Lesson description
Basic strategy helps you play smarter but its advice can sometimes jar with your intuition. Mr Blackjack reveals the most common mistakes players make when learning basic strategy.
When you first start playing blackjack, it's easy to develop bad habits or betting styles that negatively affect your gameplay. Some of these originate from a lack of experience in the game. Other times, it's advice from other players that are largely based on their own superstitions or experience.
Today, we're going to break down the three most common mistakes new players make in blackjack and teach you how to play smarter.
Mistake #3
Coming in at third place: players that rely on 'trusting their gut' as a strategy.
They make decisions based on the crystal ball and try to predict that the next card will be the desired one, instead of making an informed decision based on probability and strategy. This approach is based entirely on luck. You'll never improve as a player or beat the casino by taking such a scattergun approach.
Mistake #2
The second biggest mistake players make is being scared to hit. Some players sit at the table and don’t like going over 21, so they end up losing more money betting on marginal hands.
Have you ever heard the term 'scared money don’t make money’? It is definitely true in blackjack. You can’t be afraid of busting. Busting is a natural part of the game. You can’t and won’t win every hand. What you can do is hit when the math says, double or split when you are in a favorable position, and surrender when the math is completely on the dealer’s side. These are the basics of the beautiful game of blackjack.
Mistake #1
The biggest mistake new players make is what I call 'The Hail Mary'. I have seen players make this mistake at the casino several times.
Remember the guy that went to Vegas and put his life savings on red? $164,000 or so? Good thing he won. What they don’t tell you is that the casino was in on it. The guy received so much publicity the casino planned to comp him if he lost. Luckily, he won.
You have to think of blackjack as a marathon, and not a sprint. Between basic strategy and card counting, you can take this game and flip the house edge in your favor. This edge does not happen over the course of two hands but rather over a long time, with varied betting amounts and on many many different days and weeks.
If you want to start playing smarter blackjack, check out our basic strategy and card counting playlists.
