Playing Twenty-one — to Win
Sunday, 20. April 2025
If you like the fulfillment and excitement of a good card game and the anticipation of winning and acquiring some cash with the odds in your favour, playing chemin de fer is for you.
So, how do you beat the croupier?
Quite simply when betting on vingt-et-un you are observing the odds and probabilities of the cards in regard to:
1. The cards in your hand
2. What cards could be dealt from the shoe
When betting on vingt-et-un there is mathematically a best way to play each hand and this is called basic strategy. If you add card counting that helps you anticipate the chances of cards coming out of the deck, then you will be able to boost your action size when the edge is in your favor and lower them when they are not.
You’re only going to win under half the hands you play, so it is important that you adjust action size when the risks are in your favour.
To do this when playing 21 you must use basic strategy and card counting to win.
Basic tactics and card counting
Since mathematicians and academics have been investigating chemin de fer all kinds of complex schemes have been developed, including but not limited to "counting cards" but even though the idea is complex card counting is pretty much very easy when you wager on Blackjack.
If when betting on blackjack you count cards properly (even if the game uses more than one deck), you can alter the edge to your favour.
Blackjack Basic Strategy
21 basic strategy is centralized around a basic system of how you bet depending upon the hand you receive and is mathematically the best hand to play while not counting cards. It tells you when playing chemin de fer when you should take another card or hold.
It is unbelievably simple to do and is quickly memorized and up until then you can get complimentary cards on the internet
Using it when you play vingt-et-un will bring down the casino’s expectations to near to zero.
Card counting getting the odds in your favor
Card counting works and players use a card counting scheme gain an advantage over the casino.
The reason for this is easy.
Low cards favour the casino in blackjack and high cards favor the player.
Low cards favour the dealer because they help them acquire winning totals on his hands when she is stiff (has a twelve, 13, 14, fifteen, or 16 total on her 1st two cards).
In casino chemin de fer, you can stand on your stiffs if you choose to, but the casino can’t.
The dealer has no choice to make, but you do and this is your advantage. The rules of playing vingt-et-un require that croupiers hit stiffs no matter how loaded the shoe is in high cards that will bust them.
The high cards favor the player because they may break the dealer when she hits her stiffs and also because both tens and Aces mean blackjacks.
Though blackjacks are, evenly dispersed between the croupier and the gambler, the fact is that the player gets paid more (3:2) when she receives a blackjack so the player has an edge.
You don’t have to add up the numbers of each of the individual card in order to know when you have an advantage over the dealer.
You simply need to know when the shoe is loaded or reduced in high cards and you can jump your wager when the odds are in your favor.
This is a basic breakdown of how card-counting plans work, but gives you an insight into how the rationale works.
When wagering on vingt-et-un over an extended term card counting will assist in changing the edge in your favor by approx 2%.
Posted in Blackjack by Clark