The blackjack basic strategy chart

Basic strategy is the one correct play for every hand you can be dealt, worked out from the maths of the game rather than from how the hand feels. There are 280 of them. This is the whole chart, and underneath it, the handful of rows that people actually get wrong.

These numbers are for one specific game: dealer stands on soft 17, double after split, late surrender, blackjack pays 3:2, dealt from four to eight decks (6 by default). A strategy chart is only correct for the ruleset it was computed for — what changes when the rules change.

Hard totals

A hard hand has no ace, or has an ace that must count as 1 because counting it as 11 would bust you. Read down the left for your total, across the top for the dealer’s upcard.

• H Hit
• S Stand
• D Double, or hit if doubling is not allowed
• Ds Double, or stand if doubling is not allowed
• P Split
• Rh Surrender, or hit if surrender is not allowed

Below 8 you always hit — there is no card that can bust you, so there is nothing to decide. At 17 and above you always stand; the chart stops there because every total above it plays the same.

Soft totals

A soft hand holds an ace counting as 11, so it cannot bust on one card. That free hit is why so much of this table says double: you are getting a shot at a big total with no risk of losing the hand outright.

Soft 18 (A,7) is the row that costs people money. Against a dealer 9, 10 or ace, 18 is not a good hand — you hit it. Against 2 through 6 you double if you can and stand if you cannot, which is what Ds means.

Pairs

Pairs are decided before totals: if the chart below says split, you split, whatever the hard-total table would have said about the same number.

Two rules here never bend. Always split aces and eights. Two aces is a soft 12, which is a bad hand; split, and each ace starts a hand that draws to 21 on any ten. Sixteen is the worst total in blackjack, so 8,8 is worth breaking into two hands even against a ten. Never split tens or fives. Twenty is already close to the best hand at the table, and a pair of fives is a hard 10 — a doubling hand, not a splitting one.

How to read a cell

Find your hand on the left, the dealer’s upcard along the top, and play the letter where they meet. The two-letter codes carry a fallback for when the table will not let you make the first choice: D is double-or-hit, Ds is double-or-stand, Rh is surrender-or-hit. On a hand you have already hit, doubling is off the table, so D becomes a hit.

The chart is not a set of tendencies. Each cell is the play with the highest expected value for that exact situation, and the second-best play in a close cell is worth measurably less. There is no cell where your read of the dealer is worth more than the number.

The order to learn it in

1. The pairs that never change — always split aces and eights, never split tens or fives. Four hands, no exceptions, learned in a minute.
2. The stiff hands, 12 through 16. These are most of your losses and nearly all of your hard decisions. The shape is simple: stand against a dealer 2 through 6, hit against 7 through ace. The exception is 12 against 2 and 3, which hits.
3. The doubles. Hard 9, 10 and 11, then the soft doubles, which are the ones people skip and then misplay for years.
4. The rest of the pairs, which depend on double-after-split being allowed.
5. Surrender, last, because it is the rarest and the cheapest to get wrong.

Drill it on real hands The trainer deals full rounds and grades every decision against this exact chart, then shows you the cell you missed.

Once the chart is automatic, the next skill is knowing when to leave it: Hi-Lo counting tells you how the shoe is running, and the Illustrious 18 are the hands where a high enough count overrides the chart above.

Common questions

Does basic strategy change if the dealer hits soft 17?

Yes, in a small number of cells, and it raises the house edge by roughly 0.20 to 0.22%. Under H17 you double hard 11 against an ace, double A,7 against 2 and A,8 against 6, and surrender 15 and 17 against an ace and 8,8 against an ace. This chart is the S17 version.

Is it ever right to deviate from basic strategy on a hunch?

No. Every cell is the highest expected-value play for that hand against that upcard, computed over every possible outcome. The only information that justifies a different play is the composition of the remaining shoe, which is what card counting measures.

What does Ds mean on a blackjack strategy chart?

Double if you are allowed to, otherwise stand. It appears on soft 18 against dealer 2 through 6. Because you have already hit the hand, or because the table forbids the double, you fall back to standing rather than hitting.

Why does the hard-totals chart stop at 17?

Because every hard total of 17 or more plays identically: you stand against every dealer upcard. The row labelled 17+ covers 17 through 21.