Gaming Guru

Online Casino Reviews, Bonuses, Withdrawals, Tips and Advice

 

How To Determine Which Online Casino To Play At?

If a casino's house edge on a game of Blackjack online or land based depends solely on the player, how can one aim to differentiate which online casino (or land based for that matter) is the best place to play? In order to answer this question my readers, in the case of slots, or any other purely luck based casino games, the best place to play would be the online casino that offers the best odds, payouts etc. In the case of finding the best place to play online blackjack, its even EASIER because the best online casino's to play are the ones that are reliable, secure and have great support and presentation. Based only on these criteria listed above, only a few online casino's stand out among a plethora of options on the internet . In the fiercely competitive online casino industry, the best places to play online blackjack are often the oldest online casino's. Scroll down to find a list of online casino's that are known across the board for customer service, good payouts, security and design.

 

Can You Swing The House Edge In Your Favour?

Now that you are confident that you know where to place your bets in confidence, you may be now thinking hard along the lines of whether it is possible to swing the House edge playing online blackjack to your favour. The answer to this question is “YES” using a simple method called “Basic Strategy”

Introducing And Applying Basic Strategy

Blackjack Basic Strategy is widely accepted and extremely successful method to play online blackjack and could easily swing the house edge to the players favour by as much as 2%. The tables below serve as a guide to playing online blackjack according to Blackjack Basic Strategy. Please make sure that you are reading the correct table for the situation you are in. The left column of the table represents the value of the hand that you hold.

A hard total in blackjack jargon means the total value of your cards without an ‘Ace'. For example a hard sixteen means that you hold a 10 and 6 etc

A soft total in blackjack jargon is the total value of your hand with an ‘Ace'. For example, a soft sixteen means that you hold a 5 and an ace.

So with that out of the way, I'll walk you through an instance so that you can grasp how to use these tables properly. Imagine that your playing Blackjack at your favourite online casino and your dealt a hard sixteen. You check the dealer's up card which is 8. You then quickly look at Table 1 below and scan the right until you find the column ‘8' (this corresponds to the dealers up card). The table then informs you that Hitting (represented by ‘H') is statistically the best move to make.

TIP: “SU” stands for surrender which allows you to retain half of your bet. This rule does not exist in all online casinos because it greatly reduces the house edge drastically. Only established online casinos such as Bet365, Betfred and Swiss Casino are among the few that offer the ‘Surrender Rule'.

In any case, If surrender is not available, I am afraid you're gonna have to take the bullet and ‘Hit'

Description of Icons

H	Hit - take a card.
S	Stand - do not take a card.
P	Split the pair.
D	Double down.
SU	Surrender if available otherwise HIT.
D/P	Double if available otherwise HIT.
D/S	Double if available otherwise STAND.
P/H	Split if double after split is available otherwise HIT.

 

Table 1 Rules For Hard Totals

	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Ace
8	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H	H
9	H	D	D	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
10	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	H	H
11	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	H
12	H	H	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
13	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
14	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	H	H
15	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	H	SU	H
16	S	S	S	S	S	H	H	SU	SU	SU
17	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S

 

Table 2 Rules For Soft Totals

	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Ace
A,2	H	H	H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,3	H	H	H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,4	H	H	D/H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,5	H	H	D/H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,6	H	D/H	D/H	D/H	D/H	H	H	H	H	H
A,7	S	D/S	D/S	D/S	D/S	S	S	H	H	H
A,8	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S

 

Table 3 Rules For Pairs

	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Ace
2,2	P/H	P/H	P	P	P	P	H	H	H	H
3,3	P/H	P/H	P	P	P	P	H	H	H	H
4,4	H	H	H	P/H	P/H	H	H	H	H	H
5,5	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	D	H	H
6,6	P/H	P	P	P	P	H	H	H	H	H
7,7	P	P	P	P	P	P	H	H	H	H
8,8	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P
9,9	P	P	P	P	P	S	P	P	S	S
T,T	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S
A,A	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P	P

 

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