- Players can find many types of poker games at online casinos, and all of them require skill, strategy, and a bit of luck. Texas Hold'em is the most popular poker game in the world, but three card poker is one of the When Do You Raise Your Bet In Blackjack quickest to learn.
- The insurance bet is a wager that the dealer has a card with a value of 10 to pair with their ace. The bet pays 2:1, which sounds fair enough at first, but it doesn't pass closer inspection. If the dealer has a blackjack, that's great. You'll lose your original wager but win the insurance bet.
- Now, if the casual player wants to raise their bet base on the basic strategy in blackjack, then it would be during the opportunity to double down on a hand or double down after a split (if.
The next time you're at the casino, make sure to pay close attention to what you hear at the blackjack table. Now, it's well-known that gamblers can be superstitious. Additionally, it seems like most have their takes on one of the most popular casino games on the planet. Because of this, there are several different schools of thought when it comes to playing blackjack.
To double down is to increase your initial bet (the one placed on you vs the dealer in the nearest to 21 duel), by up to 100 per cent. In return you have to stand after taking exactly one more card. If you are a $5 minimum bet player your betting spread would be $5 to $20. Likewise for a $25 player it would be $25 to $100. To withstand the normal short-term fluctuations in your bankroll that will occur when you play blackjack, you should have a bankroll equal to 125 times your maximum bet.
It's worth noting that there's only one way to play blackjack correctly. But that doesn't stop players from experimenting and trying to implement their strategic moves. There's no way of knowing how certain players came to break from the norm and gain a leg up on the competition.
Whatever the reason may be, you'll most likely come across several players who are more than willing to share their knowledge with you. You might consider heeding their wisdom, but it should be avoided if you have any intention to win at the tables. Here are seven common pieces of advice you should ignore when playing blackjack for real money.
Split 10s to Increase Chances of a Blackjack
The name of the game is blackjack, so you should always try to increase your odds of hitting 21, right? Wrong. The way you win at blackjack is by playing according to perfect strategy and grinding out wins. If you are lucky enough to be dealt a 20, there is absolutely no reason you should split up your 10s.
But that doesn't stop some gamblers from trying to take advantage of their luck. The only hand that can beat a 20 is a 21, obviously. If you play blackjack long enough, that is going to happen to you at some point. Speaking from experience, it's one of the worst breaks in blackjack, but you have to shake it off.
A common practice among bad blackjack players is to split face cards in hopes of hitting two 21s. By doing this, you'll frustrate fellow players and decrease your chances of winning. If you are sitting next to someone who routinely splits 10s, find a different table. If you're someone who commonly does this, you need to change your approach to the game.
Increase Your Bet After a Loss
This tactic is far too common in all varieties of casino games. It's a natural tendency to want to win your money back after losses, but it's something that should rarely be done. Experienced gamblers might be able to chase losses effectively. If you're new to the game, you should ignore people who advise you to increase your bets after a tough loss.
If you think about the logic behind increasing bets after a loss, it's somewhat nonsensical. The outcome in blackjack is random; you have no way of knowing what you'll be dealt. If you count cards, you might make an educated guess, but you can't know for sure. Your odds of winning a hand simply aren't any better than previous hands.
Only Split Eights and Aces
One of the first things you'll learn about playing blackjack is always to split eights and aces. The logic in both cases is airtight. If you're dealt two aces, you either have a two or a soft 12, which are both terrible. Not only do you have an excellent chance of improving your hand, but splitting aces gives you a chance of catching two 21s.
There's a multitude of possible card combinations in blackjack. Frequently blackjack players must make decisions based on the cards they are dealt, compared to the cards the dealer is dealt. In fact, that's how you win the game in the first place. Because there's a wide variety of combinations, occasionally, basic strategy calls for players to split cards based on what the dealer draws.
You Can Occasionally Deviate From Basic Strategy
If you want to minimize the house edge, you need to stick to basic blackjack strategy 100% of the time. You might have gotten lucky by breaking from the norm a few times, but an erratic play style rarely rewards the player. This strategy can be challenging to learn, but over time, it is possible to master. When you first start playing, I highly recommend studying basic strategy and cheat sheets.
While playing blackjack, I routinely see players purposefully play against the book. I usually give the benefit of the doubt the first time, as should you. However, you might find that certain players make a point of playing according to their own set of rules. They might think they are being innovative or outsmarting the game. It's impossible to improve your chances, unless you learn to count cards.
Some players might convince you to try some piece of strategy that has led to wins in the past. Whether that is splitting face cards, doubling a hard 12, or any other variety of misplay, ignore these pieces of advice. It's always preferable to defer to basic strategy if you have any interest in winning money.
You Should Always Take Insurance
This rule will not apply to you if you're able to count cards. For those who don't know, you can take insurance anytime a dealer's upcard is an ace. If you're counting cards and are sure the dealer has a face card, insurance is a smart and profitable bet.
