Printable blackjack basic strategy chart

How to use the chart

Find your hand down the left edge and the dealer's upcard across the top. The cell where they meet is the play. That is the whole method — basic strategy is a lookup table, not a judgement call, and every deviation from it costs money over time.

Use the pairs table first if you hold one, then soft totals if your hand contains an ace counted as 11, then hard totals for everything else. A hand like A,7 is a soft 18 until you draw a card that would bust it — at which point the ace drops to 1 and it becomes a hard hand.

What the letters mean

H hit · S stand · D double if allowed, otherwise hit · Ds double if allowed, otherwise stand · P split · R surrender if allowed, otherwise hit.

The "otherwise" cases matter. You can only double on your first two cards, so if you have already hit, a D cell means hit instead. Surrender is usually only offered on your first two cards too.

These rules, specifically

This chart is built for six decks, dealer stands on soft 17, double after split allowed, late surrender available — the rules our table uses. Basic strategy shifts slightly with the rules, and the two that change the most cells are:

• Dealer hits soft 17 (H17): soft 18 versus 2 becomes a double, and 11 versus ace becomes a double. H17 costs you about 0.2% either way — prefer an S17 table when you have the choice.
• No double after split: stop splitting 2s, 3s, 4s and 6s against the dealer's low cards, and just hit instead.

The plays people get wrong

Always split aces and eights. Two aces is a soft 12, which is weak; split, and each ace starts a hand at 11. Sixteen is the worst total in blackjack, so splitting eights turns one bad hand into two decent ones — do it even against a ten.

Never split tens. Twenty is the second-best hand you can hold. Breaking it up to chase two mediocre hands is the single most expensive common mistake.

Never take insurance. It is a side bet on the dealer holding a ten, and it loses about 7.7¢ per dollar staked. That figure comes straight from our own engine, and no amount of "protecting" a good hand changes it.

Hit hard 12 against a 2 or 3. It feels wrong to hit into a bust card, but the dealer only busts about 35% of the time showing a 2 — standing on 12 loses more often than hitting does.

Does this guarantee a win?

No. Basic strategy reduces the house edge to roughly 0.5% under these rules — it makes blackjack one of the best bets on the floor, but the edge still belongs to the house. What the chart eliminates is the extra 2% that guessing costs you.

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