Player Options
As I said above, dealers don’t have Blackjack options, but players
do, and it is in the exercising of these options that players demonstrate
their Blackjack-smarts! Below I will discuss five options available
to the Blackjack player.
- Should I surrender?
This is the question
you’ll ask yourself when you get your initial
two-card hand, and what it means is, “Is my hand
bad enough that I should just fold it? Yes, it’ll
cost me half of my original bet, but it might
be worth cutting my losses.” Now, I should say
that surrendering is not always an available
option in every game. I should also mention that
there are two kinds of surrender – early and
late – but you’ll rarely find the early option.
That’s because it’s an option that gives the
player the advantage, by allowing him to surrender
before the dealer has checked his hand for a
Blackjack. Late surrender, on the other hand,
means the dealer checks for Blackjack in his
hand first, and only if he doesn’t have one will
he let the players surrender. Surrendering is
time-dependent; in other words, if you’re given
the option at all, you can only act on it before
you’ve taken any other “action” (i.e., drawing
a third card, splitting, doubling down). The
surrender option is a good one to have, but in
my experience I’ve found that if anything, players
err to the side of over-using it. Fearing that
their hands are losers, they fold them more often
than they should. A good way of deciding whether
to surrender is by using this simple formula:
You must be only 25% likely to win the hand in
order to lose LESS by surrendering. Or, put another
way, let’s say you lose 75% of the time and win
25% of the time. This would render a net loss
of 50% of your bets, an amount equal to what
you’ll lose when you surrender.
- Should I hit ? Or should I stand?
These
questions of course are at the heart of Blackjack,
and the answers to them come more easily over
time and with experience. “Hit” means drawing
another card to your hand, and “stand” means
stopping with what you’ve already got. In the
meantime, it is important for you to know how
to communicate which of these options you want
to the dealer, and again there are standardized
ways of doing so. These ways differ depending
on the kind of game you’re playing (i.e., face-up
shoe game vs. face-down game). I will explain
both, starting with the face-up shoe game. If
you wish to “stand” (meaning, you don’t want
any more cards), wave your hand horizontally
over your cards. If you wish to “hit” or “draw”
(get another card from the dealer) you tap the
table behind your cards with your finger. Now,
you may be tempted to call out “stand” or “hit”
instead, but believe me, you must use the hand
signals. Just as you would dress in a certain
way before entering a church or synagogue, here
too in the casino there is a proper mode of behavior
and you must follow it. Over time it will come
naturally to you. The truth is that these hand
signals are for your benefit too, as there are
surveillance cameras to record what goes on in
case of dispute over what really happened. Okay.
Now let’s say you’ve drawn another card. If this
card puts you over 21, that means you went “bust,”
and the dealer will take your bet and clear your
cards from the table right away. The modes of
behavior are different in the face-down game.
In this scenario you’ll be holding your first
two cards in one hand, and to communicate that
you want another card you’ll have to scrape your
cards lightly across the table felt. When you
do this, the dealer will put your additional
cards down on the table, in front of your bet.
Leave them there. Don’t pick them up. Just mentally
calculate your total hand value. If you’ve gone
beyond 21, take the two cards that are in your
hand and put them face-up on the table. At that
point the dealer will swoop them up, discard
them and collect your bet. If, on the other hand,
you didn’t want another “hit,” you just wanted
to “stand,” what you would have done to communicate
this wish to the dealer was to tuck your initial
two cards – the ones you’ve been holding in your
hand – face-down under your bet (i.e., the chips).
It may seem to you that I’m going to an awful
lot of trouble to describe an unimportant routine, but
in fact the routine is of utmost importance.
The reason you have to tuck the cards under the
bet is because – if you’ll remember – you’re
simply not allowed to touch the bet once the
cards have been dealt. So you have to slide the
corner of the cards under the chips – something
quite easily accomplished, and much easier to
do than to explain!
- What is Doubling Down?
Good question.
And here’s your answer. Doubling down is when
you get to double your bet under these conditions:
you can only double down with your initial two-card
hand, and you can only receive ONE additional
card to that hand. When should you double down?
When you believe you have a good chance of winning
that hand – based on what you’ve got in your
hand, and what the dealer’s up-card is – and
you figure you might as well take advantage of
that win by doubling your bet. I’ll give you
an example of a situation in which doubling down
makes sense: let’s say you have a total of 11
in your initial two-card hand and the dealer’s
up-card is a 5. In this situation you’ll want
to exploit the fact that you’ll probably win,
by increasing your bet. I’m afraid that here
again I’ll have to get into the dreary “mechanics”
of doubling down – i.e., how do you make it known
that that’s what you want. In a face-down game
you’ll put the two cards face-up on the table
in front of your bet. In a face-up game the cards
are already face-up, so you can eliminate that
first move! In either kind of game what you’ll
do next is to add your additional bet to the
betting circle. This additional bet you’ll put
NEXT to the original one, not on top of it, and
then the dealer will deal the one additional
card out. If it’s a face-down game, the dealer
will most likely tuck the additional card face-down
under your bet. As to the amount of the additional
bet: you can bet anything up to (and equal to)
the amount of the original bet, but if you’re
feeling confident enough about your chance of
winning you might as well bet the whole amount.
After all, you HAVE made a sacrifice for this
doubling down thing – in return for exercising
the option you’ve given up drawing more than
that one additional card – so you might as well
go for broke and double for the full amount!
The only reason you wouldn’t do that is if you’re
unsure about having made the right move in the
first place, something you’ll grow more and more
sure of as you gain experience in playing the
game.
- What Splitting Pairs is All About.