It's always unfortunate to see the dealer get dealt an ace and subsequently hit a blackjack. But the odds a dealer has a 10 under the ace aren't high enough to take out insurance.
Learning to Count Cards at Casinos Isn't Worth It
Learning how to count cards is not nearly as challenging as you would think. With a fair amount of diligent, repetitive practice, you can master the art of counting cards. The methods that go into counting cards are complex, admittedly, and should be saved for another post. For the sake of simplicity, card counters assign values to each type of card. They then take that information to understand what types of cards are left in the deck.
When counting cards, it's essential to understand how many decks the casino uses at blackjack tables. It's always easiest to count cards when only one deck is in play. However, very few casinos use one deck. Before you learn to count cards, you should have a solid grasp of the basic strategy of blackjack.
As I said earlier, learning to count cards is the only way to swing the odds into your favor. If you play blackjack perfectly, you still only have around a 49% chance to win every hand. Those are still great odds compared to other table games. If you can count cards effectively, you can increase your odds by a few percentage points. So, next time someone tells you that counting cards is a waste of time, make sure to ignore them.
It's Just Money, You Can't Take It With You
Winning money at casinos is incredibly challenging. Walking away from the casino with a profit as someone who isn't a professional gambler is nearly impossible. It's essential to be aware of both of these facts before you start gamabling. Being conservative with your bankroll in order to extend your stay at the tables is crucial to successful gambling.
Adopting a mindset that leads you to throw caution to the wind can lead to disaster. If you ever feel like you just can't catch a break and it's not your night, don't keep shelling out money. Sometimes, the cards aren't in your favor. Instead of listening to bad influences and putting yourself in financial turmoil, live to gamble another day.
Conclusion
Blackjack tables can be home to some of the worst gambling advice in the casino. The game appeals to a variety of gamblers, all with different opinions about the popular card game. Regardless of what you hear at the tables, try your best to block out incorrect information.
Lousy blackjack players commonly commit similar mistakes and always seem to want to ruin other players' chances. If you're ever advised to split 10s or increase bets after a loss, stick to your game plan. Never go against the grain; instead, always play according to basic strategy. Finally, counting cards is definitely worth looking into and is the only way to gain a slight edge on the house.
I analyze all sorts of blackjack strategies and rank them for your fun and profit.
In every single movie about Las Vegas and the gangsters that run it, some character says to another character, 'The house always wins.'
Yet that doesn't stop all of us from trying to beat the casino. Specifically blackjack. We all think we're better than blackjack.
We're not, of course. But we think we are. I compiled this list of 11 popular strategies for beating blackjack and ranked them here, starting with the least effective and building toward the most effective.
11 | Superstitions
I've seen tons of blackjack superstitions. None of these actually do anything — but either do lucky shirts, avoiding black cats, turning off the light switch three times to keep Charlie from dying, or any of the other day-to-day superstitions people swear by.
So it's not going to change your blackjack fortunes if you violate your superstitions — even if you let new players enter during a shoe… you don't bother saying 'Nice hit' to someone who gets a six on a 15… you wish yourself good luck on your first-card ace… you tap twice instead of scratching the felt to hit… or forget your lucky cowboy hat. Gamblor is immune to superstition.
10 | Gut feelings
It seems that most people who sit down at a blackjack table have a rough understanding of textbook blackjack strategy. At least on the most basic level. The 'gut feelings' strategy is a mix of playing with basic blackjack strategy but also having feelings. For example: 'I'm going to stay on this 16, I just know the next card is a 10.' (I've seen my friend Bruce almost attack people for that statement. More than once.)
The problem here, from a mathematical perspective — aka my favorite perspective — is that blackjack strategy is constructed to give you an edge if you adhere to it without deviation and play for a long, long time. It's like a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters — eventually they're going to write A Tale of Two Cities. But as soon as you deviate from the strategy for a gut feeling, that's like telling your monkeys that they're now trying to accidentally write Sarah Palin's Going Rogue: An American Life.
9 | Easy card counting
I have three different levels of card counting on this list, because not all card counting is created equal. Some methods are so basic that you can learn them in 15 minutes. Some take months or years of practice.
Easy card counting might give you a small bump. One strategy like this is called ace/five — that's where you start with the number zero, add one for every five dealt and subtract one for every ace. If the count is more than two, you double your previous bet. If the count is less than two, you bet the minimum. It's simple, and marginally effective across a large data set.
Another easy card counting style is the famed 'I feel like I've seen a lot of big cards' strategy. This is the one where you're paying like 80 percent attention, but you feel like you've seen a lot of big cards come out already so you scale back your bets. This somewhat resembles wearing shorts outside in February because you feel like there have been so many snowy days that some sun is due.
