Blackjack Strategy and Tactics

Welcome to cassaon-casino an online guide to blackjack strategy. Our goal is to help you become a winning black jack player. Some of the content you'll find on our website include:

Online blackjack strategy
Rules
Betting systems
Blackjack history
Online casino info
Game variations and variants
Odds
Terms
Card counting strategies and Spanish 21

The information and resources on this site are aimed at both new players and veterans. Informed blackjack players are winners, and our goal is to help you become an informed player. The articles and information on Blackjack Tactics are updated constantly, so please bookmark this site and return often. We hope to become THE leading blackjack strategy website on the Internet, and we hope that eventually any blackjack strategy question you might have will be answered in these pages.

Why Play Blackjack?

Blackjack, along with video poker, is one of the only casino games where your decisions actually have an effect on your chances of winning. No other casino game offers this level of strategic thought, and in fact, a skilled blackjack player can actually tilt the odds in his favor. Even if you're only a partially skilled player, knowing basic strategy only, you can reduce the house edge to a low 0.5%. This makes blackjack one of the best bets in the casino, even if you don't count cards. And learning the correct strategies isn't hard either.

Blackjack Tips

Winning at Blackjack
How to Develop the Traits of a Winner at Blackjack
The owners of this website believe that there is nothing wrong with gambling. For most people, gambling is healthy and normal, and some people might argue that gambling is inherent to the human condition. But you came to the site for strategy tips and how to become a winner at blackjack, not for validation that it's okay to be a blackjack player. And while lots of people can gamble and lead healthy, enjoyable lives, not many people can win on a truly consistent basis. So we've listed some of the traits to develop within yourself to become a winning blackjack player below.

1. Knowledge
Winning blackjack players know how to play the game. This means having a complete knowledge of how to play blackjack, not just a basic understand of the gameplay and how to place bets. To win at blackjack, you start with the fundamentals of basic strategy - how to play hard hands and how to play soft hands. You alos learn when to split pairs and when to double down against the dealer. Then once you've mastered that, you start learning more advanced strategies, like simple card counts, dealer tells, and shuffle tracking. It's important to note that the advanced strategy stuff, the stuff that gives you the edge, comes AFTER you've learned the basic stuff like basic strategy.

2. Self Awareness
Some people are afraid of reality and live in a perpetual state of wishful thinking and delusion. Are you one of those people? If so, it's okay, but getting a firm grounding in reality is one of the first steps in becoming a consistent winner at any kind of gambling, black jack included. Hunches prevent winning blackjack play because they encourage mathematical mistakes. Selective memory is a fault almost everyone shares, but it's death to your hopes of winning at blackjack. Believe in luck? Even a little? You need to get over that too; beating blackjack is a mathematical endeavor, and there is no such thing as luck, just standard deviation.

3. Dedication
Learning to play blackjack as an expert is HARD. Not only do you have to memorize all the correct strategic moves, you also have to consistently make the correct plays. Otherwise you're just going to lose. The house edge will increase with every mistake you commit, and your bankroll will dwindle to nothing. You have to be dedicated enough to learn to play correctly, then disciplined enough to actually play correctly, and then obsessed enough to keep good records of your results. (You cannot manage what you did not measure.)

4. Stubbornness
Correct blackjack plays will sometimes meet with disbelief and "helpful suggestions" from other players. You have to be stubborn enough to ignore any kind of peer pressure. Successful card counters will receive heat from the casino management. You have to be stubborn enough to play anyway, even if it means playing in disguise. Friends and relatives might try to discourage you from becoming a card counter for a variety of reasons. Are you hard-headed enough to ignore them and do what you want to do anyway?

5. Experience
The only way of getting experience is to practice. And in black jack, that means you have to play. The more you play, the more experience you get. And the more experience you have as a blackjack player, the better your chances of beating the game become. Experienced players make fewer mistakes, they're able to concentrate for longer periods of time, and they're able to analyze new situations and strategies quickly in order to determine whether or not they're advantageous to their play. You can get some experience playing blackjack online, but you should also get some actual casino experience playing as often as you can. There are plenty of low stakes black jack games where you can get your feet wet these days.

