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The history of BlackJack
It is believed that BlackJack originated from French games such as "chemin de fer" and "French Ferme".
It was first played in French casinos in about 1700 where it was called "vingt-et-un" (twenty-and-one).
BlackJack has been played in the U.S.A since the 1800's after the 52 card deck was adopted.
The game got its name from one of the winning hands, a jack of spades and an ace of spades (a "black jack").
If a player was to get this, they not only won but also got an additional reward.
Basic Strategy
Everyone has played BlackJack, but not everyone plays well. The optimal way to play BlackJack
(also known as the "Basic Strategy") was discovered with the help of computer simulations during
the 70s. The site BJ 21
has some good material and strategy charts for those who want to learn how to play basic strategy.
Please note that even though playing basic strategy lowers the house advantage as much
as possible, it is still rarely enough to give the player the upper hand. Typically a
basic strategy player is still at about a 0.5% disadvantage, which is however very small compared
to most other players. But to get a long term advantage, a player has to combine the basic playing
strategy with betting decisions based on the amount of high cards left in the deck. Naturally
the player must count the cards to have access to such information.
Card Counting
A tough way to make a living to say the least. Not all casinos have the proper playing
conditions nowadays to make their BlackJack beatable even by the best card counters. There are
however still some casinos where card counting can be done profitable. The rule of thumb
is that they should deal out as much as possible of the deck(s) before shuffling up. This
allows the card counter to get access to more information about what kind of cards that
are still in the deck(s). Of course, it also helps if they don't throw you out at the first
suspicion of being a card counter. ;-)
Card counting is not as complicated as many people think. What you do basically, is to
assign a number to each type of card and then keep a running count of the cards as they
are dealt out of the deck(s). The most popular counting system is probably the hi-low count.
The cards get the following numbers:
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A |
| +1 | +1 | +1 | +1 | +1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | -1 |
Let's say that the dealer deals you a Jack and an eight, and the dealer's card is an Ace. You would
first subtract 1 for the Jack (-1). The eight doesn't count (0) and the dealer's Ace is another minus
card (-1). The total running count is now currently minus 2. You also need to divide the running count
by the number of remaining decks to get the "true count". A card counter typically bets as little as he
can get away with when the count is negative. Should the count become strongly positive (meaning that
there are many high cards left in the undealt decks) he then bets as much as he can get way with and as his
bankroll can afford. When the deck is shuffled, the count is of course reset to zero again.
The site BJ Math
has a good introductionary text about how to learn how to count cards. There are also several
books on how to play BlackJack and count cards. Not all of those books are good though, but
two of the most popular and respected BlackJack authors are Stanford Wong and Arnold Snyder.
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