Tips for Playing High Limit Blackjack Games
5 minutes
Posted by: David
Certainly one of the most popular casino games in the world and the second most played card game after poker, blackjack is a staple in both online and land-based casinos.
Easy to play, with straightforward rules, the game is also the favorite choice of many players due to its lower house edge and better chances of winning.
Blackjack is a part of the Twenty-One family of card games, which comprises some widely played house-banked games.
These games share many similarities and general rules: twenty-one games are played between a banker and a variable number of punters, with the main goal being to score exactly twenty-one points or, failing that, to come as close to twenty-one as possible, based on the card values dealt.
Bets are placed before receiving the cards or after viewing the first card. Anyone who achieves twenty-one in their first two cards (a natural blackjack) wins immediately.
Blackjack was based on an ancient Spanish card game called veintiuno (Spanish for twenty-one).
The first accounts of this game can be found in a 17th-century book by Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes.
The game arrived in England by the end of the 18th century. In the 1900s, the first set of rules was created, as the game was played under the name Vingt-Un.
During the Gold Rush in the United States, the game became very popular and was renamed Blackjack, which is a term for zincblende, a mineral found by prospectors in gold and silver deposits.
Despite having simple rules, blackjack is not a simple game. This is especially true for high limit blackjack.
To become a good player and improve your winnings, you must study the game and its many strategies and approaches. You must clean your game of mistakes and useless actions and never deviate from the basic strategies or play hands that present the lower mathematical expectations.
However, many players disregard learning blackjack strategies and practicing on free-play games and tend to head straight to real money tables. This often leads to serious mistakes that severely decrease their odds of winning.
A blackjack mistake is any deviation from basic strategy, a system offering the best mathematical expectations.
Some of these mistakes are very clear, like hitting a hard 20. Some others, though, might seem to be a good play and end up being a bust, so players should pay attention to a few simple points.
In this article, we’ll present some simple steps and tips that will improve your results at high limit blackjack tables. However, if you want to learn more about the game or find the best casinos that offer high-limit blackjack, go to highstakescasino.co.uk.
Study the Strategy Chart
The first and most important tip is to study a blackjack strategy chart. The strategy chart will help you avoid silly mistakes, such as not splitting a pair of 8s or hitting on 11 when the dealer’s upcard is 10.
With a good chart, you’ll make better decisions when playing the game at online or land-based casinos.
A blackjack strategy chart is a color-coded guide that shows when players should hit, stand, split, double down or surrender, based on the player’s score and the dealer’s upcard.
Running along the left side are the player’s hands, and the dealer’s upcard runs across the top. Players just need to scan down and find the best action for each hand.
For instance, if a player has a hard 11 and the dealer’s upcard is a 6, the chart shows the best play is to double down.
Strategy charts are a great tool for beginners and those playing online blackjack since there's no pressure to quickly make decisions.
But in traditional brick-and-mortar casinos, the dealer must keep the game going in a timely manner, so players need to study, get a good understanding, and know the strategy chart by heart.
Select the Best Tables
To succeed at high limit blackjack, game selection is almost as important as a strategy since it can cause many players to lose a lot of money.
Recently, many casinos started offering blackjack games with a 6-to-5 payout for a natural blackjack, instead of the traditional 3-to-2 payout, with the promise of better deals for players.
However, the 6:5 payout is not a good deal. A 3-to-2 ratio means that a $100 bet will get a $150 payout for a blackjack. And a 6-to-5 ratio on a $100 bet will only get a $120 payout for a natural blackjack.
But the 6:5 payout also impacts the house edge. The usual house edge for blackjack is between 0.5 and 1 percent, but the payout change adds 1.5 percent to the number.
So, instead of losing an average of $1 per $100 bet, players lose $2.50 on average over time. Besides, if a bet is not a multiple of 5, bettors only get the 6:5 payout on the amount divisible by 5, and any overage is paid off at even money.
Don’t Always Try to Get the Closest to 21
Everybody knows that to win at blackjack, you must beat the dealer. But few people actually know that hitting 21 isn’t the only way to do that.
In fact, there are many scenarios in which standing is the best choice, as you can see in the strategy chart.
For example, if a player has a hard 13 and the dealer’s upcard is 6, the best play is to stand. Novice players tend to hit in a situation like this as they are far from 21.
But the odds of getting an eight or an ace without busting are pretty low. And, as dealers need a hard 17 before standing, there are many card combinations that would cause them to bust.
Beating the dealer rather than going for a high score is one of the basic principles of blackjack; therefore, a good understanding of blackjack strategies leads to better decisions in situations with a low total.
Don't Take Insurance or Side Bets
Finally, insurance and side bets might seem very attractive to beginners. They offer players the chance to break even or even win big payouts. But in reality, most of them are negative expectation bets.
With the insurance bet, if the dealer is showing an ace as the upcard, the side bet becomes available. Players get paid 2:1 in case the dealer has a natural blackjack. However, the dealer's odds for hitting it are 9:4, which means the dealer won't hit blackjack enough times to make this bet profitable.
Apart from this, with insurance and side bets, the house edge increases to over 7 percent, higher than games with poor house edges like American roulette, despite offering bigger payouts.
