Basic strategy is an essential part of playing blackjack for anyone who has even the slightest interest in playing the game on a regular basis. The best online casinos offer variants of blackjack with a very low house edge and, as such, a very high return to player but in order to get the best return, you simply HAVE to use basic strategy.
What is Basic Strategy?
Basic strategy is a mathematically proven method for maximizing your returns playing blackjack by reducing the house edge to its lowest possible amount. This gives you the best chance of clearing a blackjack bonus and means that you need rely on luck as little as possible in order to overturn the casino's advantage over you, the player.
In any given situation, based on the cards you have and the single card the dealer is showing, basic strategy tells you which call to make in order to have the best chance of winning in the long term.
Basic strategy isn't card counting and requires no real skill, beyond either consulting a basic strategy chart or memorizing the key principles. Note that as BS isn't a card counting "tactic" it doesn't take into account what cards have gone previously, nor the other cards showing at the table.
Who "Discovered" It?
Basic strategy would be a doddle to calculate on a modern computer but the men who "discovered" it had nothing more than pen, paper and their collective intelligence and logical reasoning. Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel, and James McDermott, known as "The Four Horsemen of Blackjack", created the idea of basic strategy way back in the 1950s and every card counter, blackjack pro and even semi-serious blackjack player owns them a huge debt.
How Do I Use Basic Strategy?
As said, in any given situation BS tells you precisely what to do – whether you should hit, stay, double, split or whatever. Just consult a basic strategy guide for the variant of blackjack you are playing online and then stick to what it says, even if your gut, your heart or your buddy tells you otherwise. You might not want to split those eights to an ace or hit that 16 to a seven but in the long term we GURANTEE you'll be glad you did.