The blackjack basic strategy is the blackjack player's best friend. Unlike many online casino games, winning at blackjack depends on strategy more than on luck. Anyone who plays blackjack and is serious about winning at blackjack must learn the basic blackjack strategy.

Thanks in large part to the publicity surrounding the MIT Blackjack Team and the movie "21," many people are excited about advanced blackjack strategies like card counting and shuffle tracking. But one must start with the fundamentals, and in the game of blackjack, the blackjack basic strategy is fundamental. All winning blackjack strategies are built on the foundation of the blackjack basic strategy.

The blackjack basic strategy is expressed in a series of charts or tables. The dealer's possible up cards — from 2 to Ace — are displayed across the top of the chart. Your possible hands, divided into three sections, are displayed down the left side.

The first section of the blackjack basic strategy table shows the hard hands. These are the regular blackjack hands, without an ace and without a pair, that you will most frequently encounter in a blackjack game.

Next comes the section with the soft hands. These are hands that contain an ace whose value may be 1 or 11. Because a soft hand cannot bust, the basic strategy allows more flexibility in playing a soft hand than a hard hand. For example, with a hard 17 (a 9 and 8 or a ten and 7), the blackjack basic strategy chart says to always stand; with a soft 17 (ace and 6), it says to hit or, in some circumstances, to double down.

The final section contains the pairs. Because of the potential to split, a 16 made up
of a pair of 8s calls for a much different blackjack strategy than a 16 made up of a 10
and a 6.

Blackjack basic strategy charts can be found on many blackjack websites. It is a good idea to find one and print it out since, if you intend to become a regular blackjack player, you will be using it frequently.

To use the basic blackjack strategy chart, you simply trace a line from your hand on the left side of the chart, and another line from the dealer's up card on the top of the chart. Where the two lines intersect, the chart will have a symbol telling you to stand, hit, split, double down, or surrender.

If you play online blackjack, you should keep the blackjack basic strategy table by your side and refer to it whenever you are unsure of how to play your hand. If you play in a land-based blackjack casino, you will probably not be allowed to look at the chart when you play. Instead, you will have to study it and memorize it at home before you go to the casino. Fortunately, this is not nearly as difficult as it sounds.

The key to learning the blackjack basic strategy is to understand the logic behind it. Don't look at the blackjack basic strategy table as a random list of numbers and symbols to memorize. Instead, try to understand why each of the suggested blackjack plays is as it is.

When you study the blackjack basic strategy chart, you should always keep three principles of blackjack play in mind:

1. There are more 10-value cards in the blackjack deck than any other card. This means that the dealer's hole card, and the next card to be drawn from the deck, is more likely to be a 10 than any other card.

2. The dealer is strictly bound by the blackjack rules. He must hit on anything up to 16, and he must stand on 17 or above.

3. A soft hand cannot bust. If you hit on a soft hand, the worst that can happen is that your ace will turn from an 11 into a 1.

Once you have these fundamentals of blackjack theory in mind, everything starts to make sense. You will understand why the blackjack basic strategy tells you to stand on 16 if the dealer is showing a 6, but to hit if the dealer is showing a 7. You will understand why it advises splitting 8s, but not splitting 10s, and why it advises hitting or doubling down on soft 17.

With understanding, memory comes easier. After you have played for a while with the blackjack basic strategy chart, you will find that the correct moves come to you naturally and you will rarely have to consult the chart.

Just as there are many variations of the game of blackjack, there are many variations of the blackjack basic strategy table. Every change in the blackjack rules affects the blackjack probabilities and therefore the optimal strategy. The blackjack basic strategy table for a two-deck game is different from the table for an eight-deck game. The strategy for a game in which the dealer stands on soft 17 is different from the strategy for a game in which the dealer hits. The differences are not huge, but when you are playing blackjack for real money, even small differences in strategy can have a significant impact on your pocketbook.

There are also special basic blackjack strategy charts for some of the special blackjack games that are offered in the online casino, such as Double Exposure and Spanish Blackjack and Pontoon. So whatever blackjack game you choose to play, make sure you are using the right basic blackjack strategy table for that game.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that if you follow the blackjack basic strategy, you will win every hand of blackjack. Playing blackjack is, after all, a form of gambling, and there are no sure things in casino gambling.

The blackjack basic strategy table is a tool based on rigorous analysis of the blackjack probabilities. The premise of the blackjack basic strategy is that if you make the prescribed moves you will, over the long run, win more often than if you had made any other moves. That's a big claim, and the blackjack basic strategy lives up to it. But you must still be prepared to lose your fair share of blackjack games even if you follow the basic strategy perfectly. If you are not financially and psychologically prepared to lose, you will wind up frustrated and disappointed. Don't let it happen to you.

The blackjack basic strategy is a wonderful tool that indeed lives up to its billing as the blackjack player's best friend. So when you play blackjack — especially when you play blackjack for real money — use the blackjack basic strategy to maximize your chances of winning at blackjack, relax, have fun, and enjoy the wonderful game of blackjack.