Basic Strategy

Basic strategy is the mathematically best decision for every combination of your hand and the dealer's upcard, assuming you know nothing about the remaining cards. It was solved by running millions of hands through a computer, and it depends on the rules: how many decks, whether the dealer hits soft 17, whether you may double after a split, whether surrender is offered.

A few of its pillars are worth knowing by heart before you drill the rest: always split aces and eights, never split tens or fives. Double a hard 11 against everything but an ace. Stand on hard 17 and above. With a stiff hand — hard 12 to 16 — stand against a dealer 2 to 6 and hit against 7 or higher, the one exception being 12, which hits against 2 and 3.

Played perfectly at good rules, basic strategy cuts the house edge to about 0.5%. The average player gives away 2% or more through guesswork. So before counting adds anything, basic strategy alone recovers most of the money a casual player loses — which is why it comes first.

It has to become automatic. Counting takes attention, and if any of that attention is still spent wondering whether to hit 15 against a 9, the count will slip. The Flashcards mode shows you every hand there is until the right play arrives before the question does.