Plain-English guides to how casino games work, how to stay safe, and how to keep play within limits you set — plus practical how-tos for the free spreadsheet and recap generators.
Basic strategy is the best play for every hand you can hold against every card the dealer can show. The full chart for hard totals, soft hands and pairs, the reasoning behind the decisions people get wrong, and how rule changes move it.
Read articleA dealer showing a six busts more than four times in ten. A dealer showing an ace, barely one in ten. The whole of basic strategy is built on those numbers.
Read articleAn ace counts as one or eleven, whichever helps. That single rule creates a whole class of hands that cannot bust on the next card, and most players play them far too timidly.
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Both are offered only on your first two cards, and both are gone the moment you hit. The pairs worth splitting, the ones that are not, and the hands to give up on.
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Survive five cards and you win, whatever they add up to. Here is how often it happens, when it is worth chasing, and why it exists.
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Our blackjack tables play Pontoon rules. The cards and the totals are the same; the order of events is not, and it changes what the right play is.
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Almost every blackjack hand comes down to one question, and guessing at it is the most expensive habit in the game.
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It is the one move that lets you put more money out when the odds tilt your way. Most players use it far too rarely.
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The dealer plays a fixed script with no judgement at all. It sounds like a disadvantage. It is the opposite.
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