Rule variations

Each rule set has its own basic strategy chart. The variations that change your plays are few and take minutes to learn. The variations that change your money are printed on the felt, and once you can read them you stop sitting at the expensive table when a cheaper one is twenty feet away.

Blackjack payout is the money rule. 3:2 pays $15 on a $10 natural. 6:5 pays $12, and that difference costs about 1.4% of everything you bet, which roughly quadruples the house edge. It is the worst common rule in the game, and the felt says which one you are getting. If it says 6:5, walk. Dealer soft 17 is next. S17 (the dealer stands) is about two tenths of a percent better for you than H17 (the dealer hits). Double after split and late surrender each recover around a tenth. Deck count matters less than most players think at a fixed rule set. The rules on the placard outweigh the number of decks in the shoe.

Everything in this Course trains the H17 game, the common one. At S17 tables, pull back in exactly four spots, so you carry one set of corrections instead of a second chart. 11 v ace becomes a hit. A-7 v 2 becomes a stand. A-8 v 6 becomes a stand. The surrender list shrinks, with no 15 v ace and no 17 v ace. Without DAS, tighten the marginal splits: 2s and 3s only against 4–7, 4s never, 6s against 3–6. Everything else you have learned holds under every common rule set.

Outside North America the dealer usually takes no hole card. If a dealer blackjack collects only your original bet (OBO, common in the UK), nothing changes. That game is mathematically identical to the American Peek game, whatever the table looks like. At full-loss ENHC tables (most of Europe, Australia, and Asia) the dealer's unseen blackjack takes your doubles and splits too. Do not double 11 against a ten, and do not split aces or eights against a ten or ace. Our chart explorer has an ENHC toggle that recomputes every cell. European tables also usually restrict doubling to hard 9–11 and skip surrender entirely.

Before your first bet at any table, read the felt for the payout, the placard for decks, DAS, and surrender, and the line that says 'dealer must draw to 16' or 'hits soft 17'. Those thirty seconds are worth more per hour than any single play you have trained, and our strategy chart page recomputes the full chart for whatever you find.