Blackjack Strategy

hi my name is Mike Shackleford with the wizard of odds website and I'm here with Angela Wyman my student and dealer Dan Luben to teach you about Blackjack strategy I've been trying to teach people how to gamble for 25 years and for most of that time I really pressed What's called the basic strategy really hard in all the gift shops in Vegas you can buy these cards that show how to play Any Given situ situation in blackjack according to your hand and the Dealer's up card however if there's one thing that I've learned 99% of blackjack players do not have the time or inclination to memorize that it's it's asking too much so if you're in that 99% I'm going to teach you what's called the Wizards simple blackjack strategy it's just a handful of rules and it gets you to 99.8% of the expected Return of the basic strategy so it it's going to get you almost all the way to perfect play with basic strategy but with a much more simple strategy um the first rule and the one that you see that you see a lot is really obvious it's if you have a total of Hard Eight or less you hit that's all there is to it with a nine what you do depends on the Dealer's up card if the dealer has a small up card you're going to double if he has a high up card you're going to hit now let me explain what is a low and a high up card and this is going to be true throughout my whole strategy a low dealer up card is a two through a six a high dealer up card is a seven through an ace so you've got a total of of nine if the dealer is showing a two through a six you double if the deal is showing a seven through an ace you hit it next rule with a 10 or an 11 the potentially doubling hands you're going to double if you have more points than the dealer for example if I have a total of a hard 10 then then I'm going to double if the dealer has a two through a 9 showing if the dealer has a 10 or an ace showing I'm just going to hit it likewise with an 11 I'm going to double if the dealer is showing a two through a 10 and if he has an as sub tying me then I'm just going to hit next Rule and this one covers a lot of hands and they're frequently misplayed these are the stiff hands if you have a total of 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 big card if you remember just one thing from this whole video it should be that because these situations happen all the time and they're frequently misplays next rule is pretty obvious if you have a total of hard 17 or more you stand that one's obvious so let's play a few hands and see how well Angela remembered all that and we will get to the soft doubles and splits later okay Angela what should I do you should stand because because you have a 20 against a dealer's 10 right if I have a 17 or more hard 17 or more I stand which I obviously do I am hard 17 so I'm also going to stand very good okay Angela what should I do a nine against the dealers two it's a small card you should double correct and before all the perfectionists out there write to me I want to remind you this is a simple strategy there are some borderline cases like this one where it's not mathematically correct but I made but we're going to double this situation be in the interest of Simplicity and here's another case 12 against a two this is another case where the Wizard's simple strategy differs from the basic strategy don't stress about it don't send an email about it what does the wizard simple strategy say to do in the situation just because 12 on a two if it was because the dealers got a small card showing exactly you have a 12 to 16 a stiff hand and the dealer is showing a small card so you stand big one please still have a no I make it now no strategy is going to win every single hand but if you Le learn the strategy you're going to be playing better Blackjack than the vast majority of players out there now here's a situation I didn't cover yet the soft doubles if you have a soft hand of 13 to 15 then you always hit so here's a soft 13 doesn't matter what you've got I'm going to hit now here I've got soft 20 this is pretty obvious but if you another rule is if you have a soft 19 or more you always stand so if that's sof 20 I'm good 15 two St correct 18 Insurance okay here's another rule never take insurance period no exceptions all right Insurance closed okay what should I do your double down rule said if you have a 10 you have to outrank the Dealer's up card then you double if you don't then you just hit right exactly we count the ace as 11 points you've got more than me so I'm just going to hit 18 two winners okay what are you going to do 10 on four I will double because you outrank the dealer one card 20 five 13 15 busted so what should you do I should hit right if you have a soft 13 to 15 you always hit so you've got soft 14 doesn't make any difference what the dealer has now what do you do 13 13 [Music] so and it's not that the dealer outranked you it's that you had a stiff hand and the dealer had a big card so this is obvious I've got hard eight or less I hit if this a two card 11 I would double but I'm not allowed