do not go beyond their set limit, some players go so far over the amount they set that they lose their money, sometimes even losing their lives. Going over your set limit can result in both losing your money as well as having to pay a fine to the dealer. The best way to avoid going over your limit is to bet the amount you know you can afford to lose without going bankrupt.
A final strategy for playing blackjack is to play your blackjack out at casinos with players who are not your regular routine blackjack playing partners. Many players will sit at the casino all day without ever playing blackjack, and some of these people are dealers. These “artistic” dealers are often much better at blackjack than regular players, as they are not looking to win any money, but instead are looking to have fun. By having a blackjack partner who is not a professional dealer, you can sometimes get away with playing more without being concerned about whether you will hit or miss. Of course, the same cannot be said for random blackjack partners; if you are not careful, you can end up paying very dearly.
It should be relatively easy to see how many different strategies there are for blackjack, when compared to other casino games. You can bet without ever touching your bankroll (with many players), bet aggressively if you are feeling aggressive, and split your money between multiple bets (with many players). You can also use a variety of different betting strategies, including combination bets, lock bets, and live bets. Blackjack also has a strong reliance on luck, meaning there are no “tells” that tell you whether you are winning or losing. The only way to make a blackjack bet successfully is to have good timing, and to be able to determine the best time to place your bets.
In order to place successful bets in blackjack, it helps to know a little bit about the odds. The odds of blackjack are the standard value for each card, taken from the bookies’ odds, and applied to the current situation. The first two cards, or the “ces,” are considered the most important cards in blackjack. The second two, or the “spots,” do not actually influence the odds that much, and should be treated like junk money. The last two, or the “kidneys,” are not part of the cards in the deck and are not used in any other context during a game of blackjack.