How to Play Soft and Hard in Blackjack Advanced Strategy

Since we’ve already learned about the rules of Blackjack, it’s time to look at some advanced parts of this game.

Among all the strategies, most of them focus on the actions we took based on the situation we faced. Though when we speak of soft cards and hard cards, most of the players don’t know what they are.

Today we are going to take a look at Soft and Hard in Blackjack.

In the following paragraph, we will introduce these two terms along with the betting skills while we see them. You will be able to increase your win rate dramatically once you’ve read through the following. Stay tuned, and take some notes if necessary.

What is Soft and Hard in Blackjack

Before we move on to betting skills, we need to know about the soft and hard cards. First of all, there’s an Ace in the combination of both types of cards.

We know that Aces can be counted either as 1 point or 11 points. So how should we count it under different circumstances?

The main concept is that we must not go beyond 21 points. Therefore when we consider the Ace as 11 and the total points won’t go over 21, then we consider it as 11, otherwise, we consider it as 1.

An example should make it clear. Say I’ve got Ace 7 as my hand, the sum is 18 points if we consider the Ace as 11, which didn’t go over 21 points. So we consider it as 11 points.

But if I consider it as 1 point and I request one more card and comes an eight, then the sum will become 25 points which are busted. Then we may only consider the Ace as 1 point so the sum will be 16 points.

Soft cards mean when the Ace can be considered as 11 points or 1 point. Hard cards mean when the Ace can only be considered as 1 point.

So the above example, when we’ve only got Ace 7, then that hand is soft. After we hit, the hand becomes a hard hand since the Ace may only be considered as 1 point.

Now I suppose some of you may notice what we are going to discuss later. The issue is when should we ask to hit while we have a soft hand.

We are going to give you some application strategies and you may apply them to your past games first and see if they fit.

How to Play Soft and Hard in Blackjack

First, we need to explain why we only focus on the application of the soft hand. To clarify the issue, when we have a hard hand, it means the Ace may only be considered as 1 point, and so the sum will be close to 21 points.

Under these circumstances, we normally don’t ask for more cards since it’s easier for us to go bust.

Therefore we may only target the soft hand and develop our advanced offense concept.

The soft hands are the combinations between A2 to A9. So which of them should we ask to hit?

This has something to do with the face-up cards of the house hand. With each different face-up card, we would need to adjust differently. Hence we took different actions.

The following is a chart I summed up based on the odds and the EV of each hand.

You may apply this in your game and adjust your actions along with it. This may help to boost your blackjack win rate.

Soft hand/House hand	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	A
A2	H	H	D	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
A3	H	H	D	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
A4	H	H	D	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
A5	H	H	D	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
A6	D	D	D	D	D	H	H	H	H	H
A7	S	D	D	D	D	S	S	H	H	H
A8	S	S	S	S	D	S	S	S	S	S
A9	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S	S

Note：H→Hit, S→Stand, D→Double down

According to this form, we can tell that the actions suggested are different based on the face-up cards of the house hand.

I know you may be curious about the win rate when we apply this form to our game. In short, this form was approved by most of the players due to the precise calculation and the actual boost result from the players who have used it.

When we are facing a hand that’s potentially smaller than us, then we stand.

Otherwise, we hit. All in all, the actions we took were based on the current condition.

Sometimes when we know we have a high chance to win, we would choose to double down. So try this out in your game and I’m sure you will see the benefit of it pretty soon.

Blackjack Advanced Strategy Conclusion

That’s all for the introduction and application of soft-hand and hard-hand concepts in blackjack.

Many players made mistakes by either backing down in a hand when he is supposed to hit or making a move in a hand while he is supposed to stand.

So what we need to do to increase our win rate is kept on learning things about this game. Enrich our strategy so that we can handle more details in the future game.

Thank you all for being with us. See you next time.

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