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Having been a blackjack dealer and gambling instructor, I have taught countless people how to playing the game of Blackjack. The game of Blackjack is a very simple one to learn and you can be on the table playing in just minutes from now. On my main website (WiseBettor.com), I go more in detail about gambling, but this quick start guide will give you everything you need to play a game of Blackjack. For the purpose of this article, we will focus on playing Blackjack online.

Before you can play a hand of Blackjack, you must place a bet on the table. The minimum bet amount required to play depends on the table you are at. All winning bets at the Blackjack table are paid even money, with the exception of a dealt Blackjack, which is paid three to two. If, for example, you have a $5 bet on the table and receive a Blackjack, you would be paid $7.50.

The game starts with you receiving two cards and the dealer receiving two cards. One card of the dealer is placed face up for you to see. This card is called the “up card” and gives you a little help in guessing what the dealer holds. Each card has a count that’s equivalent to it’s number. So, for example, a two is worth two. The Jack, Queen and King cards are worth ten. The Ace is worth one or eleven—you decide. At the conclusion of each hand the player closest to twenty-one wins. However, the object is not really to get as close to twenty-one as possible, rather to beat the dealer.

As the player, you go first. You can hit, stand, split, double down or surrender. Here’s a description of each action.
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Today, we’re going to take a look at a couple key components to the game of Blackjack in the casino-decks and player positions.

Decks

Blackjack can be played with any number of decks. As the number of decks increase, the game becomes better for the house (casino). In the old days, the game was single-deck Blackjack. Eventually, casinos figured out that they could improve their odds by adding one more deck.

Today, single-deck Blackjack in the real world can be hard to find-unless you want to play $25+ per hand. Usually, the lower limit tables (under $25 per hand) are multi-deck games. Most of those use 4,6 or 8 decks.

Don’t be fooled by online casinos. Yes, they may use a single deck, but the deck is shuffled after each hand (unless specified). This isn’t the same as a single-deck game in the real world, because those games aren’t shuffled after each hand. It makes a difference. Real world single deck games are better for you.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t play Blackjack online. Just be aware of the differences. For instance, since the online casinos shuffle after each hand, counting cards is of no use to you.

Player Positioning

If you’re playing Blackjack by yourself, this section won’t matter. But, if you’re playing with others, it pays to know the order of play.

The order of play starts with the player position to the left of the dealer. This position is known as first base. The order of play continues in a clockwise direction. The last player position to play is to the immediate right of the deal. This position is known as third base and it’s a coveted position to be in.
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One of the best ways of foreseeing the future is to understand the human nature. Our needs, hopes, problems and dreams are often the basis for our future making. The nature of the human being is one of the most important ingredients in a complicated gambling business. Each of the parties – a casino and a gambler, long to win money from each other. And the growing strain will determine the future of the game.

Blackjack before 1962:
Before publication of the classic book “Beat The Dealer” by Edward O. Thorp in 1962 no single player had ever suspected of such a thing as the Basic Strategy. Everyone used one’s own mixture of superstitions concerning the way in which one or the other hand had to play. Plus, some experience gained while playing at home in the kitchen. Excluding a small number of professional card-players who intuitively presupposed that their overbalance would be more if there were more bowers left in a pack, practically none won in blackjack. Naturally, casinos felt quite comfortable under such conditions. Till 1962 blackjack was not very popular, though percentagewise the profit rate was exclusively high.

The next decade: from 1962 till 1972:
After publication of the book by Thorp the situation changed radically. When the book mounted the peak of sales, became a bestseller, and the professor Thorp became an internationally famous personality, casinos were terrified that thus everyone could learn the system of Thorp and would start beating casinos winning huge amounts of money.

The results of this panic are well-known. The majority of casinos cardinally changed the blackjack rules creating even a larger overbalance in comparison with the previous set of rules. These introductions were effective a few weeks only as the majority of casinos’ clients simply refused to play a game with such bad rules. Subordinating to the law of supply and demand casinos had to quickly restore traditional rules for all. After this gamblers started immediately to play again, more than that in considerably larger quantities.

The popularity of Thorp’s book played into the hands of casinos. Blackjack started to attract crowds of people who thought they could “beat a dealer” only after they had read one book.

But the fact remained that casinos’ visitors continued to lose the same amounts of money while playing blackjack as before. Only the number of gamblers increased a hundred times. The majority of those who had read the book simply didn’t understand the way the calculation of tens given in the book worked, and those who got to the bottom didn’t take enough pains so as to master the system of calculation from A to Z. Casinos observed in surprise the incredibly increased profits.

Reedition of the book in 1966 gave a reader a simpler calculation system. Over that period of time a number of books on blackjack were published. The game gathered pace. Casinos were setting more and more tables. Blackjack was becoming the most popular game in casinos having outrun the previous leader craps.

Blackjack of the 70s:
The classic book “Playing Blackjack as a Business” by Lawrence Revere is responsible for further increase in popularity of the game in the 70s to a great extent. Revere published a shortened version of his systems at the beginning of 1969, but by 1972 already thousands of copies of the book were sold out. Revere republished an extended version of the book offering his simple and effective systems of the game which increased blackjack popularity even more.

Also the book “Winning Blackjack” by Stanley Roberts, was in the right place at the right time, in addition the author appeared in a number of radio and TV-shows. Roberts invested a considerable amount of money into advertising of his book making a splash.

Casinos were once again overcome by the fit of paranoia. They started to suspect that the systems developed with the help of research methods could considerably influence their profits. Casinos started to introduce a multi-pack blackjack instead of a one-pack blackjack to struggle against the system game.

At the beginning of the 70s a lot of scientists, mathematicians, university professors and other “intellectuals” started to write books about blackjack. Some of them developed their own cards’ calculation systems. One of the most popular and effective systems – Hi-Opt I, was developed in 1974 with the help of computer programs created by Julian Brown with participation of an anonymous postgraduate of a large Canadian university.
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No system will allow you to win every hand. The true method of beating the casino at Blackjack is to bet more on your winning hands then you do on your loosing hands. Controlling your bets is the key to walk away from the table with more money then you started with.
The chart above shows you exactly which plays to make. Once this is done all you have left is to choose a betting strategy so you can
come out a winner.

Simple Betting Method To Beat The Casino
When playing internet blackjack or blackjack at a casino begin betting with one chip and continue to bet using only chips of the same value throughout the game. In other words, if you choose to use $10 chips, use only $10 chips for the entire game as you apply this information.

On every loss, increase your bet by one chip. Every time you win a hand, decrease your bet by one chip. When you win 2 hands in a row, start over from the beginning by betting 1 chip. If you get to an 8 chip level without winning then start over again with 1 chip. If you win a
6 or 7 chip bet, then start over again with 1 chip.

Remember, the key to beating the http://www.popularcasinosonline.com casino is not to win more hands, but to put yourself in a situation where your higher bets are the ones
that win.

Good Luck………

Simple Betting Method To Beat The Casino

In Blackjack, the objective is to try to beat the dealer by getting closer to 21. If the total value of your hand is closer to 21 then the dealer’s hand, you win an equal amount to what you have bet. If you have a http://www.popularcasinosonline.com blackjack which is a 21, you win 3:2 times your bet. E.g. – a $10 bet will give you $15 as long as the dealer doesn’t also have a blackjack. Aces have a face value of either 1 or 11. Face cards have a face value of 10 and the rest of the numbers are valued as their face numbers. If you receive an ace, you can either play it as 11 or 1 and that is why they are called a soft hand. Read the rest of this entry »