Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
Composition-dependent strategy
Composition-dependent strategy Basic strategy is based upon a player's point total and the dealer's visible card. Players may be able to improve on this decision by considering the precise composition of their hand, not just the point total. For example, online players should ordinarily stand when holding 12 against a dealer 4. However, in a single deck game, online players should hit if their 12 consists of a 10 and a 2. The presence of a 10 in the player's hand has two consequences: It makes the player's 12 a worse hand to stand on (since the only way to avoid losing is for the dealer to go bust, which is less likely if there are fewer 10s left in the shoe). It makes hitting safer, since the only way of going bust is to draw a 10, and this is less likely with a 10 already in the hand. However, even when basic and composition-dependent strategy lead to different actions, the difference in expected reward is small, and it becomes even smaller with more decks. Using a composition-dependent strategy rather than basic strategy in a single deck game reduces the house edge by 4 in 10,000, which falls to 3 in 100,000 for a six-deck game.
Advantage play
Advantage play Main article: Advantage player Blackjack has been a high-profile target for advantage online players since the 1960s. Advantage play is the attempt to win more using "honest" skills such as memory, computation, and observation. These techniques, while generally legal, can be powerful enough to give the holdem player a long-term edge in the game, making them an undesirable customer for the casino and leading to ejection or blacklisting if they are detected. The main techniques of advantage play in blackjack are as follows: