How to Play Blackjack and Win

If you want to learn how to play blackjack it's not difficult but if you want to learn how to play blackjack and win, this is something that will require a bit of work.

So, let’s first start with learning how to play. Blackjack rules vary from one geographical location to another but in the end the basic strategy remains the same. Blackjack is a game to be played with the dealer and up to 7 players can sit at the table. The aim in blackjack is to defeat the dealer’s hand with a hand total of 21 or as close as possible to 21, without going over.

In front of each player’s seat is a betting square printed on the felt in which obviously players may place their bets. In front of the dealer, is placed the chip tray and on his left the deck. Each blackjack table, depending on each casino internal rules, will have a minimum for the best you can make. This minimum bet sign is clearly marked somewhere on the table and for beginners I advice the to look for inexpensive tables.

On the right of the dealer is the money drop, which is the place where all chips or cash are deposited to avoid any fraudulence on the part of the casino employees. Next to the drop slot is the discard tray. After the dealer shuffles the cards will give a marker card to the player in his left to cut the deck and then he burns – discards- a card to guarantee that the play is random.

Before the dealer will start dealing the cards, players need to make their bets by placing the chips in the betting box. After all players made their bets the dealer will start to deal the cards starting from left to right. Again, depending on casinos rules, you’ll have the cards dealt face up or others will deal them face down. Then comes decisions time and from here the play starts to involve strategies, systems…whatever you can use to have you winning at blackjack.

Using the right blackjack winning strategy a player can obtain profits in the long-term. No correct blackjack winning strategy will bring you huge profits in the short-term and actually the expectation to win at blackjack is only for long-term play. In your quest of learning how to win at blackjack you will need to learn to count cards, a basic strategy and how to play using a predetermined blackjack winning strategy.

Basic winning blackjack strategies imply that for each of the dealt hands is one perfect action that a player can make. These are only mathematical statistics and all winning blackjack strategies are based on this.

After you manage to handle efficiently a basic winning blackjack strategy you can move to learning to count cards. There are several systems of learning to count cards, so you can choose the one that suits best your playing style and your mathematics knowledge. The system of counting cards is based on the ability to keep in mind the probability of the undealt cards that come out of the deck. Now that you keep a running count, you will know the true count. This is the running count divided by the number of undealt cards. The true count is a better indicator of the probability of the rest of the cards and needs to be calculated only when you have to perform an action i.e. betting.

And now, the last step - how to play using a predetermined blackjack winning strategy. I was reefing to a way of playing smart and part of this makes money management. A great advice in this are is to bet only with 1% of your total money. For example, if you have a bankroll of $2000, 1% would be $20. This gives you a 1.5% advantage over the house or with chances of loosing all of your money of 5%. For sure you will hit during your playing period losing streaks but betting this way you will have a good financial capability to weather this out. Now as your true count goes up there should be a corresponding increment in your bets too. The corollary to this is that as the true count is lowered the bet size also has to be lowered.

Other suggestions that can help you winning at blackjack are to look for those blackjack table rules that are more advantageous for you, as not all of them give the same house edge. And last, but not least, discipline will make a difference in your game.