I have started playing BlackJack two years ago in Deauville (France), which is actually a place that you should absolutly visit if you have the opportunity to travel to France. A friend has been fond of this game for a long time, so he brought me there and he taught me briefly the rules. At first I was playing for fun, but after a while, I thought that it should be possible to reduce casino advantage by playing with a strategy. After several researchs, I found a "basic strategy" and the "card counting".

First I am going to teach you the rules of this game, and then the two strategies mentioned above.

The basic rule of the game is that you want to have a hand value that is closer to 21 than that of the dealer, without going over 21. In fact you are not playing against the other players at the table, but against the dealer.

Each card has a value :

• An Ace can count as either 1 or 11, whichever is preferable for you
• The 10, Jack, Queen, and King are all valued at 10
• The cards from 2 through 9 are valued at their face value

At the beginning, the players are dealt two cards by the dealer. The dealer gets one face up, one face down. Each player in turn either stays or takes more cards to try and get closer to 21 without busting. Players who do not bust wait for the dealer's turn. When all the players are done, the dealer turns up the down card. The dealer must take cards when his points total is 16 or lower, when his total is 17 or higher, he must stay.

The remaining players with a higher count than the dealer win. Players with a lower count than the dealer lose. If the dealer busts, all the remaining players win. If you make a total of 21 with the first two cards (a 10 or a face and an Ace), you win: this is the famous "Blackjack".

There are also some options depending on your hand :

• Double :

Double your initial bet following the initial two-card deal, but you can hit one card only.

• Split :

Split the initial two-card hand into two and play them separately. Only allowed if you have a pair.

The below table is the "basic strategy" that teachs you what to play depending on your hand and on the dealer card. It will reduce the advantage of the dealer.

An advice : learn it very well before starting to play!

 One of the most popular, and easiest black jack card counting is the Hi Lo Count. Each card in the deck is given a value of either -1, +1 or 0. So the total value of a 52 card deck is zero.

My first advice will be that you must train counting a 52 card deck (and you should find zero at each try). If you want to use this method during a real game, you have to be able to count a 52 card deck in about 20 seconds at home (it took me 2 weeks to do it).

Here is a table with the cards values :

If your count is high, you know that the deck has higher cards left. Also, if the count is low you can be pretty sure that a low card number is likely to come.
The more cards dealt and counted, the more accurate this method is.

Here is a video which is a good tutorial to learn how to play with these two strategies :