When To Hit And Stay In Blackjack

The Blackjack dealer in the trainer will then proceed to deal out both your cards as well as his. Your cards are always dealt face up. However, only one of the dealer’s cards will be dealt face up and the score of the dealer’s hole card won’t be visible to you. Split, Hit, Stand. It will calculate the best possible option depending on the criteria by telling you the best statistical play: Whether to Hit, Stand, Surrender, Double or Split. How to use this blackjack.

13 stands against dealer 2 through 6, otherwise hit. 12 stands against dealer 4 through 6, otherwise hit. 11 always doubles. 10 doubles against dealer 2 through 9 otherwise hit. 9 doubles against dealer 3 through 6 otherwise hit. FAQ About Blackjack Charts: We get a lot of questions on our forum about basic strategy. You will still need to risk busting and you should hit 9 or less, hit 12-16, and stand at 17+. Dealer's Card is a 4, 5 or 6. This is not good for the dealer because a bust is very likely to happen. The key is to not get a bust, and it's wise to double down with a 9, 10, or 11. You have to hit 8.

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My mom taught me how to play blackjack when I was a little kid. The strategy she taught me addressed when you should hit or stand in blackjack in simple terms.

She taught me to stand if I had a total of 16 or higher, and to hit if I had a total of 15 or lower.

If you know anything about blackjack basic strategy at all, you’ll know that her strategic advice was off-base, to say the least.

In this post, I’ll answer the question, “When should you hit or stand in blackjack?” in some degree of detail. Keep reading below to learn a few blackjack tips.

What Does It Mean to Hit or Stand?

The two basic moves in blackjack are to hit or to stand, although you have some other options. You might think everyone knows that, but you’d be surprised. A friend of mine took a date to the casino not too long ago, and she asked him what she should do next.

When he told her to “stand,” she didn’t necessarily understand what that meant for the game. So, no, not everyone knows what it means to hit or to stand.

For those folks, here’s a quick explanation of blackjack and the moves you can make during the game.

  • You get two cards, and so does the dealer. The dealer has one card face-up and one card face-down.
  • The cards are worth points based on their ranking. The numeric cards are worth their number. So, the seven of spades is worth 7 points. The face cards (the jacks, queens, and kings) are each worth 10 points. An ace is worth 1 or 11 points, whichever works out better for the hand.
  • Your total score is the point value of the cards added together.

The higher total wins the bet, but there’s a catch. If you get a total of 22 or higher, you bust, which is an automatic loss.

When you play your hand, your basic moves are simple. You can “hit,” which means to get another card. Or you can “stand,” which means to forego any other cards and let the dealer play their hand.

The Implications of Going Bust

Since the blackjack player goes first, it’s important to avoid busting your hand if you can. Once you bust, you lose your bet, even though the dealer hasn’t played her hand yet.

The higher your total, the higher the probability that the next card will bust your hand.

If you have a total of 10, for example, it’s impossible to bust. The highest value card you can get is 11, which would give you a total of 21—the best possible point total you could have.

If you have a total of 11, it’s still impossible to bust. The only card worth 11 can also count as 1, so you’d never stand on a total of 10 or 11.

With a total of 12, you now start having a possibility of going bust… Which cards will bust a total of 12? Any card that’s nine or lower will improve your total, but any card worth 10 is going to bust you.

How many cards are worth nine or less? You have the following cards which could help your hand, and there are four of each of them:

Hit and stand blackjack
  1. Aces
  2. 2s
  3. 3s
  4. 4s
  5. 5s
  6. 6s
  7. 7s
  8. 8s
  9. 9s

That’s 36 cards that will help you. There are also 16 cards worth 10 points in the deck—the 10s, jacks, queens, and kings. Those will bust you.

16/52 is the same thing as 4/13, which is slightly less than 1/3. If a card is going to help you almost 2/3 of the time, it’s probably a good idea to take that card.

Some More Examples of Totals and Possible Bust Cards

Suppose you have a higher total, though. Let’s say you have a total of 16, for example.

How many cards will help you in this situation?

  1. Aces
  2. 2s
  3. 3s
  4. 4s
  5. 5s

That’s 20 cards out of 52 which will help you, which leaves 32 cards which will bust your hand.

A lot of people always stand on 16, even though mathematically, that’s not always the correct move.

If blackjack were as simple as calculating the probability of going bust, everyone would know which moves to make and when. You also need to account for the dealer’s face-up card.

The correct strategy with a total of 16 is to stand if the dealer is showing a card of six or lower, but you should hit if the dealer has a seven or higher showing. For this purpose, an ace is also considered a high card.

Yes, you’ll bust most of the time, but the dealer has a strong enough hand that you must be willing to risk this to get the best odds of winning. In fact, with every possible total, you must consider both your total and the dealer’s total when deciding whether to hit or stand.

Soft Hands vs. Hard Hands

Something else to consider when deciding whether to hit or stand is whether you have a hard total or a soft total. What’s the difference?

Remember how I explained that an ace counts as either 1 or 11 points? If you have a hand with an ace in it where you can count it as either without going bust, you have a soft hand.

If you must count the ace as 1 point to avoid busting, it’s a hard hand. You’ll hit more often with soft hands because you’ll have a lower probability of going bust.

Here’s an Example

You have an ace and a two. That’s a soft total of 13. If you get a 10 or a nine, you can just count the ace as a one instead of an 11, and you now have a total of 13 or 12, respectively.

You Do Have Other Options

Hitting and standing aren’t the only options you have. You can also make the following moves in blackjack.

You can split. If you get two cards of the same ranking, like two aces or a couple of eights, you can split your hand. This means you put up an additional bet and start two hands instead of one. These two hands play out independently.

You can double. Doubling down is the same thing as hitting, but with two differences:

  1. You must double the size of your bet.
  2. You can’t take any more cards after the first one.
Hit

Blackjack Hit Card

You can surrender. If you hate your chances, you can surrender, which means you only lose half your bet. But you also have no chance of winning.

More About Basic Strategy in Blackjack

If you want to know the move in every situation with the best potential outcome in the long run, you’ll want to memorize basic strategy. Basic strategy was generated by running millions of hands through a simulator and determining which moves had the best expectation.

Most people learn basic strategy using a chart or a table. A table usually has the dealer’s possible up-cards listed across the top. The player’s possible totals are listed along the left-hand side.

You cross-index what you have with what the dealer has, and the table tells you what to do. The tricky thing about basic strategy is that the correct moves vary a little bit based on the conditions of the game you’re playing.

When To Hit And When To Stay In Blackjack

For example, basic strategy for a single deck game might be different in some situations from an eight-deck game. You can find multiple basic strategy generators on the internet, but for most recreational players, I recommend just learning a single basic strategy and sticking with it.

The difference in expected value from one game to another doesn’t usually change much regarding the handful of basic strategy differences based on game conditions.

And if you’re not counting cards, you’re playing a game with a house edge. No matter how big or small that edge is, you’ll eventually lose all your money in the long run.

What difference does it make if you lose it slightly faster?

Conclusion

When should you hit or stand in blackjack? When basic strategy tells you to!

That’s the only correct answer to that question. I’ve tried to offer some examples of how that math works, but it’s more complicated than just looking at the probability of busting.

You also need to account for the dealer’s possible outcomes.

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