Imagine you learn basic strategy perfectly for the standard game (6D, DAS, DOA, RSA, S17), and you are at the table with a $10 bet out and you are dealt 7-7 against the dealer's 6.
The dealer misunderstands your hand signal and before you know it, you stand on your hard 14 when you want to split.
You watch how the cards play out, and suddenly you realize that if you had split you would have lost both hands, and instead you won. Fabulous! Everyone at the table compli-ments you on your strange but wise ways, and you are feeling like tonight is your lucky night. Only this particular night doesn't end for a year, for you have entered the "blackjack zone."
Suddenly you get cloned into an evil twin who exists in a parallel universe. You and your evil twin are each dealt the same exact hand at the exact same game, that is, 7-7 against a dealer 6, 10,000 times in a row (about one year of blackjack for the average recreational blackjack player). Each and every time you and your evil twin bet $10. However, you are the smart twin and you split each time, whereas your evil twin stands on every hand. At the end of the year the universes collide and you and your twin compare results. You have won $19,300. Your evil twin has lost $15,700. That is, the decision to split instead of stand is worth $19,300 + $15,700
= $35,000 over 10,000 hands, or about $3.50 per hand.
This example gets to the heart of what the blackjack zone is all about. Each decision you make has a long-term expectation. The long-term is all that matters. You can be a long-term winner or a long-term loser. Standing on 7-7 against a 6 will make you a long-term loser. Splitting will make you a long-term winner (for that hand, at least).
As we progress the "blackjack zone" will always refer to 10,000 identical hands of blackjack, each with a $10 bet, each played in exactly the same way. Unless otherwise stated, it will be assumed the standard game is the one being played:
6D, DAS, DOA, RSA, S17.
The blackjack zone will help us get a handle on the long-term effect of the choices we make when we play. Whether we know it or not, we are all playing in the blackjack zone.
The long run is our one true friend at the tables.
Here is another example from actual play. Fred com-plained about being dealt 8-8 when the dealer was showing a T. "I'm just going to lose twice as much when I split!" He did split, and he did lose twice as much. What was wrong with his thinking? As he argued, splitting 8-8 against a dealer face card is stupid; if he hadn't split he would have only lost one bet instead of two. He said that any reasonable person can see that most of the time you will just lose twice as much, since your going to lose anyway. The key is Fred's "most of the time" clause. Because sometimes when you split your 8-8 against the dealer T the dealer will turn over a 6 and bust, and you will win twice as much. And sometimes you will draw one of the split hands to a 17 and the other to a 20, and the deal-er will turn ovdeal-er a 9 and you will get a strange sort of push.
Let's go into the blackjack zone with Fred. Suppose Fred has both an evil twin and a good twin (I guess Fred is a triplet). In this case, Fred, his evil twin, and his good twin were each dealt 10,000 consecutive 8-8 vs. T, and each bet
$10. Fred always split, his evil twin always hit, and his good twin always stood. At the end of 10,000 hands the universes collided and they all compared results.
Fred lost $48,300. That's bad news, and shows just why Fred hates this situation. Fred lost a lot of money by split-ting! But his evil twin fared even worse, losing $53,500. The decision to split instead of hit is worth about $5,200 over 10,000 hands, or about 52 cents per hand. The two then
22 The Blackjack Zone
turned to the good twin with hope. Sadly, the good twin fared worst of all, losing $53,700.
There are three reasons to play basic strategy.
1. Turn a winning hand into a hand that wins even more. An example of this is doubling your 6-4 against the dealer's 6 instead of taking a hit. In the blackjack zone, you will make $59,000 in a year;
your evil twin will only earn $29,500.
2. Turn a losing hand into a winning hand. An exam-ple of this is splitting your 7-7 against the dealer's 6 instead of standing. In the blackjack zone, you will earn $19,300; your evil twin will lose $15,700.
3. Turn a losing hand into a hand that loses less. This is what happens when you split your 8-8 against the dealer's T instead of hitting. In the blackjack zone, you will lose $48,300 but your evil twin will lose
$53,500.
Each deviation from basic strategy comes with a cost.
Unless your play is incredibly poor, that cost may not show up in the course of one or two hands or an entire evening. I can't count the number of times I have seen people play poor-ly all night long and come out big winners. I look for justice, but punishment at the tables is not swift. It is a long-term phenomenon. Eventually the costs of incorrectly playing hands will catch up with the player. No one stays lucky forever.
For example, one of the most common errors I see at the table (maybe THE most common error) is a player standing on A-7 against the dealer's T instead of hitting. It is the sin-gle play I look for to determine if a player knows basic strat-egy. The actual cost of this misplay is small, about 37 cents on a $10 bet. The player who always stands on A-7 against the dealer's T will lose $18,000 in the blackjack zone, where-as the player who always hits A-7 against the dealer's T will lose $14,300 (this is reason 3 above).
You Have Now Entered The Blackjack Zone
You simply must learn basic strategy; there is no other road to blackjack competence. It is the first step. All other techniques to beat the game (except for outright stealing) assume that you know basic strategy. You must be able to make the right play in every situation. You must be able to make these plays with speed and confidence. You must always keep in mind that you are playing for the long run, and that you want to be a winner in the long run. Your focus is correct play on every hand. At the end of your playing career you want all of the times you split your 7-7 against the dealer's 6, taken together, to add up to a win for you instead of a loss.
Unfortunately, if you only play basic strategy and do nothing else to enhance your skills at the table, at the end of your playing career all of the times you played each specific hand will add up to a big loss. The house does not have much of an edge, only .40% in the standard game, but this is more than enough to hurt you.
For example, if in your long gambling life of 50 years you play 10,000 hands per year betting $10 per hand, playing perfect basic strategy as described in the previous section at the standard game, you can expect to lose about $20,000.
Those are the raw numbers, and their truth is what you are up against the moment you sit down at the table as an expert at basic strategy. On the other hand, if you play your current game, with all its flaws and inconsistencies, you are likely to lose about $100,000 over your lifetime. This means that memorizing basic strategy has a lifelong value of about
$80,000. Of course, if you bet more than $10, play more than 10,000 hands per year, and are a worse player than I have esti-mated you to be, your losses will be significantly higher. If this is the case, and you don't want to do anything about it, please just send me the money you intend to lose. I'm a real-ly nice guy!
The only blackjack games where I routinely meet players who use correct basic strategy are the single deck games in
24 The Blackjack Zone
downtown Las Vegas. Everywhere else, on the strip, in Laughlin, Reno, Lake Tahoe, riverboat casinos, Indian casi-nos, almost no one plays correctly at any game. In fact, it is extremely rare to see a player get everything right. In my playing experience I have gone for weeks without picking out one player who is playing correctly in every situation. Day after day I shake my head at the plays I see. Almost no one will hit their 8-4 against the dealer's 3. Almost no one will split 9-9 against a dealer 8. These little testing hands add up to big money: big losses for you and big wins for the casinos.
Most players don't realize they are always playing in the blackjack zone. The casinos, on the other hand, recognize the blackjack zone as their home turf. To really understand the power of the blackjack zone, witness one of the most beautiful landmarks on the planet: the Las Vegas strip. By learning the lessons the blackjack zone has to teach, we will make it work for us.
However, those people who have taken the time to mas-ter basic strategy also know one truth from the blackjack zone: basic strategy alone is a losing game. Because of this, when I see someone playing correct basic strategy I immedi-ately assume they are doing something else to enhance their expectation. Happily, the path from basic strategy to prof-itability is very short.
You Have Now Entered The Blackjack Zone