Did you ever wonder how many different combinations you can get when playing blackjack? How often do they happen? What is the chance of winning or losing with each of them? In short, there are many interesting things regarding starting hands in blackjack and now we will tell you about some of them.
Keep in mind that all statistics below is valid for the six-deck blackjack.
Frequency of starting combinations
There may be thirty four different variants of two cards that dealer gives you at the beginning of each round,: "hard" hands from five to nineteen, "soft" hand of aces with a deuce to ace with the ten and a pair of aces to ten (under dozens of means all the cards, giving ten points).
These combinations definitely fall at different frequencies. In a deck of cards, the most dignity is ten, so it is often formed a pair of tens. It happens more than in 9.2% of cases, which is very good for blackjack players.
Second in frequency and education are twelve and thirteen (8.1%). Next are the "hard" fourteen, fifteen (7%) and sixteen (6%) points. In general, points from twelve to sixteen are often formed in the first two cards. You should make the most difficult decisions for them, so we advise you to learn better the basic strategy.
Blackjack is formed from about 4.7% of draws (again, due to the large number of tens in the deck). Least frequent pairs of identical cards except for a dozen (1%) and "soft" hands (1.1%).
Theoretical advantage of different combinations
Now let's talk about chances of winning or losing with certain starting hands. Needless to say that most of the time (almost 150%), this figure is blackjack, which pays 3:2. Next is twenty points, made up of aces with a nine or ten pairs (about 60%). Next on the list is "hard" eleven and nineteen (approximately 23%).
The "soft" hands, as well as a pair of deuces to eights are disadvantageous to the player card combinations. In such hands, the advantage on the side of the casino. Worst casinos will give you "hard" hands with twelve - sixteen points. House edge on each of them is about 30% - 40%.
Profitable combinations
Considering the frequency of points and hands and probability of losing or winning with each of them, we can calculate their profitability. In other words, find out on which starting combinations will let you win or lose money.
Most favorable starting hands for a player are (in descending order of profitability) blackjack, couple dozen, eleven, nineteen, ten, nine and ace, ace and eight aces, a pair of fives and a pair of nines.
Most unfavorable combinations that will let you lose is "hard" twelve - sixteen, five, six and seven, "soft" thirteen - seventeen; pair of twos, threes, fours, sixes, sevens and eights.
Do not hurry to rejoice "hard" seventeen or eighteen. They are quite often, but they also play in favor of the casino.
We hope that this information about different starting combinations of cards will help you better understand the blackjack.