Online Blackjack Advanced Plays

If you've been a regular reader of our Blackjack strategy series, you should by now have a strong understanding of concepts of Blackjack and the basic strategy you should employ to reduce the house edge to a minimum and give yourself the best chance of winning at the table. Applying basic strategy correctly without making errors will put you ahead of 90% of all Blackjack players.

However to reach the pinnacle of Blackjack players, not only should you intimately understand basic strategy and game odds, but you need to learn some advanced plays. These plays should not be attempted by beginners.

Basic strategy will always reduce the house edge, but advanced players recognize that some situations require a more complex approach where veering from basic strategy can produce a slightly more profitable play.

Many advanced plays are based on card counting at the Blackjack table. Card counting is a technique that advanced players can use in a live casino setting to take advantage of situations where the house edge is negligible or even favorable. Unfortunately card counting skills cannot be taken across into the online world. It would be too easy for people to count cards using their PC, so in an online casino the deck is randomly shuffled each and every deal, meaning that knowledge of previous deals doesn't benefit the player at all. However online casinos are a great place to practice card counting techniques without feeling pressured by a pit boss staring you down!

Even though card counting is useless in online casinos there are still "composition-dependent strategies" that an advanced player can use to give themselves a greater edge than basic strategy provides. Knowledge of previous hands won't help, but if you just pay attention to the cards that are in play in the current hand you can make small gains in certain situations.

For example, say you have a hard 16 versus the dealer's 10. This is a common situation where it has been drilled into basic strategy players that they simply must hit their 16. If you are holding a 10-6 then basic strategy is correct, you need to hit your hand to minimize your losses. But what if your 16 is made up of a 4-4-5-3? You are holding four cards that will really help your hand if you hit. So this means there are four less "outs" remaining in the deck to help you. This actually slightly affects your odds, even in a full six or eight deck shoe. Now let's say you are playing at a multi-hand table or at a live dealer table with other players. Looking around the table you notice another eight of your "outs" have also been exposed through other hands. In a six-deck shoe, one-tenth of your outs have been exposed which is a significant amount, changing the odds so much that the profitable play may actually be to stand on your 16.

Another interesting situation is when you hold a hard 12 against a dealer's 4. Basic strategy teaches us to hit against a dealer's 2 or 3 but stand against a 4, 5 or 6. However what basic strategy doesn't explain is that play against the dealer's 4 is a very borderline decision. Hitting your 12 against a 4 will result in winning 39.67% of the time, while standing will result in a win 40% of the time. Very close indeed! With the odds being so close, the most profitable play can actually vary depending on the other cards in play. In this situation, your key "outs" are any 7, 8 or 9. If you are holding a 9-3 then you are already holding one of your outs so standing is probably still the correct play. In contrast if your hand is a 10-2, then not only have you not taken any of your outs but you're holding one of the tens that could potentially bust you. So this information will actually make a difference to the odds, and may swing them in favor of hitting which goes against basic strategy.

These are just a couple of examples where going beyond basic strategy can improve your odds and your profits. By using these advanced plays, the benefits you gain may only be small, but Blackjack is a game of small edges so you should take advantage of them whenever possible to elevate your game to the next level.

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