Blackjack is a very popular game in all casinos whether it is in actual land based casinos like the ones in Las Vegas or in any one of the hundreds of online casinos and blackjack sites available on the internet. Just like the game of Poker, Blackjack too is a game that involves big money and a skilled player who knows how to beat the odds in blackjack could soon find that they have made themselves very rich. The game has been around for along time and with the amount of popularity it enjoys has generated a number of blackjack strategies.
Blackjack if played optimally can reduce the casino advantage. What is optimal will vary depending on the number of decks and the rules of the casino. Players have to know the complete set of optimal plays which is known as the basic strategy.
Card counting is keeping track of the cards played already and trying to guess what cards are remaining in the deck. Guessing it right will prove to be very advantageous to the players. If a player has been keeping track of the cards which have been played and know that there are plenty of aces and tens which are yet to be dealt then he/she can increase their bets as the chances of getting a blackjack are going to be higher. Card counting also is useful to develop other strategies like deciding when to double down
Card counting does not require a player to remember all the cards that have been played. There is a point system established for the cards and the player only needs to keep track of the points as and when the cards are dealt out. In single deck games card counting can be very advantageous to a player and bring down the casino advantage to zero and when it is multi-deck games it can be brought down to as little as less than 1%. Depending on how well it is done card counting can give a player up to two percent advantage over the house. Realizing that the advantage is being lost to players who practice card counting, casinos started to use a “shoe” to deal cards.
Players would need to decide the nature of play based on the total number of points available for the cards received and the dealer’s up card. It is not always advisable to go by the basic strategy but to rather go by what the player has in hand. For example, in a single deck game a player should hit if he has a 12 consisting of a 2 and a 10. This is advised because the player should receive anything other than a 10 especially since the 10 available in the player’s hand is one less card which would cause the player or the dealer to bust. This sort of strategy is called composition dependent strategy.
Other than counting cards players can also try to track groups of cards which are called packs, clumps and slugs. Tracking of group of cards is usually done in a multi-deck game and is usually known as shuffle tracking. Players should keep in mind that shuffle tracking takes a lot more effort than counting cards but also has lot more advantage. By practising shuffle tracking casinos can be fooled into thinking that the player is counting cards. Players who practice shuffle tracking play the opposite of what would be expected by a player who counts cards. Articles and books have been written on shuffle tracking which prove that it does gain an advantage for the players as long as it is done efficiently.
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