Playing Twenty-one — to Win


If you like the blast and adventure of a good card game and the elation of winning and acquiring some cash with the odds in your favour, wagering on Blackjack is for you.

So, how can you beat the house?

Quite simply when betting on chemin de fer you are tracking the odds and probabilities of the cards in regard to:

1. The cards in your hand

2. What cards might be dealt from the shoe

When enjoying chemin de fer there is statistically a better way to play each hand and this is called basic strategy. If you add card counting that helps you determine the chances of cards being dealt from the deck, then you will be able to increase your action size when the odds are in your favor and lower them when the edge is not.

You are only going to succeed at under half the hands you bet on, so it is important that you adjust action size when the odds are in your favour.

To do this when playing 21 you have to use basic strategy and card counting to win.

Basic strategy and card counting

Since professionals and academics have been investigating twenty-one all kinds of abstract schemes have arisen, including "counting cards" but even though the idea is complicated card counting is actually straightforward when you play Blackjack.

If when wagering on vingt-et-un you count cards properly (even if the game uses more than one deck), you can change the odds to your favor.

Vingt-et-un Basic Strategy

Vingt-et-un basic strategy is amassed around an unsophisticated approach of how you bet based upon the cards you are dealt and is statistically the strongest hand to play without card counting. It informs you when playing twenty-one when you need to hit or hold.

It is remarkably simple to do and is soon committed to memory and up until then you can find free cards on the web

Using it when you gamble on 21 will bring down the casino’s edge to near to even.

Counting cards tilting the expectation in your favor

Card counting works and gamblers use a card counting scheme gain an advantage over the casino.

The reason for this is easy.

Low cards favour the dealer in vingt-et-un and high cards favor the gambler.

Low cards favour the croupier because they assist him acquire winning totals on his hands when he is stiff (has a 12, 13, fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen total on their initial 2 cards).

In casino 21, you can stay on your stiffs if you choose to, but the casino can’t.

The dealer has no decision to make, but you do and this is your advantage. The rules of wagering on vingt-et-un require that croupiers hit stiffs no matter how flush the deck is in high cards that will bust him.

The high cards favour the player because they may break the croupier when she hits their stiffs and also because both tens and Aces mean blackjacks.

Despite the fact blackjacks are, evenly divided between the croupier and the player, the fact is that the player gets paid more (3:2) when she gets a blackjack so the gambler has an edge.

You don’t have to compute the data of each of the individual card to know when you have an advantage over the casino.

You only need to know at what point the shoe is flush or poor in high cards and you can elevate your action when the expectation is in your favour.

This is a basic commentary of why card-counting schemes work, but gives you an understanding into why the rationale works.

When playing twenty-one over an extended term card counting will help in changing the edge in your favour by approx 2 percent.

  1. No comments yet.

You must be logged in to post a comment.