Blackjack Strategy Chart: The Right Play for Every Hand

7 min read

A blackjack strategy chart answers one question for every combination of your hand and the dealer’s upcard: which play loses the least over time? It is neither a trick nor an opinion. It is what comes out when millions of hands are calculated. The three tables below cover the most common rule set: several decks, dealer stands on soft 17, doubling after a split allowed.

Key: H = hit, S = stand, D = double down (if doubling is not allowed, hit), P = split the pair.

Blackjack strategy chart: hard totals

A hard total is a hand without an ace, or one where the ace can only count as 1.

Soft totals (ace counted as 11)

One special case: if you cannot double soft 18, for instance because you already hold three cards, stand against 3–6 instead of hitting.

Pairs

How to read the chart

The row is your hand and the column is the dealer’s face-up card. Picture cards count as 10. Always work in this order:

1. A pair? Check the pairs table first. If it does not say P, treat the hand as an ordinary total.
2. An ace counting as 11? Use the soft table.
3. Anything else: hard totals.

Here is an example. You hold A,7 and the dealer shows a 9. Soft 18 sounds finished, but the chart says H. You draw a 5 and now hold a hard 13, because the ace can only be 1. New row: 13–16 against 9, H again. You look the hand up afresh after every card.

The pattern behind the cells is easy to spot. A dealer showing 2 to 6 busts often, so you stand on weak hands and double the good ones. A dealer showing 7 or higher probably ends with a made hand, so you have to build one yourself. The reasoning is covered in more depth in the blackjack basic strategy guide.

What the chart does to the house edge

Under the rules above, perfect basic strategy brings the house edge down to roughly 0.5%. Someone playing on instinct typically gives up 2% or more. Over 100 hands at CHF 10 that is an expected loss of about CHF 5 rather than CHF 20.

Honesty matters here: 0.5% is still a minus. The chart does not turn blackjack into a winning game. It makes it the cheapest game at the table, and only if the rules hold. Where the dealer hits soft 17, a few cells change (11 against an ace becomes a double, for instance) and the edge rises by about 0.2 percentage points. A table paying 6:5 for a blackjack instead of 3:2 adds around 1.4 points. No chart makes up for that.

The 3 most costly mistakes

1. Not doubling 10 and 11. With 11 against a 6 you are a clear favourite. Hitting where you should double halves your expected profit in exactly the spots that keep the game cheap.
2. Treating soft 18 as a finished hand. Against 9, 10 or an ace, 18 loses more often than it wins. Hitting cannot bust you, since the ace drops to 1. Against a 9, standing costs roughly 8 rappen for every franc staked.
3. Standing on 12 to 16 against 7 or higher. Fear of busting is natural, but a dealer showing 7 ends up with a made hand about three times in four. Standing on 16 against 7 gives away around 6 to 7 rappen per franc.

Practise until you stop looking

Nobody memorises 240 cells in one sitting. Start with the hard totals, which are just seven rows. Add the pairs, then the soft hands. Keep the chart open beside the game and play the free blackjack demo with play money until you no longer need to check. For more repetitions per minute, Multihand Blackjack deals several hands at once.

FAQ

Does this blackjack strategy chart work for every game? For the vast majority of cells, yes. Different rules (single deck, dealer hits soft 17, no doubling after a split) shift a handful of borderline plays. The core stays the same.

Am I allowed to use the chart while playing? Online and in any demo, of course. Many land-based casinos tolerate a strategy card at the table as long as you do not slow the game down.

What do I do on a D when I cannot double? Hit. The one exception is soft 18 against 3–6, where you stand.

Why is insurance not on the chart? Because the answer never changes: decline it. The insurance bet carries a house edge of more than 7%.

Is this the same as card counting? No. Basic strategy looks only at your hand and the dealer’s card. Counting also tracks every card already played, and it is useless in online games that reshuffle before each hand.