🃏 Blackjack Basic Strategy in Ten Minutes (Play Money Edition)
The whole of blackjack basic strategy for a dealer who draws to 17 — when to hit, stand and double, why the dealer's up card matters more than your hand, and how Emoji Blackjack's shared-table rules change the night.
Blackjack is the one casino game where the right play is known for every situation, and it fits on an index card. In Emoji Blackjack the whole table plays its hands against one shared dealer at the same time, the dealer draws until reaching 17, and your choices are hit, stand or double down. Everything below assumes those rules. The chips are play money, so this is the one place you can practise perfect strategy with nothing at stake but the scoreboard.
The only thing that matters is the dealer's up card
Beginners look at their own hand and ask "is this good?". The right question is "what is the dealer showing?", because the dealer has no choices: they draw until 17 and stop. That makes the dealer predictable, and it means the dealer's up card tells you how likely they are to bust.
| Dealer shows | Dealer busts about |
|---|---|
| 2 | 35% of the time |
| 3 | 37% |
| 4 | 40% |
| 5 | 42% |
| 6 | 42% |
| 7 | 26% |
| 8 | 24% |
| 9 | 23% |
| 10, J, Q, K | 21% |
| Ace | 17% |
So a 5 or 6 up is a weak dealer who busts more than four times in ten. A 10 or an ace is a strong dealer who will usually make a hand. Basic strategy is nothing more than: take fewer risks against a weak dealer, take more against a strong one.
Hard hands (no ace, or an ace that must count as 1)
- 17 or more: stand. Always. The odds of improving are terrible and the odds of busting are worse.
- 13 to 16: stand against a 2 to 6, hit against a 7 to ace. Against a weak dealer, let them bust. Against a strong dealer you are probably losing anyway, so you have to take the card.
- 12: hit against a 2 or 3, stand against a 4 to 6, hit against a 7 to ace. Twelve is the awkward one. Only four card values bust it (any ten), which is why you hit it against the very weakest dealers where the dealer's bust chance is not quite high enough to sit on twelve.
- 11: double. The single best doubling hand in the game. A ten makes 21 and there are more tens in the deck than anything else.
- 10: double against a 2 to 9, hit against a 10 or ace.
- 9: double against a 3 to 6, otherwise hit.
- 8 or less: hit. You cannot bust, and doubling is not worth it yet.
Soft hands (an ace counting as 11)
A soft hand cannot bust on the next card, which makes it much more aggressive:
- Soft 19 or 20: stand.
- Soft 18: stand against a 2, 7 or 8. Double against a 3 to 6. Hit against a 9, 10 or ace. This is the hand people get wrong most. Soft 18 feels good, but against a 9, 10 or ace it loses more often than it wins, and you are allowed to try to improve it.
- Soft 17: double against a 3 to 6, otherwise hit. Never stand on soft 17.
- Soft 15 or 16: double against a 4 to 6, otherwise hit.
- Soft 13 or 14: double against a 5 or 6, otherwise hit.
If you remember nothing else about soft hands: never stand on soft 17 or below, and double them against a weak dealer.
The whole thing in one paragraph
Stand on 17 and up. Stand on 12 to 16 when the dealer shows 2 to 6 (except hit 12 against a 2 or 3). Hit 12 to 16 when the dealer shows 7 or higher. Double 11 always, double 10 against anything but a 10 or ace, double 9 against 3 to 6. Hit soft 17 and below unless you can double it against a weak dealer; stand on soft 18 unless the dealer shows a 9, 10 or ace.
Play that and you will make the mathematically best decision in every hand you are dealt. It will not win every hand — nothing does — but over a night it is worth a lot of chips against the way people play on instinct.
Things Emoji Blackjack does differently
The table plays together. Everyone gets dealt, everyone decides at once, and the dealer's hand plays out once for the whole room. It removes the waiting that makes blackjack slow with eight people, but it also means you can watch what everyone else did before the dealer turns over. Use it: if four people stood on 15 against a 6, they all read the table the same way.
No splitting. Pairs are just a hard hand. A pair of eights is 16, and you play it as 16. A pair of aces is soft 12, and you hit it.
Doubling is available on any first two cards. Some casinos restrict it to 9, 10 and 11. Here you can double anything, which makes the soft-hand doubles above genuinely available.
Chips are play money, and you can top up. Play solo and run out, and the game offers you more chips for naming a hit from its emoji clues. There is no reason to nurse a small stack.
Making it a competition
The dealer does not care who wins, so blackjack needs a scoreboard to be a game night rather than a solitaire. The format that works: everyone starts a session with the same chips, you play a fixed number of hands — ten is plenty — and the biggest stack at the end takes the round. Because the strategy is fixed, the only variable is the cards, and the only decision that separates good players from lucky ones is how much to double when the situation is right. Play Emoji Blackjack →