to double because it's more than two cards so with a nin a hard 9 10 or 11 composed of three or more cards you always just hit and you luck out mhm and I've got an 11 so I'm going to double because what's the rule of thumb double 11 on everything except an ace an ace yes no no no yeah wow look at this two hands where the player can split there are five kinds of cards where sometimes you split and sometimes you don't those being twos threes sixes sevens and nines if you've got any one of those five hands you will split it if the Dealer's showing a low card and you don't if the Dealer's showing a high card if you don't then you revert to the rules I explained before about hitting and standing so in this situation I've got one of those five kinds of hands the Dealer's got a low card so I split now you've got Aces there's two kinds of hands cards that you always split eights and Aces and you get one card only there's a 21 that's not a blackjack that's a 21 and that's a 21 those are two 21s they're not blackjacks because the original hand was two Aces and not a blackjack but those are good hands and you needed every bit of it and you got it now we've got two more split hands here as I was saying before there's five kinds of cards which sometimes you split and sometimes you don't twos threes sixes sevens and nines I've got the nine then it depends on the Dealer's up card if the dealer was showing a low card 2 through6 I would split these however he's got a high card a seven through an ace so I'm going to be more conservative I'm not going to split in which case I revert to the hitting and standing rules so I would stand on any 18 so I'm I'm good now we haven't covered fives yet but there's three kinds of hands in the Wizard simple strategy that you never split the three that start with f fours fives and faces so you've got two fives you never split no matter what the dealer does so then you revert to the hitting and standing strategy so what do you do I double the 10 on exactly one more don't want to double good thing you had black out aha you win all right this hand gives me an opportunity to explain another rule about soft hands I explained before that if the player has a soft 13 to a 15 you hit no matter what what I didn't get to yet is if the player has a soft 16 to 18 then it depends on what the Dealer's up card is if the dealer has a low card showing then you're going to double if the dealer has a high card showing then you're going to hit so I have a soft 13 to 15 so I'm just going to hit no matter what the dealer has 15 against the seven I hit I'm good 21 soft 17 steer high card I'm going to H exactly now having 16 against 17 thanks Mike but that's the right play a a SF 17's always a at least a free hits but you have a 16 against the set mhm don't worry you get comps uh oh okay this reminds me of the last hand except this time Dan has a low card showing so as I was uh explained um last time I've got a soft 13 to a 15 so I hit no matter what the dealer has now I've got 15 dealer has a low card so I stand so what do you do Angela well I've got a soft 17 against dealer low card since it's a 15 to 17 I double it's 16 to an 18 if you have a soft 16 to an 18 and the dealer has a low card then you double so yep yay y this gives me an opportunity to explain the last rule of the wizard simple strategy the only time you surrender is 16 against a 10 that's it it's that simple surrender so what should you do Angela well I've got a pair of Threes against a dealer's high card so I don't want to split those I would if it was a low card instead I'm going to revert to hit stand so what kind of hands does what you just said apply to two three sixes seven s and n right so you just got to remember that 2 three six seven and N all right so you fall under that range but the dealer has a high card so then what do you do revert to hit or stand exactly it's less than eight for hour I'm 16 out of 10 oh yes this is the um closest play there is in blackjack it happens all the time um as I just explained if this was a two card 16 against the 10 you would surrender but you can only surrender on your initial hand it's not an option in this case so the fundamental rule of my strategy with a stiff hand is right you hit against the dealer high card and go down swing and sometimes you had no choice anyway and I know that you probably didn't remember everything in this video but everything I just said Is Right on my Blackjack page at wizardofodds.com wizardofodds.com go to Blackjack and The Wizard simple strategy is right there if you learn this strategy like I said earlier you'll get to 99.8% of the power of the of the basic strategy but it's much more easy to learn and any questions well thank you very much for being my student Angela and for you Dan to the dealer and um Good Luck to all of you for

Channel: Michael Shackleford

Views: 556,350

Keywords: blackjack strategy, wizardofodds blackjack strategy, how to play blackjack, basic blackjack strategy, blackjack rules

Id: 9oEn7gyLSCE

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2012