Your hand
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Table rules
Answers are checked against the same basic strategy as our strategy chart, for the rules you pick. Keys: H, S, D, P, R, and Enter for the next hand. Your score is kept in this browser only.
This blackjack trainer deals you one hand at a time and checks your decision against basic strategy the moment you make it. Hit, stand, double, split or surrender, each with its own key, and a short reason when you get one wrong. It’s free, there’s no money involved, and it remembers your score in this browser.
Reading a strategy chart is one thing. Recalling the right play while the dealer waits is another, and that’s what repetition fixes.
Blackjack trainer: how a round works
You see the dealer’s up card and your two cards. Pick a play with the buttons or the keys H, S, D, P and R. If you hit, you get another card and choose again, just like at a real table. Enter deals the next hand, or tick the box to have it dealt automatically after a correct answer.
The scoreboard tracks how many decisions you got right, your current streak and your best one. It’s the streak that tells you when a hand type has sunk in.
Practise the hands people get wrong
Most players have hard totals down after a few sessions. Soft hands and pairs are where mistakes linger, so you can drill those on their own. A few that catch people out:
- Hard 12 against a 3. It feels like a stand. It’s a hit.
- A-7 (soft 18) against a 9. Also a hit, even though 18 looks like a decent hand.
- 8-8 against a 10. Split. Two hands starting on 8 lose less than one hard 16.
- A-2 against a 5. Double. Plenty of people just hit.
Set the trainer to your table’s rules
Pick the number of decks, whether the dealer stands or hits on soft 17, whether you can double after splitting and whether late surrender is offered. The right answer changes with them. Soft 18 against a 2 is a stand when the dealer stands on soft 17, but a double when the dealer hits it. In a six-deck shoe, 11 against an ace is a double in the hit-soft-17 game and a hit in the other.
The answers come from the same engine as our blackjack strategy chart, so you can print the chart and drill it here. Want to know what a rule costs you? The blackjack calculator works out the house edge. When basic strategy feels automatic, the card counting trainer is the next step.
Perfect basic strategy cuts the house edge. It doesn’t remove it. BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential if it stops being fun.