R means surrender on a blackjack strategy card. You give up the hand, lose half your original bet and get the other half back. Some charts add a second letter, such as Rh or Rs, to tell you what to do when surrender is unavailable.
For example, surrendering a $20 bet returns $10 to you and costs you $10. The hand is over, so you cannot draw another card or win the rest of the bet back on that hand.
The letter is easy to remember. The part worth checking is whether your table allows surrender and which move your chart recommends if it does not.
Check your chart’s key. The extra letter tells you the fallback play when surrender is unavailable.
R Rh Rs and Rp on a blackjack chart
You may see uppercase RH and RS, or a lowercase second letter. On charts that use these combinations, the meanings are:
| Symbol | Meaning | If surrender is unavailable |
| R | Surrender | Read the chart’s legend for the fallback |
| Rh or RH | Surrender if allowed | Hit |
| Rs or RS | Surrender if allowed | Stand |
| Rp or RP | Surrender if allowed | Split |
S on its own means stand. H means hit, D means double down, and P or SP means split. Letter choices vary between publishers, so read the key on your blackjack basic strategy chart before using it.
When the chart tells you to surrender
Surrender can feel like giving up too soon. In the hands where basic strategy recommends it, though, continuing has a worse average result than losing half the bet. You might win an individual hand by playing on; surrender is about the average cost over many such hands.
Take a 10 and a 6 against the dealer’s 10. In a six-deck game where the dealer stands on soft 17 and late surrender is allowed, surrender is the recommended play after the dealer checks and rules out blackjack.
With late surrender available, 10 + 6 against a dealer 10 is a surrender in this six-deck S17 example.
The examples below use total-based basic strategy for six decks, dealer stands on soft 17 (S17), double after split allowed, and late surrender after the dealer’s blackjack check. They refer to your first two cards, before you take another action.
| Your hand | Dealer shows | Recommended action |
| Hard 15 | 10, J, Q or K | Surrender |
| Hard 16, excluding 8 + 8 | 9, 10, J, Q, K or Ace | Surrender |
| 8 + 8 | 9, 10, J, Q, K or Ace | Split under these S17 rules |
A hard hand has no ace counted as 11; an ace counted as 1 is still possible. A + 5 is soft 16, while 10 + 6 is hard 16. Our blackjack rules guide explains the difference.
Check the rules before applying this table elsewhere. With six decks and a dealer who hits soft 17 (H17), surrender also applies to hard 15, hard 17 and 8 + 8 against an ace. Wizard of Odds’ strategy tables show these changes. Fewer decks and the exact cards in your hand can also affect close decisions.
What if surrender is not available?
If the table does not offer surrender at all, use a chart made for a no-surrender game. Do not assume that every R automatically becomes a hit or that an RS instruction from a different chart applies to your hand.
Under the six-deck S17 rules above, with surrender removed, basic strategy says to hit an initial 10 + 6 against a dealer 10. A pair of 8s is a different hand: split it under those rules.
What does Rs mean in Blackjack?
Rs means surrender if you can; otherwise stand, according to that chart’s key. The reason surrender is unavailable matters. You may be at a table that never offers it, or you may already have taken a card and lost the option.
Some charts account for this difference. Ken Smith’s explanation of RS describes a three-card 16 against a dealer 10, where the small cards already drawn can make standing preferable. That is why an RS entry should not be copied blindly into a no-surrender game.
Early and late surrender
Late surrender comes after the dealer checks for blackjack. If the dealer has blackjack, you cannot use late surrender to recover half your bet. Early surrender allows you to give up the hand before that check, so its strategy is different.
For the hands that apply to each version, see our early and late surrender guide. For a particular table, compare its deck count and rules with the rule-specific surrender tables at Wizard of Odds.
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