Five Horrible Blackjack Mistakes

Henry Tamburin 03:24 Apr 14th, 2006 Blackjack

I’ve been playing blackjack in casinos for some 35 years. In Vegas. Midwest. Mississippi. Louisiana. Atlantic City. Connecticut. New York, Canada and many more places that would just bore you if I listed them all. So I’m not kidding when I say I’ve watched a lot of blackjack players during my lifetime. The good ones all have one thing in common. They know how to play their hand and they know when to increase their bets. The bad players, on the other hand, possess one or more of these five characteristics.

Characteristic #1. Don’t Know the Basic Playing Strategy

You would think that in the 21st century all blackjack players would know that to win at blackjack they must learn and use correctly the basic playing strategy. This is no secret. Basic playing strategy is no secret – it’s readily available in books, in articles, and on the Internet.

For a couple of bucks, you can even purchase a plastic card that contains the basic playing strategy that you can bring right on the tables when you play. How easy is that?

But I would venture a guess that at best 25% of the playing public knows basic strategy perfectly. Yes, even the experienced players who tell me, “Sure I know basic strategy” rarely know all the plays. It’s just not good enough to know half the strategy and guess at the rest, or worse deviate from the right play because you get a “feeling” an alternate play might be better for this particular situation.

When you play blackjack, you need to play like a robot. This means every time the dealer gives you a 16 and he shows a 10 you must hit the hand regardless if you lost the last time or last ten times that you made this play (actually surrendering is an even better play if the casino will allow you to surrender). Ditto for a pair of 8’s against a dealer 10.

You shove out more money and split. Why? Because these are the correct plays to make, the ones that in the long run will either save you money or get you more money.

Don’t believe me? I’ve got billions of computer generated hands to back me up.

Characteristic #2. Trying To Beat The House with a Betting Progression

I see this all the time. It seems players have a fascination with betting progressions because they are easy to use and players mistakenly believe that what happened in previous hands will somehow affect their chances of winning future hands. Well, it won’t and it can’t. You are fighting a losing battle with progressions for one simple reason.

In the history of blackjack, there has never been any study that proved your chances of winning the next hand increase based upon what happened (won or lost) in previous hands. There is no magic bullet here. Using betting progression in blackjack might be fun because sometimes in the short run you get to make some adrenalin-pumping big bets which you will win. But in the long run guess what?

The house edge doesn’t change one iota. And what’s worse you will lose more using betting progressions in the long haul then just betting the same on every hand because your average bet increases when you use a progression (remember even with basic strategy the house still has the slight edge so the more you bet the more you stand to lose). Nope, betting progressions don’t work in the long run so forget about it.

Characteristic #3. Betting More Because You Are Due to Win

Player bets $5 a hand and loses 4 or 5 hands in succession. Now he increases his bet to $10 because he figures he is “due to win.” You are not due anything in the casino and certainly not a winning hand just because you lost the 4 or 5 previous hands.

Remember what we said earlier. The results of previous hands have no bearing on the outcome of future hands in blackjack. So don’t bet more thinking you are due to win. That’s a terrible assumption and mistake to make when you play blackjack.

Characteristic #4. Not Knowing When to Quit

Player gets ahead by $100. The tide turns and he starts losing. What do you think the player does? How many say, “Quit with his profits.” How many say, “Keep playing.” Probably 90% of all casual players will keep playing. Why? Greed and the desire for action. I ask you, is it better to play 3 hours but wind up losing your profits back to the house or quit with a $100 profit after playing one hour? I know what I would do.

Characteristic #5. Believing That the Game of Blackjack is All Luck

These players put blackjack in the same category as slots. It’s all luck, so why bother? You can say that about slots and roulette and most other casino games but you’d be dead wrong about blackjack. Why? For the simple reason, that blackjack is a game of skill and the odds can be changed in your favor if you know how to play the game skillfully. This has been proven over and over by many blackjack mathematicians.

Summing Up

You can be a successful blackjack player that plays the best game the casino has to offer if you just avoid the above 5 mistakes and stick to the facts which is learn the basic playing strategy and use the strategy for every hand to dealt to you, only increase your bet if you’ve seen a preponderance of small cards over large cards in previous hands, be prepared to lose two, three even ten hand sin a row because sooner or later it will happen no matter how skillful you play, and be content with modest wins (don’t go for the kill).