Doubling Down on Blackjack Strategies Explained

Blackjack buffs bring in much of their cash when they get their just share of blackjack hands on which to double-down and win a decent portion of them. The converse also holds. A small amount of blackjack double downs or too many that fizzle can quickly transform an unlucky player into one favored by the Luck Fairy.

Theoretical occurrences of blackjack hands apt for double down on blackjack with six and eight decks vary, but not so much that you'd observe. The run of the mill is two less blackjack double downs per 100,000 hands in six- than eight-deck blackjack games. Below you have an example of expected frequencies of blackjack hands:

Double Frequency
on 11 4.38%
on 10 2.54%
on 9 1.08%
TOTAL HARD 8.00%
on A-7 0.37%
on A-6 0.36%
on A-5 0.27%
on A-4 0.27%
on A-3 0.18%
on A-2 0.18%
TOTAL SOFT 1.64%
GRAND TOTAL 9.64%

Over the long run, per 1000 blackjack hands, you can expect 96,4 blackjack double downs. From that total of 96,4 hands apt for a double down on blackjack, 80 hands will be hard hands, meaning you have a 9, 10 or 11 and 16,4 hands will be soft which start with A-2 through A-7. In case of a blackjack table in which 4 players are active, you'd get about 85 hands per hour. Therefore, in a three-hour blackjack playing session, you would expect 24 or so valid chances to double down on blackjack.

The house edge of the blackjack game is an important factor that motivates why the blackjack double down option has a big impact on your bankroll.

With frequencies and results of blackjack double downs close to the frequencies expected by the laws of the known universe (including casinos), taking this action "by the book" brings the house advantage by 1.6%. Using a perfect basic strategy, including decisions of hitting and standing on proper hands you could increase the house edge from under 0.5 to over 2%.

The drop in house edge of suitable doubling down in blackjack is exceeded only by that of standing fittingly against dealer solids (3.2 %) and of getting 3:2 for winning blackjacks (2.5%). For the duration of a statistically short blackjack playing session, however, reality doesn’t automatically equal augury. Consequently wouldn't be odd to get audibly less or extra probabilities to double down on blackjack than the hypothetical 9.64%. Or, to double down on blackjack successfully far more or less frequently than the mathematical experts predict. In such situations, correspondingly, a player could for the moment expose in a substantial advantage or suffer Shakespearean slings and arrows of shocking fortune.