When To Hit Or Stand In Blackjack - Blackjack Hit Or Stay Chart
The entire game of blackjack is based around the two words “Hit me”. All of the strategy and logic in the game comes down to whether or not you want to get another card added on top of your first two cards. Remember, the goal of blackjack is to either make the dealer bust, hit 21 yourself, or have a higher number than the dealer ends up with.
Most of the variance in the game comes from the idea of hitting or standing when you either get another card dealt to you, at risk of busting, or stay where you are, and risk the dealer beating you. This is a complex decision making process, and it’s important to know how to approach it and how to play blackjack by the book.
This page details all of the methods you can use to understand when to hit or stand, and at the end, you can find a chart explaining why.
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1
Bovada:
Bovada makes it very simple for new players to understand what hit and stand means in legal online blackjack. When you select their blackjack games, you can expand on the details of the game and they’ll give you a full description of what the play options are including hitting and standing in the order that they appear on the game screen. Their online blackjack games are some of the most trusted in the industry as they’ve been in operation for 10+ years.
2
Slots.LV:
Blackjack on Slots.LV has all of their play options on the side of your hand with the hit and stand buttons as the two middle buttons. If you want to hit your hand, you’ll hit the button with the three cards in it and a plus sign. To stand and not take any more cards, you’ll see the hand symbol to stand and you’ll select that. With their blackjack platform being very easy to understand, you’ll never get mixed up when selecting to hit or stand.
3
Ignition:
On Ignition, they do a good job of differentiating the hit and stand buttons on all of their blackjack games whether it's live dealers or digital versions. When you want to hit and take a card, there will be a green button with the hand symbol to take a card. If you want to stand and not take any more cards, you’ll see the red button right next to it with the symbol to stand.
4
Cafe Casino:
Whether you are playing blackjack through one of their live dealer tables or on their digital version, the gameplay options are all the same. The hitting and standing options are easy to read and make out that way you’ll never click the wrong option. All of their blackjack games could be played right from your phone as well and even on their mobile platform, you’ll find that any of their play options are understandable at first glance. a
Knowing When To Hit Or Stand - The Dealer’s Up Card
Understanding the implications of the dealer’s up card is very important when playing real money blackjack. Basically, you get to see one of the dealer’s cards, and that allows you to make some guesses as to what number they are at, and what their decision making process will be. The higher the dealer’s up card, the more likely the player is to want to hit, as a general rule. This is because, once again, the goal is to beat the dealer - to get the closest to 21 without going over. The card you see tells you a lot about the range of possibilities they could have. For example, if you see a 2, you know that their total is relatively low, and if you have a decent total, it could be correct to stand. That’s the basics of understanding a dealer’s up card for legal blackjack, but there’s so much more to understand what the process is behind choosing to stand.
When To Stand In Blackjack
The basic idea of when you want to stand in blackjack is when you have a pretty good idea that your total is pretty close to 21, you don’t want to risk going over, and you want to put the onus on the dealer to beat your total. This tends to mean that you want to start seriously considering standing at around 17 total. The idea here is that, unless you can see an ace from the dealer, you’re fairly likely to have more than them at this point, given the amount of times cards that are worth more than 7 appear in the deck. If you have 19, you’re always standing, for example. You’re likely to bust if you hit, and it’s relatively hard to beat. The rules for this are fairly fluid so understand them well but they do not change for in person or online live dealer blackjack.
When To Hit In Blackjack
The basic idea behind when you want to hit in blackjack is twofold. First, you want to hit when you aren’t in much danger of going over or busting. Second, you want to hit when you need to beat a decent dealer total. This means that if you have a middling hand, let’s say 15, you’ll want to stand if the dealer’s face up card is fairly low, but hit if the dealer’s face up card is higher. This is because you can extrapolate the range of possible outcomes from the dealer’s face up card, and understand when you need to hit, and when you need to stand. There’s a lot of math that goes into this, but you can play by intuition as well. Remember, the goal of the game is to beat the dealer without going over - and that’s simple, but devilishly tricky as well in all states with blackjack.
When Does The Dealer Have To Hit In Blackjack
The basic blackjack dealer rules that are followed across the board for the most part are determined to their mathematical advantage over years of study and play. The dealer will always hit on anything below a 16 total. This is why, when you have a 17, you tend to consider staying - you have something fairly close to what they tend to stay at. This can get a little more complex when people start considering aces, which allow the concept of hard and soft 17s to enter the equation, but that’s mostly a discussion for a different page. Suffice to say, the basic rule they follow is that they will hit anything that is a 16 total or below.
When Does The Dealer Have To Stay In Blackjack
Dealers in blackjack follow strict rules - rules that are designed for them to play as optimally as possible against you. This is why it is beneficial to have an understanding of the different blackjack strategies that have been used for years. The basic idea behind most of them is to optimize their mathematical odds at victory. For this reason, almost all dealers will stand when their total is 17 or above. As before, aces throw a bit of a wrench into this equation, but there is a lot of grey area in blackjack. The basic rule they follow is to stand on 17 because that puts the challenge on you to beat a 17, which is pretty hard to do without going over.
Hit Or Stand Cheat Sheets
Here is a very basic cheat sheet for knowing when to hit or stand in blackjack. Remember that the math changes depending on which type of blackjack you’re playing, so make sure you understand what’s going on in each blackjack variant you play.
| Your Hand | Up Card | |||||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A | |
| <11 | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit |
| 12 | Hit | Hit | Stand | Stand | Stand | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit |
| 13 | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit |
| 14 | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit |
| 15 | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit |
| 16 | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit | Hit |
| 17-21 | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand | Stand |