Blackjack Chance Of Winning
This chart shows that you can expect to win 36.0% of the time, push 4.9% of the time and lose 59.1% of the time. Why would you consider doubling (2,Ten) vs 3? Well, sometimes in tournament play you’ll need to make unconventional plays to maximize your chance of advancing to the next round. The way that you can use the blackjack odds to good effect is by first working out that the chances of any card coming up in a normal deck are one in fifty two, but then you have to take into consideration the fact that certain cards are worth the same amount.
Blackjack Probability and Blackjack Odds
To fully understand the game of blackjack, you must understand and master blackjack odds. It's crucial to know how the casino gains its edge and how it helps them win. It's also important to understand blackjack odds such as the odds of hitting a 10 or the odds of being dealt a blackjack. You can read over these blackjack odds charts to help understand the logistics behind blackjack.
Casino and Dealer Advantage in Blackjack
In most casino games of blackjack, the house advantage (the dealer advantage) is ~ 8%. The house gets this advantage by the dealer being the last player to act. By acting last, all other players have already made their decisions and could quite possibly bust before the dealer has his turn.
By using correct blackjack basic strategy, you can turn the casino edge in blackjack from 7%-8% down to 0.5%. If you correctly use advanced card counting techniques, you can often change blackjack odds and give yourself the advantage over the casino. Manipulating the house odds to your favor is the reason most casinos don't allow card counters to play blackjack.
Probability of Busting on a Hit
It's very important to know the probability of your hand busting when you are holding any total in the game of blackjack. The following odds chart shows the blackjack odds of busting, depending on your current hand value:
| Hand Value | % Bust If You Hit |
|---|---|
| 21 | 100% |
| 20 | 92% |
| 19 | 85% |
| 18 | 77% |
| 17 | 69% |
| 16 | 62% |
| 15 | 58% |
| 14 | 56% |
| 13 | 39% |
| 12 | 31% |
| 11 or Less | 0% |
Two-Card Count Frequencies
This interesting blackjack odds chart is the two card count frequency chart. This chart shows the percentage chance that you will be dealt a hand in each given value range. The most important frequencey to note is the chance of being dealt a natural blackjack (natural 21 value. The odds of being dealt a natural blackjack are merely 4.8%. Following this chart you will see that the most common two card hand, at 38.7%, is a hand totaling 1-16, which is considered a decision hand.
| Two Card Count | % Frequency |
|---|---|
| Natural 21 | 4.8% |
| Hard Standing (17-20) | 30.0 % |
| Decision Hands (1-16) | 38.7% |
| No Bust | 26.5% |
| TOTAL | 100.0% |
Dealer Final Hand Probabilities
This blackjack odds chart shows the dealer final hand probability. These are the percentages that the dealer will end up with a hand totaling each corresponding value (up to 16). Read over this chart to understand the odds that the dealer has to make his final hand.
| Dealer Final Hand Value | % | Cumulative % Total |
|---|---|---|
| Natural 21 | 4.82% | 4.83% |
| 21 (3 or More Cards) | 7.36% | 12.19% |
| 20 | 17.58% | 29.77% |
| 19 | 13.48% | 43.25% |
| 18 | 13.81% | 57.06% |
| 17 | 14.58% | 71.64% |
| 16 | 28.36% | 100.00% |
Player Advantage vs. Dealer Up Card
The first two columns in this odds chart explain the dealer's chance of busting, depending on the up card that he is showing. You should note that the dealer has the highest chance of busting when he is showing a 5. The third column in this chart shows the player advantage of using basic strategy, compared to each up card the dealer is showing. You can see that the player has the highest advantage of 23.9%, when the dealer is showing a 5. When the dealer is showing any card that is 9 value or higher, the player is in the negative advantage range.
| Dealer Up Card | Dealer Bust % | Player Advantage % with Basic Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 35.30% | 9.8% |
| 3 | 37.56% | 13.4% |
| 4 | 40.28% | 18.0% |
| 5 | 42.89% | 23.2% |
| 6 | 42.08% | 23.9% |
| 7 | 25.99% | 14.3% |
| 8 | 23.86% | 5.4% |
| 9 | 23.34% | -4.3% |
| J,Q,K | 21.43% | -16.9% |
| A | 11.65% | -16.0% |
Effects of Removing Cards from a Deck
When looking at the odds of removing certain cards from a 52-card deck, some cards have a much greater effect on blackjack odds. To create the strongest card counting system ever invented, you would have to incorporate all of these slight and subtle differences into the numbers to be a completely accurate system.
Removing every 5 from a deck cards would make the largest impact of improving your blackjack odds, as a player. On the other hand, removing every Ace from a deck of cards would make the largest impact on improving the odds for the casino.
| Card | % Effect of Removal |
|---|---|
| 2 | 0.40% |
| 3 | 0.43% |
| 4 | 0.52% |
| 5 | 0.67% |
| 6 | 0.45% |
| 7 | 0.30% |
| 8 | 0.01% |
| 9 | -0.15% |
| 10 | -0.51% |
| A | -0.59% |
See also:
US Players and Credit Card, BitCoin Deposits Accepted!
Numbers Dont Lie
By Henry Tamburin
Dominator, who is my good friend and fellow blackjack instructor, will probably kill me when he reads this article. Hes always preaching to me that blackjack players 'dont want to know how the clock works, they just want to know what time it is, so dont bore them with a lot of numbers.' But Ive decided to risk life and limb and discuss some of the more important blackjack statistics in my column this month, because I believe it helps players better understand the fundamentals of winning blackjack strategies. Ive got to admit, however, that numbers are boring to most folks, so I crafted this article as a fun quiz (at least I hope you find it entertaining, as well as informative). So lets get going, and Dom, if you are reading this have mercy on me.
