How to play blackjack

Blackjack takes about five minutes to learn and a lifetime to play well. The rules fit on a napkin: get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over.

Everything else is detail — and this page covers the detail, because the details are where hands are won and lost. If you'd rather learn by doing, the game itself is free and has a coach that tells you the correct play as you go.

What the cards are worth

Suits are irrelevant in blackjack. A heart and a spade of the same rank are identical. Only the value matters:

• Cards 2 through 10 are worth their printed number.
• Jacks, queens and kings are all worth ten. Together with the actual tens, that means sixteen of every fifty-two cards are worth ten — a fact that drives most strategy decisions.
• An ace is worth one or eleven, whichever suits your hand. It changes value automatically as you draw, so you never have to choose.

A hand containing an ace counted as eleven is called soft, because it cannot bust on the next card. Ace-six is a soft 17: draw a ten and the ace quietly becomes a one, leaving 17 rather than 27. Once the ace has to count as one, the hand is hard.

How a hand plays out

1. Place a betYou bet before seeing a single card. That's unusual among card games and it's the reason bet sizing matters so little compared to how you play the hand afterwards.
2. Take your cardsYou get two cards face up. The dealer takes one face up — the upcard — and one face down, called the hole card. That upcard is the single most important piece of information you have.
3. Make your callHit, stand, double or split. You can keep hitting as long as you like; the other three end your turn or change the shape of the hand.
4. Stay under 21Go over and the hand is dead immediately. You lose the bet even if the dealer goes on to bust as well. This asymmetry is the entire house edge.
5. Let the dealer playThe hole card turns over and the dealer draws by rule, not by choice, until reaching 17 or more. At this table the dealer stands on all 17s, soft ones included.
6. CollectBeat the dealer and you're paid even money. A two-card 21 pays 3 to 2. Tie and it's a push — your stake comes back untouched.

The four decisions

Hit

Ask for another card. You can hit as many times as you like until you stand or bust. There's no penalty for hitting a hand that looks scary — the only thing that matters is whether drawing improves your chances, which the chart answers for you.

Stand

Stop where you are and pass play to the dealer. Standing on a bad total isn't cowardice; when the dealer shows a weak upcard, standing on 13 is often correct precisely because you expect them to bust.

Double

Match your original bet and take exactly one more card, then the hand ends automatically. It's the best bet in blackjack when conditions are right, because you're putting extra money in only when you're a favourite. The catch is the single card — doubling on a hand that needs two more cards is throwing money away.

Split

When your two cards have the same value, you can separate them into two hands, each getting a second card and each carrying its own bet equal to the first. You can split again if another pair appears, up to four hands here. Split aces are the exception: they get one card each and then stop, which is why ace-ten after splitting aces counts as a plain 21 rather than blackjack.

Insurance

When the dealer's upcard is an ace, you're offered a side bet of half your stake that pays 2 to 1 if the dealer has blackjack. It sounds like protection. It isn't. The dealer completes blackjack roughly nine times in thirty, and the payout needs ten to break even. Declining insurance every single time is correct.

How the dealer plays

The dealer makes no decisions at all. They draw to 16 and stand on 17, every hand, regardless of what you're holding. That rigidity is exploitable — it's the reason basic strategy can exist as a fixed chart rather than a judgement call.

Two variants exist, and the difference matters. Where the dealer stands on soft 17, as at this table, the house edge is about two tenths of a percent lower than where the dealer hits soft 17. If you play elsewhere, check the felt: the rule is always printed on the table.

Common mistakes

• Playing to avoid busting rather than to beat the dealer. Standing on hard 16 against a dealer ten feels safe and loses more often than hitting it.
• Taking insurance on a good hand. The quality of your hand has no bearing on whether the dealer's hole card is a ten.
• Splitting tens. Twenty is the second-best hand in the game. Breaking it up to chase two mediocre hands is the most expensive habit at any table.
• Mimicking the dealer. Always drawing to 17 sounds symmetrical but ignores doubling, splitting and the 3-to-2 blackjack payout, which are the only edges you have.
• Chasing losses with bigger bets. Doubling your stake after a loss doesn't change the odds of the next hand. It only changes how fast you run out.

Next

Once the rules make sense, the basic strategy chart is the only other thing worth memorising. It gives the mathematically correct decision for every hand you can be dealt against every dealer upcard, and it cuts the house edge to under half a percent.