Blackjack by the Wizard of Odds

hi I'm Mike Shackleford with the wizard of odds website and I'm here to teach you how to play blackjack I'm here with a my student Angela Wyman and Limone our lovely dealer and I'm going to try to explain what I call my wizard simple strategy for blackjack now first of all let me explain the object of the game the it has always bothered me when people say the object of blackjack is to get as close to 21 as possible without going over know the object of blackjack is to have more points than the dealer without going over so it's important to understand that you're playing against the dealer and trying to outscore the dealer I'm not going to get into all the rules of blackjack because it's such a common game and most people already understand it already so let's just jump right into the to the strategy all right Angela let's do it okay I'm going to break this down into various types of hands the player might get now normally when people present what's called the blackjack basic strategy that is how to play every single possible player hand by all ten possible dealer hands this is a great strategy that any good blackjack player probably has memorized but I'm going to teach a slightly simplified version of that rather than looking at all ten possible dealer up cards I'm going to break them into just two types a high card and a low card a low card is a two through six and a high card is a seven to an ace now first let's talk about dealer hard totals we're only standing and hitting our viable options if the player has eight or less you always hit now nine to eleven can involve doubling so let's skip over those now now this is the most important rule of the whole strategy if you have a hard 12 to 16 then you're going to stand if the dealer is showing a small card and hit if the dealer is showing a large card this happens all the time and it's the most important rule that you should remember out of all of this next let's talk about hard hands where doubling is a viable option meaning a hard 9 to 11 if you have a hard total of nine you want to double down if the dealer's showing a small card otherwise you hit if the dealer is showing a big card now with a 10 and 11 the rule there is you want to double if you have more points than the dealer for example if you have a total of 10 you double down if the dealer is showing in nine or less otherwise you just hit it if you have a total of 11 then you double down if the dealer is showing a 10 or less think of an ASIS being worth 11 points so if you have an 11 and the dealer's showing an ace you're just going to hit that next let's talk about the soft hands and these are commonly Mis played by recreational players ok first of all if you have a soft 15 or less you always hit it always and you know what I mean by a soft 15 for example I'm not sure what it that means that it's a hand that could be counted as either 5 or 15 points because there's an ace in there so an ace and a 4 would be referred to as a soft 15 got in so you always hit soft 13 14 and 15 now if you have a soft 16 17 or 18 then you're going to double if the dealer is showing a small card and very few play years do this but trust me the odds are in your favor because a small dealer up card is good for you and it's a good opportunity to get more money on the table while the odds are in your favor okay if the dealer has a big card showing then the odds are not looking so good for you therefore you're just going to just hit it and a lot of people also make the mistake where they have a soft 18 and the dealer is showing a 9 10 or ace and they stand thinking oh an 18 is good enough for me no you should be aggressive in that situation and take a hit against any dealer big card with a soft 18 okay alright finally if you have a soft total of 19 or more than you stand ok next let's talk about the pairs or hands that you might split rule number 1 regarding pairs always split eights and aces you've probably heard it before but it's true no matter what the dealer has always split eights and aces you never split what I call the three F hands fours fives and faces faces meaning any 10-point card never split those no matter what the dealer has and when I say never split then you just revert to normal basic strategy finally if you have any of the other pairs meaning twos threes sixes sevens or nines then if the dealer is showing a small card you split them if the dealer is showing a big card you don't and you revert to regular basic strategy for example if you had two 7s and the dealer is showing an 8 then because that's a big card you don't split it then you revert to regular strategy and just think of that as 14 points in which case you would hit it Angela do you know about surrendering in blackjack I've heard of it but I don't really understand it okay this is a powerful rule in the players favor that few players actually invoke when should I'm going to keep it real simple and just tell you the best situation to surrender become because it happens a lot if you have a total of 16 and the dealer's showing a 10 you surrender what does surrender mean you might ask that means that you just forfeit half your bed for example if you had bet $100 and got that hand you make a gesture like this on the table and the dealer's going to take half your bet or 50 bucks and return the other half to you the reason you want to surrender that's at hand is because the odds are so bad that on average you can expect to lose 54% of that wager you would rather lose 50% than 54% right yes right and other players at the table may criticize you for it thinking that it's say like you're chickening out no you know that's a lousy hand cut your losses and surrender does every casino allow you to do that no generally speaking you can surrender in the shoe games but you can't in the single and double deck games okay so if they say you can't surrender then just hit that 16 against the 10 and also you can only surrender on your initial two cards if your 16 is composed of three or more or if it's after a split then they're not going to let you all right all right I think I got it okay finally the most important thing to remember if you only remember one thing about this lesson is never ever ever ever ever under any circumstances play blackjack if a winning blackjack pays 6 to 5 and you're seeing this more and more all over the country is there shortchanging the players on black Jack's instead of paying the full 3 to 2 they're only paying 6 to 5 that is going to cost the player 1.4 percent on average which is like tripling the house advantage so if you see that 6 to 5 just turn around and walk away and look for a better table well Mike you know now I'm going to have to go out and play your simplified strategy but what are the odds of your strategy versus basic blackjack strategy good question of course the odds are a little better with the basic strategy and as a reminder this is an example of the full basic strategy you can buy these cards at almost any casino gift shop and it's on my website of course and it shows exactly how to play any situation according to the player card and the dealer up card while this