Defining Blackjack Basic Strategies

Use the Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart to Define Playing Decisions or Actions

In blackjack, a basic strategy specifies possible actions to be taken in each contingent state of the game with respect to hands with any value against any dealer upcard (or hand value).

In this lesson, we will learn how to use the controls provided in the Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart to define playing decisions or actions.

A basic strategy is not enough to win at Blackjack. The goal of the blackjack basic strategy is to keep the house edge to a minimum. A Blackjack winning strategy must present a solid opportunistic betting strategy. There is a variety of tactics that, when combined, can find advantageous game situations.

Invoking the Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart

1. To invoke the Blackjack basic strategy chart of a specific player, right click on the player's betting spot and choose skills from the context menu.

   

   You can also invoke the Blackjack Playing Strategy Chart, by just double-clicking on the player's betting spot.

A quick tour of the Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart

2. This Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart opens:

   

   You can reset the content of a whole Basic Strategy to a predefined one. When clicked, the menu button Reset To () lists all Basic Strategies in the Basic Strategy Manager for you to choose from. Some gaming establishments will allow players to use a Basic Strategy Card while playing Blackjack. You can create Basic Strategy cards by clicking on the Print button (). Creating a basic strategy from the scratch can be tedious, so if you need to reuse the current Basic Strategy for future player profiles, you can add it to the Basic Strategy Manager by clicking on the Add to Basic Strategy Manager command link (). In some Blackjack game variations, the dealer exposes two cards as the house starting hand (e.g. double exposure); if your basic strategy has to deal with this situation, you can use the Paging Arrows to reach additional or extended chart pages that contain all possible hand combinations.

Specifying Basic Strategy actions

3. The Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart provides an action list builder for you to specify the actions to be taken on particular dealer-player hand combinations. The action list builder consists of two single-selection lists: the Available Actions list () is a fixed set of actions and the Selected Actions list () is the list being built. There are three command buttons between the lists:

   • An Add button that moves the currently selected action in the Available Actions list to the Selected Actions list, inserted before the selected action. (Double-clicking on an action has the same effect.)

   • A Remove button that removes the selected action from the Selected Actions list and returns it to the Available Actions list. (Double-clicking on an action in the Selected Actions list has the same effect.)

   • A Remove All button that removes all actions from the Selected Actions list and returns them to the Available Actions list.

   The Default group () contains the ultimate action to be taken in case that none of the selected actions are applicable at the time of a playing decision.

   To assign the selected actions to the selected dealer-player hand combinations, click on the Assign Actions button ().

   When a playing decision arises, assigned actions will be tested from left to right (from top to bottom in the Selected Actions list). You can use the Move Up and Move Down command buttons to change the priority order of the actions.

   The picture below shows how we defined and assigned the actions for when the dealer's upcard is either 9, 10, or an Ace, and our hand is a pair of 8s for a total value of 16. For that case, we wanted our first intention to be Surrender. If this action is not applicable, then we will try Split. And if we cannot Split, then we just take a Hit.

   

4. Assign the desired actions to all possible dealer-player hand combinations.

5. Press the OK button to accept all changes made to this Blackjack Basic Strategy.