Basic Strategy
What hands do we get?
There exist 34 different hands that you can draw at the start of a Blackjack round. You can have a hard count of 5 through 19, a soft count of A,2 through A,T, or a pair of Aces through Tens. (Note: A hard count of 2 would always be a pair of Aces and a hard count of 4 would always be a pair of Deuces. There is no hard count of 3 as an Ace, Deuce is a soft count. A hard count of 20 would always be a pair of Tens.)
As you can see from the chart below, the percentage of the time that you find yourself with a particular hand varies dramatically. This chart is for six decks. Pairs are not common, as less than 1% of the time you will receive a specific pair of Aces through nines. The exception is a pair of tens. Happily, this is the most common hand since tens include Jacks, Queens and Kings. Soft counts are also not that common at a bit more than 1% chance of any specific soft count. Again happily, A,T (Blackjack) is more common at about 4.75% due to the large number of Tens in a deck. The bad news is that stiffs (hands that can be busted with one draw) are very common: 12 and 13 at over 8% each and 14, 15 and 16 at 7% or 6% each. This is because there are many combinations of cards that add to totals of 12 through 16.
© 2009 Norman Wattenberger