has about 200 different situations my simple strategy only has about 20 playing this strategy is only going to cost you 0.14 percent an additional house advantage compared to the basic strategy so it's getting you almost the full way to the basic strategy with a much easier strategy that I think is going to be easier for beginners to learn and if you're a good blackjack player you really like the game I highly encourage you to study the full basic strategy once you've mastered my simple strategy for your strategy first yes for most people does it make a difference the number of decks you're playing with yes generally speaking the fewer the number of decks the better it is for the player however the casinos know this too so generally the rules are not as good on a single or double deck game as it is on a 6 or 8 deck game so you have to consider all the rules that the casino is offering if the rules are exactly the same between a double deck game and a six stick game you should absolutely play the double deck game however a lot of casinos are going to take away the option to surrender or Reese places or maybe even double after a split in the double deck game in that case you can use the blackjack house edge calculator on my website to calculate the exact house advantage under any set of rules well we've all seen those movies where you know teams of people go into the casinos and they count cards what are they actually doing and does it work it absolutely does work the theory behind card counting is when the remaining cards left to be played are rich in big cards especially tens and aces then the odds swing to the players favor if they're rich in lots of small cards then the odds swing to the dealer's favor so while these cards are coming out the player is remembering what cards he's seen which tells him information about the cards left to be played so let's say for example the player knows that there's a lot of big cards left in that shoe a disproportionate number then he's going to bet more and he's going to change his strategy in certain borderline situations mainly doubling and splitting more and hitting less now card counting is not as powerful as the movies and TV shows make it out to be it's not like in Rain Man where any card counter can clean out the casino no it's it's a pretty thin advantage of about one percent depending upon how good the card counter is so to be a successful card counter you need a lot of money to make a little money grinding out that 1% advantage well Mike sometimes when I'm playing blackjack this happens to me understand I don't know about that you took the dealers bus card I would have won well I was playing correct strategy still hey you took it from me what difference does it make it was that other player right to criticize me absolutely not that's one of the biggest myths in blackjack is that the third baseman or any player in blackjack can somehow jinx the whole shoe a bad blackjack player does not cause the other players to win or lose anything of course you can look at one certain hand and say you just made the whole table lose but it's just as likely as anything that he does to help the whole table win on average it makes no difference what the other players do so that that guy who criticized you was being rude and he was mathematically incorrect so always follow that basic strategy alright well there's been times where I've had a blackjack and the dealer asked if I want insurance yes and this happens pictures now I don't want to turn are you sure that pays even money no I'm sure the wizard says you never take insurance the wizard that sounds like some kind of phone no no he knows what he's talking about I don't need insurance all right I don't want to say I told you so so you have a blackjack and it's a push you wouldn't want even money was the dealer right no the dealer was absolutely wrong and this happens to me all the time you absolutely should never take insurance it's a sucker bet on average the house advantage is 8.4% doesn't make any difference what the dealer has now it happens all the time where the dealer says it's a sure win even money don't you want it no your odds are a lot better going for that full three to two win so repeat after me never never take take insurance insurance way to go all right it looks like you have another question Angela well Mike what are the best blackjack rules I can realistically expect to find in Las Vegas good question what I like to tell people is to try to find what I call the liberal strip rules that consists of a six-deck shoe game the dealer stands on a soft 17 which is very good for the player you can double after a split you can surrender and you can resize if you can get all those rules the house advantage is going to be about 0.25 percent which is about as low as it ever gets we'll have to find a casino that offers all that casinos that offer that are generally on the Las Vegas Strip lots of times they have higher minimums to those games starting anywhere from 25 to 100 bucks so if therefore the higher rollers in the high limit rooms you usually find that these set of rules so but let's say that you're a little uncomfortable betting as much you know into the green or black chip area then you're going to have to suffer some worse rules there as long as you're not playing six to five you're going to be okay again the calculator on my blackjack page on my website Wizard of Oz com will tell you the house advantage under any set of rules let me also say my other website Wizard of a komm will tell you the current blackjack rules for any casino in Las Vegas all right I think I know your answer to this one but I've got to ask what about the side bets in blackjack repeat after me Oh Oh side side that's at par our sucker sucker that's that's okay the casinos are trying to eat more money out of their blackjack tables by adding side bets to them there are tons of them available time doesn't allow me to explain all of them but they're all sucker bets some are more sucker bets than others but as a rule of thumb just avoid all of them and just stick to the base game let's summarize blackjack blackjack is a great game almost everyone knows it it's very easy to find in any casino and that has a very low house advantage if you play properly what I've been explaining in this video is what I call my wizard simple strategy can be found on my business card if you're lucky enough to have one or it can be found on my website Wizard of Oz calm the house advantage following my simple strategy is just about a tenth of a percent higher than the full basic strategy I have tons of information about blackjack on my website Wizard of Oz com including a demo game that you can play and it'll correct you if you make any mistakes and finally if there's just one thing to remember about this whole video it's never play 6 to 5 blackjack you you

Channel: Michael Shackleford

Views: 270,981

Rating: 4.7125568 out of 5

Keywords: blackjack, blackjack strategy, wizard blackjack, how to play blackjack, blackjack tutorial, rules of blackjack

Id: -5c_5jNcsEY

Length: 18min 16sec (1096 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 09 2014