1.Ignoring ties, the percentage of hands that you can expect to win when you play blackjack is about:
a. 45 percent
b. 48 percent
c. 50 percent
Answer: b. When you ignore the 9 percent of the hands that tie, you can expect to win 48 percent of the hands dealt to you, and lose 52 percent. Notice that you will lose significantly more hands than you win. So how do you win money playing blackjack? For starters, the average amount of money that you win on the winning hands is slightly greater than a single betting unit because the latter are sometimes hands where you get a blackjack and are paid at 3-2, or you double down and win double the amount of your bet. Losing hands, on the other hand, often lose only a single betting unit. The result is that monetarily you will be close to, but not quite even when you play (this assumes that you use the basic playing strategy for all your hands). If you want to go a step further and win much more money on winning hands compared to the amount you will lose on losing hands, so that overall you show a gain, then youve got to learn card counting.
2.If you are dealt three consecutive hands, what is the chance that they will all lose, excluding ties?
a. 1 percent
b. 14 percent
c. 30 percent
Answer: b. You have about a 14 percent chance of losing three hands in a row when you play blackjack. Surprised? Most players probably guess 1 percent because they figure the chance of this happening is very low. Well it isnt, so dont panic and abandon the basic playing strategy when it happens.
3.How frequently does a player get a blackjack?
a. Once every 15 hands
b. Once every 21 hands
c. Once every 30 hands
Answer: b. The game is 21 and you can expect to get a blackjack once in every 21 hands. This brings me to the point why I harp that you should never play any blackjack game that pays 6-5, instead of 3-2, for a winning blackjack. Suppose you play two hours worth of blackjack on one of the heavily advertised, $10 minimum, 6-5 single deck games. Lets assume you are dealt 100 hands per hour, so over the course of two hours you played 200 hands of blackjack. Getting a blackjack once every 21 hands means that you should theoretically have gotten about 10 blackjacks. Sometimes youll get more blackjacks in two hours of play, sometimes less, but on average youll get 10. Each of those blackjack hands cost you $3 on a 6-5 game (the difference between getting paid 3-2 vs. 6-5, or $12 instead of $15, for your $10 wager). So you forked over $30 to the casino for the privilege of playing a single deck game (yeah, right). Save your money and avoid playing any 6-5 single deck games.
4.How frequently does a basic strategy player bust?
a. Once every six hands
b. Once every eight hands
c. Once every ten hands
Answer. a. A basic strategy player can expect to bust about 16 percent of the time or once every six hands. When a player busts, he always loses. Not so with the dealer (see next question).
5.How frequently does the dealer bust?
a. One time out of every seven hands
b. Two times out of every seven hands
c. Three times out of every seven hands.
Answer: b. The dealer busts about 28 percent of the time, or about two times out of every seven hands. Unlike a player bust, the dealer often wins when she busts, because players who act first and bust automatically lose (this is how the house has a built-in edge in blackjack). The 28 percent is an average over all possible dealer upcards. In fact, the dealer will bust significantly more times when she shows a 2-6 upcard (about 42 percent with a 5 or 6 upcard), and much less with a 7 through Ace upcard (with an Ace, its only 17 percent after checking for a natural). Because the dealers chance of busting is higher when she shows a small upcard, you should not risk busting a 12-16 stiff hand and should always stand (with two exceptions - its slightly better to hit a 12 against a dealers 2 or 3). However, when the dealer shows a strong upcard from 7 though Ace and has a much lower risk of busting, you should be more aggressive and hit your stiff hands until your hand totals 17 or more (even if it means you risk busting).
6.You can expect your initial two-card hand to be a hard 12-17 about:
a. 30 percent of the time
b. 35 per cent of the time
c. 43 percent of the time
Answer: c. About 43 percent of the time youll be holding a 12 through 17, and the only way you can win is if the dealer busts, or you improve your hand. So any time you hold a 12 through 17 its bad news and you should expect to lose. In fact, approximately 85 percent of your financial losses occur with these hands. The best you can do when you are holding a 12 through 17 is to play your hand optimally using the basic playing strategy to minimize your losses.
7.The dealer has an Ace upcard. What is the chance she has a 10 in the hole for blackjack?
a. 15 percent
b. 24 percent
c. 31 percent
Answer: c. The dealer will have a ten four times out of 13, or roughly 31 percent of the time. The remaining 9 out of 13, or 69 percent of the time, the dealer wont have a 10 in the hole. When you make the insurance bet, you are betting that the dealer has a ten in the hole when she shows an Ace. Assume you make a $10 insurance wager. Four times youll win $20 on the insurance bet (2 to 1 payoff odds) for a total win of $80. The other nine times you will lose $10 on your insurance bet for a total loss of $90. In other words, you lost more than you won. Therefore, its wise to never make the insurance bet.
8.The edge that card counters have over the casino is approximately:
a. 1 percent
b. 10 percent
Blackjack Odds Chart
c. 50 percent
Answer: a. Most players are surprised at the tiny one percent edge that card counters have over the house. Oftentimes, depending upon the game and the card counting system being used, the card counters edge is even less. With an edge this small, it means in the short run, luck will play a great role in the fortunes of a card counter, even though he will show a profit in the long-run.
So how did you do on the questions? It really doesnt matter how many you got right or wrong, but whether or not I motivated you to play better. And I hope I did.
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Blackjack Strategy Chart
Henry Tamburin is the Lead Instructor in the Golden Touch™ Blackjack course (www.goldentouchblackjack.com) and editor of the Blackjack Insider newsletter. For a free 3-month subscription to his blackjack newsletter with full membership privileges, visit www.bjinsider.com/free.