Blackjack Strategy Chart
How it works
Basic strategy is the play that loses the least money over the long run for every pair of your cards and the dealer's up card. The chart on this page is built from the same tables our free blackjack game uses for its hints, so the advice here and in the game never disagree. It covers six decks, a dealer who stands on soft 17, doubling on any first two cards and after a split, and no surrender. Different rules move a few cells, so a single-deck game or a dealer who hits soft 17 needs its own chart.
Read the chart by finding your hand in the left column and the dealer's up card along the top. Hard totals are hands without an ace or where the ace has to count as one, soft totals are hands where an ace still counts as eleven, and pairs are the two-card hands you may split. The letters mean hit, stand, double down or split, and Ds means double when the rules allow it and stand otherwise. A green cell is a stand, a red one a hit, yellow cells are doubles and blue cells are splits.
Following the chart perfectly brings the house edge of a game like this down to about half a percent, but it does not turn blackjack into a winning game. The casino still keeps its edge because the player acts first and loses a busted hand even when the dealer busts later. Card counting is a separate method that changes bets with the cards left in the shoe, and online games that reshuffle often make it useless. Treat the chart as a way to make every decision correctly and keep any real money play within a budget.
How to use it
Hover or tap a cell to see the hand, the dealer card and the play written out. The hand checker below the charts takes your two cards and the dealer's up card from three menus and states the best play in words. Kings, queens and jacks count as ten, so the menu lists only the king for the ten-value cards. Everything runs in your browser and nothing you choose is sent anywhere.