Blackjack Strategy Chart

This blackjack strategy chart tells you the best move for every hand you can be dealt, and it changes when the rules change. Pick the number of decks, whether the dealer hits soft 17, and whether you can double after a split or surrender. The chart redraws itself and puts a dot on every square that’s different from the standard six-deck chart. It’s free, and you can print it.

Most charts online are a single picture made for one set of rules. That’s fine until you sit at a table where the dealer hits soft 17. Then 11 against an ace goes from hit to double, and soft 19 against a 6 becomes a double. A fixed chart won’t tell you that. This one will.

How to read the blackjack strategy chart

Find your hand down the left side and the dealer’s up card along the top. The square where they meet is your move.

• Hard totals are hands with no ace, or with an ace that has to count as 1. 10-6 is hard 16. So is 9-4-3.
• Soft totals have an ace counting as 11. A-6 is soft 17: it can’t bust if you take one card.
• Pairs are only for your first two cards, when splitting is on the table.

D means double if you’re allowed and hit if not. Ds means double if you can, otherwise stand. That difference matters on soft 18: against a 3 to 6 you double, but if the table only lets you double on 9, 10 or 11, you stand rather than hit.

The squares people get wrong

Hard 16 against a 10 is the classic. It feels like a coin flip between two bad options, and it nearly is. Over a long run, hitting loses about 53.5p for every £1 you bet. Standing loses about 54p. Hit, but don’t lose sleep over it. If late surrender is offered, take it: giving up half your stake costs exactly 50p, which beats both.

A few more that catch people out:

• 12 against a 2 or 3: hit. The dealer busts only about 35% of the time with a 2 showing, so standing on 12 hands it the game.
• Soft 18 against a 9, 10 or ace: hit. 18 sounds strong, but against a 9 it loses money if you stand.
• 8,8 always split (unless you can surrender against an ace in a hits-soft-17 game). 16 is the worst total there is, and two hands starting on 8 are much better.
• Never split 10s. 20 against a 6 wins about 70p per £1. Splitting it drops that to about 57p.

How much the rules are worth

The house edge box under the rules shows what the casino keeps with perfect play. With 6 decks, the dealer standing on soft 17 and doubling after splits allowed, it comes out at about 0.46%. Changing one rule at a time from there:

The 6 to 5 payout is the one to walk away from. It quadruples the edge, and no strategy can win that back. You lose 30p of every blackjack you’re dealt, and blackjacks come about once every 21 hands.

Where the numbers come from

Every square is worked out for its rules, not copied from a book. For each hand, the cards you hold and the dealer’s up card come out of the shoe, and every way the rest of the hand can play out is counted exactly. Hard totals are averaged over all the two-card hands that make them, weighted by how often each is dealt. We assume the dealer checks for blackjack before you act, you can double on any two cards, and you split once. Our house edge figures run a touch higher than ones that allow resplitting, by about 0.05%.

If you’d like a second opinion on one particular hand, including three- and four-card hands, use the blackjack calculator. If you want to see what a betting system does to your bankroll, try the martingale calculator.