Surrender

If, after viewing your original two cards and the dealer's up card, you feel that your chances of winning the hand are not good, you will have the option to "surrender" the hand. If you choose to surrender, you will automatically lose half of your original wager; the other half will be returned to you. Play of the hand will cease, and the deck will be reshuffled.

NOTE: If the dealer was dealt a Blackjack, the "surrender" option will not be available.

Double Down If, after viewing your original two cards and the dealer's up card, you feel that your chances of winning the hand are good you can choose to double the amount of your original wager. You will be dealt exactly one additional card and play will pass to the dealer.

Split

If you are dealt two cards of the same value (8-8, A-A, 10-K, etc.), you may choose to split the cards into two separate hands. An additional wager equal to your original wager will be placed next to the additional hand.

A second card will be dealt to the first of the split hands. This hand will be played out, with all the normal options available (surrender, double down, etc.) When you have finished playing the first hand, the other split hand will then be dealt a second card and played out as usual.

NOTES: Only one split is allowed per deal.
NOTES: A split-hand Blackjack will pay off at 1:1 instead of 3:2

Insurance

Whenever the dealer's up card is an ace, the insurance option will be available. When you buy insurance, you are insuring yourself against the possibility that the dealer has a blackjack. Insurance is an additional wager equal to half of your original bet.

If the dealer has a Blackjack, the insurance will pay off at 2:1. Your original bet will be lost, unless you also have a Blackjack, in which case the hand will push.

If the dealer does not have a Blackjack, you will lose the insurance wager and the hand will be played out as usual.

Card counting is one of the better known ways of beating the house it is also one of the most difficult. The basic premise is that the counter keeps track of what cards have been dealt out of the shoe and uses this information to base his decisions on. Card counting is not as accurate as many people believe, as you do not know what card is going to be dealt next you just keep track on whether the deck is favourable. You can do this by keeping track of the amount of high cards to low cards that have been dealt. So if very few high cards have been dealt in the first half of the shoe then the deck could be described as favourable. High cards are 10's face cards and aces. It is easier to keep track of cards that score ten, as they are the most plentiful cards in the deck. There are three main reasons that decks high in face cards are favourable to the counter and not the casino. Firstly, the higher the proportion of tens and aces in the deck then the higher the likelihood that you can get a blackjack. It is true that the dealer is also more likely to pull a blackjack as well. However when the dealer is dealt a blackjack you lose all your wager when you are dealt a blackjack you win 3 to 2 so you get 150% of your wager and lose only 100%. So if you and the dealer trade blackjacks at the end you will be up. The dealer must draw when he has a 16 or less. He has no choice. When the deck is favourable, he runs a greater risk of busting. You, on the other hand, can alter your strategy to take advantage of favourable conditions. You don't have to take a card when the odds of busting are great because of a favourable deck. With doubling down on 10 and eleven with a favourable deck it is very valuable as the odds of the next card being a ten or ace is quite high which gives you a very high hand at double your initial wager.

There are four different situations or possibilities in an original or two-card blackjack hand. The strategies for dealing with each comes from more than 40 years of research done by mathematicians, probability experts, and professional gamblers. Julian Braun, Dr. Edward Thorp, Lawrence Revere, Stanford Wong, Arnold Snyder, Peter Griffin, and Don Schlesinger, represent some of the most important theorists and innovators of blackjack over the last half-century, and their legacy provides the foundation and framework for current blackjack philosophy and practice. On the ground floor of the blackjack high rise, are those who play the game, but don't put any effort into learning much about it, so they guess or go by hunches or "feelings." This player can only rely on the luck of the draw hoping for a chance to win.The next level of player cares about learning the game enough so that he or sheis willing to absorb what is termed a "basic strategy." By learning basic strategy,the player elevates his or her level of play and greatly enhances the possibilityof winning,The third level of player assigns numerical values to each card in an attemptto separate the cards that have been played in an attempt to determine the remainingcards along with the mathematical odds of winning all remaining hands. This procedureis called card counting and there are numerous methods to consider. All of the strategies listed begin with two separate factors: your two cards compared to the dealer's single exposed card. Those three cards represent the known values in the equation to figure the possibilities. How you react is directly related to those two dynamics. One note: the basic strategies discussed and noted here are for multiple decks, rather that single or double as there are many more of the former than the latter group. It is quite frustrating to sit at a blackjack table knowing you are playing Basic Strategy to the letter and are losing while other players are making foolish decisions and winning. The math of the game states you are playing at a .05 disadvantage given a reasonable set of rules. That is one-half of one percent, as close to 50-50 as you'll find, and about the best set of odds in the modern casino. Yet there are no guarantees you'll get "good" cards. Probability theory views events from a long-term basis, rather than isolated cases. That is why the game favors disciplined players who have patience. If you play long enough, you will encounter sessions where you know you did the right thing but lost hand after hand. The only satisfaction you can take home is the knowledge that things will turn the other way, sooner or later. Those who are winning by playing foolishly may smile, but it will be a temporary situation and one which can get them into deep trouble.