8 | Avoiding elderly female Korean dealers
This isn't necessarily a winning strategy but more of an 'avoid losing' strategy. Simply put: If you stand up and walk away every time there's a dealer switch and an elderly female Korean assassin takes over your table, it will probably save you thousands of dollars in your lifetime.
7 | Bet incrementing
Bet incrementing is like card counting without the card counting. It's more like streak counting. There are different systems but they all basically come down to this: If you're winning, keep increasing your bet; if you're losing, don't increase your bet.
When To Raise Your Bet In Blackjack Winnings
This certainly helps avoid the break-even rut that blackjack can fall into — where you sit there for hours and never swing more than 25 percent or so from your buy-in. With incrementing, you're either blowing money quickly or raking it in quickly.
But it's not really a system to beat the house… just one to help you channel your luck. Incrementing coupled with counting can actually increase your winning percentage (or, more accurately, shave a small amount off the house edge). But incrementing without counting is like having sexual relations with multiple people and eschewing condoms until you catch an STD, then going back to condoms again.
6 | Cheating
I put this in the middle of the list because it can go either way. If you spend hours going from casino to casino searching for a rookie dealer who might occasionally expose the very bottom burn card, that's ineffective and inefficient cheating.
If you hide cards in your sleeve or try to subtlety double your bet when you get a good hand, those are more effective cheating strategies. Sure, you'll end up getting dragged into a windowless room in the bowels of the casino and getting beat — fittingly — with a blackjack. But you'll win some serious cash in the process.
5 | Shuffle Tracking
In most of the big Vegas casinos you can't do this anymore — the dealer doesn't shuffle, he just puts the cards in a machine that automatically shuffles them. (Or, if you're more of a conspiracy theorist, that sequences them to make sure you all get screwed.)
But if you're playing blackjack and the dealer is manually shuffling, this actually can be moderately effective. You have to pay detailed attention to the sequence that the cards come out, because you're looking for clusters. Maybe you try to remember the number and suit of the two cards that lead up to every ace. You expect that, during a human shuffle, some of those clusters will stay together — and you might have a little edge in knowing when the aces are coming.
It requires a lot of concentration, but might actually help you make a better decision on one or two hands every two or three shoes. It's a long-term play. Continuing the analogy motif of this list, it's like getting three green shells on the first lap in Mario Kart 64 and holding them indefinitely, hoping that you'll be in a situation eventually where they'll benefit you.
4 | Basic strategy and time
Basic strategy is the calling card of blackjack — if you play with proper strategy, blackjack gives you the best odds in the casino over time. (People forget the 'over time' aspect. We're a culture that freaks out over small sample sizes. They're the only thing keeping Around the Horn on the air.)
And over time, basic strategy really can make a difference — infinite computer simulations have proven it. But you need to have the discipline to hit 12 and 13 against a 2… hit soft 18 against a 9, 10 or ace… split 8s against a 10 even if you're on a cold streak… and refuse to take even money for blackjacks. Every single time you play, with no exceptions, for your entire life.
3 | Medium-difficulty card counting
This is the kind of card counting that the common man can learn and try to employ. You don't need an entire team of MIT-educated math geniuses to work as spotters and helpers and trainers to make it work. (It'd be hard to get that team together anyway, what with them knowing they'd be whitewashed if a movie was made about your adventures.)
These medium strategies are more advanced than the counting strategies I talked about earlier. Here you might try something like the current 'hot' counting style, called the Zen Count. (You subtract one for an ace; add one for a 2, 3 or 7; add two for a 4, 5 or 6; and subtract two for a ten.) This requires practice and concentration, *might* get you kicked out of a casino but probably not, and will give you more of an advantage than you're used to.
Of course, if you're doing this, you can't really drink — so that's a $6-$32 per hour loss, depending on the efficiency of your waitress and your willingness to consume Long Island iced teas in the middle of the afternoon. So make sure to factor that in.
2 | Hard card counting team effort
These are the card counting systems you would see in movies like 21 and others. (No, I can't actually name others, I just assume there are others.) Basically, you and your genius friends develop an advanced card counting strategy. Then you all watch and card count different tables and signal each other when a table is about to start paying off. The money guy goes to that table, bets a ton, then gets the hell out as soon as the pit bosses start whispering to each other and casting furtive glances in your direction.
On the downside, this is the kind of thing that casinos are on the lookout for and that might only exist in fantasy at this point. On the upside, if you do choose this method, you get to wear cool disguises and play different characters at the table! So if you and your friends from differential calculus class started an improv troupe, you were born for this.
(Side note: I bet that improv troupe would have a kitschy name like 'RDRR' or 'Nothing Derivative' or 'Kristen Cavalieri's Principle.')
1 | Autistic brother
When To Raise Your Bet In Blackjack Without
Show me the money! Feel the need for speed! I want the truth! You're glib!
—
When To Raise Your Bet In Blackjack Game
You may also like…
