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Basic Stategy
The first step to becoming a good Blackjack player is what is known the world over as Basic Strategy. This is the best possible strategy choice of choosing to Stand, Hit, Split or Double for every possible player's hand against every Dealer's card. It is correct given just the basic starting information of the game, which are the rules of the game and the constitution of the deck of cards in use.

Basic Strategy uses a static set of rules and does not include modifying information the like of which you might get from card counting, card tracking or any other advanced technique that can be employed to beat the game of Blackjack. It is also correct whether the house is using conventional dealers, card shuffling machines or random number generators for machines or online gaming.

So for example lets choose the most popular mistake made by players, hard sixteen against the dealers 10, (hard hands are those that do not include an Ace). Knowing the probabilities of drawing all card combinations from the deck allows us to calculate by computer simulation that the correct play is always to take a card. This is true for standard Blackjack rules used around the world.

Rules matter. With a specific set of rules there is a specific Basic Strategy. Whether you can split, double or the dealer checks for Blackjacks changes the equity value of your hand and so the Basic Strategy will fit those values. And blackjack rules change from country to country and even in places like Las Vegas, from casino to casino. We will look at that later.

For the purposes of this article we will consider standard UK rules. Between 4 and 8 decks of cards (usually 6), split any pair and double anything, dealer stands on soft 17 (Ace + 6) and does not check for Blackjacks (in the USA and some other places the dealer deals a down card and checks to see if they have a Blackjack).

Table 1. Splitting strategy against dealer's card. 5v1r54
 
1 Dealer's Card
P
L
A
Y
E
R		  
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
A
2-2
                   
3-3
                   
4-4
                   
5-5
                   
6-6
                   
7-7
                   
8-8
                   
9-9
                   
10-10
                   
A-A
                   
Split
 
No
 

Table 2. Doubling Down strategy against dealer's card.
 
 
2 Dealer's Card
P
L
A
Y
E
R
  
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
A
9
                   
10
                   
11
                   
Double
 
No
 

Table 3. Draw, Stand and Double strategy on soft totals.
 
 
3 Dealer's Card
P
L
A
Y
E
R
  
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
A
13
                   
14
                   
15
                   
16
                   
17
                   
18
                   
19-20
                   
Double
 
Draw
 
Stand
 

Table 4. Draw and Stand strategy for hard hands.
 
 
4 Dealer's Card
P
L
A
Y
E
R
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
A
4-11
                   
12
                   
13-16
                   
17-20
                   
Draw
 
Stand
 
that playing Basic Strategy will not automatically gaurantee your success. It will however give you a better shot at coming out ahead over a long session of Blackjack. To progress beyond this you need to do some reading. GGG advises that improving on Basic Strategy is a very tough thing to do and is more often than not linked with a player losing more than they otherwise would.
 
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