The Mathematical Reasons for Using Atypical Blackjack Strategic Options

Published: May 29, 2014

At the most basic level, you could play blackjack with only hitting and standing. In fact, that's how a lot of people learn to play the game with the dealer always standing on 17 or lower regardless. Once you learn the basic flow of the game, you can start introducing special betting options like doubling, surrendering and splitting. There is a mathematical basis for using each of these three atypical blackjack options, and we're going to explore those here to help you make better and more accurate plays when it comes time to use these options.

Splitting is the one everyone starts with because it's interesting to be able to play two hands at a time. You're usually going to split to either get yourself out of a bad situation, like when you have 88 for a hard 16, or to maximize a good situation, like when you have AA against just about anything and can get two shots at pulling a blackjack or other strong hand. These are the most common mathematical bases for splitting, and they both involve improving your overall payout rate.

Doubling is another one to work with because it comes up so often. If you find yourself in a particularly strong situation, then you can double to make that situation even better by doubling the size of your bet size. This is the case when hitting once and always standing no matter what would give you an advantage over the dealer. Typically this is going to give you a higher advantage than retaining the option to hit again because you rarely hit more than once in blackjack anyway. The mathematical basis of doubling, again, is to increase your bottom line.

Finally we have the surrender option. This option allows you to give up half of your bet and all chances of taking down any winnings in the hand, and it's reserved for the worst of the worst hands. If you have a hard 16 against a nine, ten, or ace, then that's a good time to surrender since playing it out normally is going to usually lose more than half of your bet on average. With correct play, the surrender option allows you to cut your losses on hands like this where you're going to lose a lot of money, and that helps your bottom line as well.