The whole chart and your printed card

Your two cards are an eight and an eight, the dealer shows a 6, and the chart in front of you has three tables printed on it. Which of the three do you read?

All three hands above count sixteen, and all three are facing the same 6. The only thing that changed from picture to picture is which table the two cards belong to, and the play changed with it: split the pair of eights, take a card on the ace and five, stop on the ten and six. Splitting the eights puts a second bet on the felt, and that second bet can lose as readily as the first one.

Which of the three tables your cards send you to

A basic strategy chart looks like one big page of letters, and it is three tables stacked on that page. Nothing on it can be read until you know which of the three you are in, and what picks the table is not the total of your hand. It is what your two cards are.

• Two cards of equal valueA pair, and the pairs table answers it. Two eights, two nines, two aces, or a king beside a ten: what matters is that the two cards are worth the same, not what they add up to.
• An ace that can still count elevenA soft hand, and the soft hands table answers it. An ace and a five is a 6 or a 16, and one card cannot take it over 21.
• Everything elseA hard total, and the hard totals table answers it: no ace at all, or an ace that has to count one.

Each of the three tests above is a test on the cards themselves, not on the number they add up to. That is why a count of sixteen can send you to any of the three tables, depending on which two cards made it.

A pair has a table of its own because it has a move of its own: a second bet, and the two cards played as two hands. That second bet can lose exactly as the first can. The pairs table is read only on the first two cards.

An ace is the other card that changes which table you are in, because an ace counts as one or as eleven, whichever suits the hand. While it can still count eleven without taking the hand past 21, the hand is soft, and the soft hands table answers it. The moment a card would take it past 21, the ace counts one, and the same hand moves to the hard totals table.

Leoformer dealer · rules and maths

Table, then row, then column, in that order every time. The first of those three steps is the one people skip: they see sixteen, walk straight to the hard totals table, and never notice that the sixteen in front of them is a pair of eights or an ace and a five. If you make yourself name the hand out loud before you look anything up, you will not skip it.

The whole chart, printed here

Here are all three tables for the rules of the national catalogue of games: hard totals first, then soft hands, then pairs. Together they hold 280 cells, and a hand in front of you needs exactly one of them.

A single letter is a single move. Two letters name two: the move the chart wants, then what to do if it is not available. A double is allowed only on two cards that make 9, 10 or 11, so the soft hands table has no double in it at all, and a 10 or an 11 made of three cards takes the second letter. Surrender gives up the hand for half the bet, on your first two cards and never against an ace, so a 16 made of three cards takes the second letter there too.

• HTake another card.
• STake no more cards.
• DhDouble your bet and take one card. If the table will not let you double this hand, take a card instead.
• RhSurrender: give up the hand for half your bet. If the table will not let you surrender this hand, take a card instead.
• PPut a second bet down and play the two cards as two hands.

Finding the one cell you need

1. Name the hand. A pair of equal value, a hand with an ace that can still count eleven, or a total. That names the table.
2. Run down the left-hand side until you reach your own hand, and stop on that row.
3. Run along that row to the column headed by the dealer’s card, and read the letter where the row and the column meet.

A row read without its column gives a wrong answer out of a right table. A hand has no play of its own; it only has a play against the card the dealer is showing.

Nine of the ten cells in the row belong to other dealer cards. The same pair of eights against a 10 reads Rh, surrender, and against an ace H, take a card: the dealer’s second card is dealt only after you play, and a blackjack made with it could take the second bet too.

What a cell settles, and what it does not

The letter in a cell is the play that comes out ahead on average over every hand of that one pairing — your hand against that dealer card. It is not a reading of the two cards lying in front of you, and it cannot be: the chart was worked out before those cards were dealt and knows nothing about them.

Played by every row of all three tables, these rules still leave the house 0.36% of every bet on average. The house keeps its edge; the chart only makes it smaller. What following the chart does is reduce the house advantage and the cost of playing; what it cannot do is settle how a hand, or an evening, comes out.

Each row above is one hand read in the wrong table, and the last column is the difference between the two plays, averaged over many hands of that pairing, for an example bet of 10 units — an example, not a suggested bet. The price is not the same in every row, and that is where to spend your attention: the three tables are not equally forgiving.

The card you carry to the table

None of this has to be carried in your head. The card further down this page holds all three tables and is made to be printed; keep it open on your phone instead if that is easier. The catalogue says nothing about a printed card at the table, either way: ask before you put one on the felt. What it does say is that nobody may play your hand for you, and nobody may interfere in your decisions on it.

Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks

Decide how much money the evening gets and how long it runs before you sit down, and stop when either one is used up. A run of losing hands is not a debt the table owes you, and playing every cell of the chart correctly does not make the next hand owe you anything either: putting more money down to get it back only makes the hour dearer. If the money on the table starts to feel like money you need, stop for the evening.

The lesson on one card

That is the lesson. Here it is on one card, with all three tables on it: print the card, or keep it on your phone.

Practice table

The table below deals hands from a shuffled shoe and checks your first decision on each hand against the chart for these rules. Decide with the buttons or with the keys H, S, D and R; R, surrender, is not offered against an ace. There is no money on this table: the amounts beside each decision are averages for the example bet you choose.

What this table does not deal. Every hand it deals is a hard total: hands with an ace and pairs are set aside, so it drills only the hard totals table. It is the same table as in the doubling lesson and keeps your place.

Check yourself

Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks

Five quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.

And the question this lesson started with: an eight and an eight against a 6 is a pair before it is a sixteen, so the pairs table answers it, and the cell says P — put a second bet down and play the two cards as two hands.

Where to go next

How it’s worked out