Being cool at the blackjack table (Part 1)

February 5, 2007

Whether you play this casino game at online casinos or in casinos on land, you have to be able to keep your cool. This is the one casino game that is relatively easy to play, somewhat social, and at times volatile. This is a casino game that once you start playing the correct hand playing strategy, you can usually pick out the others at the table that are beginners and the one that make big mistakes - you will even see them taking some of the cards that should have gone your way.

The paradox here is, every so often a true blackjack professional will make the same out of the ordinary play as a novice does, but they are doing it for an entirely different reason. When a usual blackjack veteran see the professional making this extraordinary play, they are most times thinking that the pro is a beginner. As you have most likely noticed in the casinos, usual blackjack veterans have an indignant aversion to playing with beginners. This takes place when online gambling too.

Here's a classic example. The last time I was in Vegas, I heard the blackjack player that was sitting in the third base position asking another player at the table when to split tens. The person replied that if this guy wanted to lose – then that would be the time to split tens. Then the guy who asked replied jokingly that he thought it was when the blackjack table was packed and another player wanted the seat. They went onto laughing. I was silent.

It is not untrue that beginners will split tens occasionally. I have done so a few times when I was feeling frisky and I did so to try to get ahead as it were. To most blackjack traditionalists, that would be seen as sacrilege and could essentially clear out a table in some situations. See, when you split tens, not only are you going against the grain, but you are potentially taking the next guys valuable cards. This will seriously irritate many blackjack players. Why would you split a 20? Some do it as I did – to jump ahead with two wins. Understanding this, but necessarily agreeing with it...

Say you were dealt those two tens against a dealer's up card of 5…and you just so happen to have known that every single remaining card in the shoe was a ten as well. What would be the greatest thing to do then?

Consider this scenario really. If you split and keep splitting, you will end up with four 20s and the dealer's bound to bust with a 25. Clearly, in this exacting case, splitting those original tens is the greatest thing to do.

Now, will you ever be in this exacting position? Probably never. But, looking at the situation in this light, brings to mind new ideas and opportunities and that is why I have walked the plank and split my tens on rare instances.

Since this does shed new light on the situation even when online gambling, there has to be a intersecting point where splitting tens get to be better than standing with those two tens. Most all blackjack regulars are oblivious that this intersecting point in fact does get reached every now and again. At those times, splitting tens is the play. So, the two guys laughing at that table in Vegas were not necessarily right – especially when you consider the 4 - 20s right?

In reality, there are several plays that happen to be the right idea or play when the cards in the shoe have gotten out of balance, and some of them come up often. Only a small number of extra low cards need to be played out to make it right to double down with eight against a six, or with Ace/8 against a five, or to stand with sixteen against a ten.

It is these actual plays at the blackjack table that start to unnerve and puzzle classic players who believe that basic strategy represents the whole lot and that it is essentially cut and dry. Gambling is gambling – online gambling is online gambling – nothing has to be cut and dry or you would not be truly gambling right?

Please continue…

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