Top Highlights

• In some games the dealer takes all ties. This gives him a horrible 9 per cent edge. Avoid such games.
• If ties are a standoff, one might think that, except for the effect of naturals, the game is even if the player uses precisely the same strategy as the dealer. However it has been observed that the player who uses the strategy of the dealer loses at an average rate of 5 to 6 per cent.*2 The reason for this is that if the player busts, he loses his ...
• Aces are the best pair to split. The temporary Las Vegas rules changes, now off again, forbade splitting Aces. The first automatic blackjack machines introduced into Nevada do not allow pair splitting.
• After another fifteen minutes—and after the obliteration by the dealer of all my fellow players—I was behind a total of eight and one-half silver dollars and decided to stop. But the atmosphere of ignorance and superstition that pervaded my little experience securely planted in my mind the suggestion that even “good” players did not know the fundam...
• Nevertheless,