If you have some of the traits of winning blackjack players above already, then great - you have a head start over the competition. If you have none of these traits, maybe blackjack isn't for you at all. That's okay and there is no shame in it. But if you have some of those traits to some degree, you can develop these characteristics in yourself in order to become a real blackjack expert. And the satisfaction available to those people who can march to the beat of their own drummer and be truly excellent at something is unparalleled.

Blackjack (along with video poker) is one of two casino games that we know for a fact can be beaten through the proper application of math and strategy. There are lots of strategies for winning blackjack play, most of which have been determined using computer analysis of the math of the game. Almost all other casino games are rigged so that the casino has an unbeatable long-term advantage, and this includes roulette, keno, slots, baccarat, casino war, and almost any other casino game you can mention. The only way to win at one of those games (long-term) is to get lucky once, quit, and never play that game again. Otherwise, the longer you play, the more the house advantage at those games will eat away at your bankroll.

Basic strategy was the result of three years worth of hard work behind several calculators in 1953. Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel, and James McDermott developed a basic strategy that was first published in the 1956 issue of The Journal of the American Statistical Association. Later Professor Edward O. Thorp published a book titled Beat the Dealer, which explained why blackjack is beatable: the deck of cards has a memory, and each card played has an effect on the probabilities and odds of certain outcomes later in the game. By tracking when the deck is rich in cards favorable to the player. a card counter can raise his bets accordingly, and increase his overall expectation against the house.

Blackjack Games and Other Variations

If you've played blackjack and are looking for other similiar game variations or interesting blackjack side bets, you might find the following blackjack games fascinating. Most of these games are based on blackjack, but with slight game variations, to add a new spice to your game .

Over / Under 13, a popular blackjack game variation, which is becoming more popular in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, there is a new side bet added to the game that each player has the option of betting on. As the player, you have the option of betting whether your first two cards will total over 14 or under 13. Aces always will count as one and the casino wins on a 13. The payout of the bet is 1:1, even money.

Red / Black is a side bet variation of blackjack in which you are betting on the dealers' upcard being either red or black by placing your bets on the appropriate R or B circle. In this game, the dealer wins the bet automatically if his upcard is a 2. The payout for this bet is always 1:1.

Blackjack Switch , each player plays two seperate hands, each with an identical bet. As the player, you are allowed the option of switching the second cards around if you'd like. To make up for this power feature, the dealer will push players' hands when the dealer has a total of 22.

Royal Match is another side bet variation where the player is allowed to bet that their first two cards are in the same suit. The payout on the initial bet is 3:1. If the player receives both the King and Queen of the same suit, it's called a Royal Match and the payout on the bet is 10:1.

Double Exposure , an unusual twist of blackjack games, both of the dealers' cards are dealt face up, which is a huge advantage for the player. In this game, the dealer wins on a tie and there are no blackjack bonuses to compensate for the player advantage. The strategies and game play of this blackjack variation game are quite different than standard blackjack.

Spanish 21 is a blackjack game that has been around for several years and has been becoming increasingly popular. In this game there is always either six or eight decks used. A player showing 21 always wins and a player showing blackjack always wins. Each player has the option of hitting, double splitting Aces, surrendering after doubling, and doubling any number of cards they want. The bonuses in this game include 678 bet pays 3:2, bet pays 2:1 if suited, bet pays 3:1 if suited in Spades, and 777 against a dealer 7 pays $1,000. In this game, all of the tens are removed from the decks, which hurts the player. Once again a different blackjack strategy is used for this game.

Bust Out is another blackjack side bet variation that is similar to insurance. After the dealer has revealed his or her hole card and his hand is unfinished, the bet will be available if the dealer has a stiff hand (a hand in which the dealer must hit, but will bust if he hits a 10 value card). If the dealer then draws a 10, the bet is paid out 2:1. Bust Out is an easy clean for card counters and you won't find it in many casinos these days.

21 Madness is another new side bet bonus option you might see in some casinos. The player has the option to bet a $1 side bet. If the player receives a blackjack and the dealer does not, the player is awarded a bonus of $5 to $1,000, which is decided by chance.