Splitting
pairs is really about maximizing potential. It’s
about taking a bad or mediocre hand and turning
it into two (or more) great hands! But I get
ahead of myself. Basically, splitting pairs is
an option you can take advantage of if your initial
two-card hand consists of matching cards (not
matching in suits, which as I’ve said before
is irrelevant in Blackjack, but rather in value).
If, for instance, you’re dealt two eights, the
best thing to do is to split those eights into
two separate hands, since after all a total of
16 is not a winner, and drawing another card
to that hand could easily make you go bust. If,
on the other hand, you split that hand into two
separate hands played independently of one another,
you can improve on your situation by leaps and
bounds. Mechanics again: in a hand-held game
what you’d do to communicate your desire to split
the hand is to toss the cards face-up in front
of your bet. Then you’d place a matching bet
next to the original bet in the circle (by matching
I mean that the amount of the additional bet
must be equal to the original bet, unlike in
the double-down scenario). Now the dealer will
separate the cards and in effect, you have two
separate hands now, to be played separately and
with various options available once again. For
instance, there is something called “Double After
Split,” which means that after splitting you’re
once again eligible for the doubling-down option
(say that in the first of your two separate hands
you drew a 3 to your 8 for a total of 11; you
could now double down it). Whether you choose
that option or not, the point is that you would
play your first hand until you are done with
it, at which point the dealer would deal the
next card to your second hand, and then you’d
play that hand to completion as well. You may
ask: what if I get yet another 8 on that first
8? And the answer is: most casinos will allow
you to split again, or “resplit.” In fact, in
most cases they will allow you to resplit 3 more
times, for a total of 4 separate hands (and bets,
for that matter). Think that through and you
realize that that means you COULD have up to
8 times your original bet on the table! (Be aware:
individual casinos have different rules on resplitting:
some allow unlimited resplitting, while others
have restrictions). A few points about splitting,
and when you should and shouldn’t: where Aces
are concerned, ALWAYS split! Is that unambivalent enough
for ya?! While there are various casino restrictions
regarding Ace-splitting, it is ALWAYS a wise
decision to split them. In fact, BECAUSE it is
such an unequivocally good move, casinos only
allow you to draw one card on each Ace. And if
one of those cards you draw is a card worth 10
points, don’t get overly excited because it won’t
be considered a Blackjack – it’ll just be a regular
21 (you can still get a little excited!). Aces
are also the exception to the rule in that certain
casinos that have no problem allowing resplitting
of any other pairs WON’T allow it of Aces. As
for 10-valued cards: you are allowed to split
them, but in general you should probably just
play it safe and keep the 20.
- What is insurance?
This little-understood
concept is put most simply like this: insurance
is a side-bet, in which you (the player) are
offered 2:1 odds that the dealer’s hole card
is a card valued at 10 (10, jack, queen or king).
The brass tacks of the situation go something
like this: the dealer sees that his up-card is
an Ace. Upon seeing that, he’s going to offer
insurance to the players. If the player wants
to take the insurance, he will bet up to half
his original bet amount, though he won’t put
it with his original bet. Instead, he’ll put
it on the insurance betting stripe (in front
of his bet). The dealer will then check his hole-card.
If it is in fact worth 10 points, then the dealer
has a Blackjack, and you’ve just won your insurance
bet. At the same time, of course, you’ve lost
your original bet, and so you basically break
even. Thus the term insurance, because it is
has in effect “protected” you from your original
bet which for all intents and purposes is a bet
AGAINST the idea that the dealer actually has
a Blackjack. So one cancels out the other. Nevertheless,
the dealer could very well NOT have a Blackjack,
in which case you’ve lost the insurance bet,
while the verdict is not yet in on your original
bet – you’d still have to play that out. Statistically
speaking, the insurance bet does not quite make
it as a “break-even” bet, because the dealer
doesn’t get a Blackjack often enough to have
that be the case. Therefore, I don’t recommend
taking the insurance bet, at least not if you’re
a “basic strategy” player. For card-counters
it’s a different story.
- Even money.
When you have a Blackjack,
the dealer might offer you the “even money” type
of insurance. Let’s look at a possible scenario,
and figure out whether it’s worth taking it.
Imagine that you bet $10, and you have a Blackjack.
So with the normal 3:2 payout, you would earn
$15 – unless the dealer also has a Blackjack
– right? Now let’s say that in this case the
dealer’s up-card is an Ace, and you’ve taken
insurance for the full amount (meaning $5). If
the dealer’s got a Blackjack, then you’ve tied
with the $10 but because of your insurance bet
you’ll collect 2:1 and make a $10 profit. If
the dealer does NOT have a Blackjack, you STILL
end up with a profit of $10, because while you’ve
lost the $5 insurance bet, you’ve won the $15
3:2 bet. So basically either way you’ll be getting
“even money” on this: in either scenario you’ll
be getting back the same $10 you put in for the
bet. The upside to taking the even-money offer?
You won’t walk away empty-handed. The downside:
you’ll never make the full $15 you could have
made without the insurance. So what’s the better
option? I say that ultimately you’ll do better
if you hold out for the $15. Over all, unless
you’re a card counter, my advice to you is NOT
to take the insurance bet, even the “even money”
variety. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that it
is tempting, and many good players take even
money if they are offered it.
Good luck!!
You’re now ready to go out and play! Though some of the above may sound
confusing or complicated, you’ll soon find out that as with many things
in life, it’s easier to DO the thing than to read the instructions on
how to do it. One other point: you may want to engage in some online
practice games before heading for the casino. But the main thing to
keep in mind is to have fun!
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