Blackjack Strategy Drills

Practice blackjack decisions until they’re automatic

Each drill deals one hand against a dealer upcard and asks for your play. You see the correct play and the reason straight away. A hand counts as mastered once you get it right three times in a row, and your progress saves on this device.

Drills use the same rules as the blackjack strategy trainer: 6 decks, dealer hits soft 17, double after split and no surrender by default. Change them with the rules button on the table above, and every answer follows.

All blackjack drills

• Common mistakes drill The 20 decisions players get wrong most often.
• Stiff hands drill Hard 12 to 16 against every dealer upcard.
• Soft hands drill A,2 to A,8: when to double, stand or hit.
• Pair splitting drill 2s, 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s and 9s.
• Doubling drill Every hard 9, 10 and 11 you should double.
• Surrender drill Late and early surrender spots.
• Illustrious 18 drill Hi-Lo index plays at a stated true count.
• Fab 4 surrender drill The four surrender index plays.
• Custom drill Build a drill from any cells of the strategy chart.

Why short, focused drills work

Many of the hands players get wrong are ones they rarely see. You can play for hours before a pair of nines lands against a dealer 7 or a soft 18 against a 3, and by then the chart you read is a blur. A drill deals only the kind of hand you chose, one decision at a time, so you face the same tough spots again and again in a few minutes.

Three in a row, not once

One right answer can be a lucky guess. A spot only counts as mastered after three correct answers in a row, and a miss sets that streak back to zero. Mastered spots stop coming up, so your time goes to the hands you still get wrong.

Mixed order

Each round through a drill shuffles the spots you have not mastered yet, and a hand you miss comes back a few hands later rather than straight away. You cannot answer from the pattern of the last hand. You have to read your cards and the upcard every time, which is exactly what a real table asks of you, and similar hands dealt side by side teach you to tell them apart.

The reason, right away

A wrong answer shows the right play and why while the hand is still in front of you, and says when a common rule would change it. A reason gives you something to remember besides a colored square on a chart.

What each drill teaches

Every example here assumes the default rules: 6 decks, dealer hits soft 17, double after split, no surrender.

Common mistakes

Twenty spots from every part of the chart where the right play feels wrong. It is the best place to start if you already know basic strategy roughly. The classic: soft 18 (A,7) against a 9. Most players stand because 18 sounds like a good total. The right play is to hit. Against a 9 the dealer finishes on 19 or better often enough that 18 loses more often than it wins, and a soft hand cannot bust on the next card.

Stiff hands

Hard 12 to 16 against every dealer upcard, 50 spots. Every stiff hand is a long run loser whatever you do, so the goal is to lose as little as possible. The pattern is to stand against a 2 to 6 and hit against a 7 to an ace, and the drill makes you face the exceptions. The classic: hard 12 against a 3. Players stand because the dealer shows a small card. The right play is to hit: only a ten-value card busts a 12, and a dealer 3 busts less often than a 4, 5 or 6.

Soft hands

A,2 to A,8 against every upcard, 70 spots. With an ace counted as 11, one card cannot bust you, which makes soft hands the place to double against a weak dealer. The classic: soft 17 (A,6) against a 3. Players stand on 17 or just take a card. The right play is to double. Standing on 17 only wins when the dealer busts, and soft 17 cannot bust on the one card a double gives you.

Pair splitting

Always split aces and eights, and never split fives or tens. Those four take seconds to learn, so the drill leaves them out and deals the six pairs that need a real decision, 2s, 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s and 9s, against every upcard: 60 spots. The classic: 9,9 against a 7. Players split because they split nines against most cards. The right play is to stand: a dealer 7 often finishes on 17, and your 18 already beats it.

Doubling

Every hard 9, 10 and 11 that should be doubled, 22 spots. A missed double never feels like a mistake, because you still play the hand, but it leaves money behind on the hands where you have the edge. The classic: hard 11 against a 10. Players just hit because the dealer shows a ten. The right play is to double. An 11 makes 21 with any ten-value card, and under the default rules you double it against every upcard, an ace included.

Surrender

Surrender ends the hand for half your bet, and it is the right play whenever a hand would lose more than half the bet on average. It only exists at tables that offer it, so this drill opens once you turn surrender on in the rules. Late surrender with the default rules gives seven spots; early surrender adds more. The classic: hard 16 against a 10. Players either stand and hope or never surrender because it feels like quitting. With late surrender, surrender it. Without surrender, hit.

Illustrious 18 and Fab 4

For card counters. These drills state a Hi-Lo true count on every hand and ask for the play at that count, so you learn the index numbers without keeping a live count. Under the default rules the Illustrious 18 drill has 17 plays (18 when the dealer stands on soft 17), and the Fab 4 drill, which needs late surrender, has three. The classic: hard 16 against a 10 again. Basic strategy hits it, but at a true count of 0 or higher the right play is to stand. In the Fab 4, hard 14 against a 10 is a surrender at a true count of +3 or higher.

Custom drill

Pick any cells of the strategy chart, add index plays if you count, and save them as your own named drill. It is the quickest way to work on the handful of spots you keep getting wrong.

How table rules change the right play

Basic strategy is not one fixed chart. A few rules move specific answers, and the drills grade every hand for the rules you set, so set them to match the game you play. These are the changes worth knowing, each compared with the default game.

Why they move: a dealer who hits soft 17 raises the house edge a little and makes a few close doubles worth taking, so a dealer who stands on soft 17 takes those doubles away. Double after split makes small pairs worth splitting against weak cards, because the new hands that reach 9, 10 or 11 can be doubled. Surrender turns the worst stiff hands into half losses, and early surrender, offered before the dealer checks for blackjack, reaches further still. Fewer decks favor the player, so single and double deck games double more often.

Some doubles are “double if allowed, otherwise stand”: soft 18 against a 2 to 6 and soft 19 against a 6. If you have already taken a card, or the table does not let you double that hand, stand rather than hit.

How drills fit with the chart, the trainer and counting

1. Learn the chart. Generate a basic strategy chart for your rules and read it through once, so the drills test something you have already seen.
2. Drill the groups. Start with Common mistakes, then Stiff hands, which you will face constantly at a real table, then Soft hands, Pair splitting and Doubling.
3. Play full hands. Move to the blackjack strategy trainer, where betting, splits and the dealer’s draw come back. Its Stats lists your leaks, the spots you got wrong in play, costliest first, and Practice these spots deals you only those hands. For a set you can run again, pick the same spots in a Custom drill.
4. Add the count. Once basic strategy is automatic, learn card counting, practice keeping the running and true count on the card counting trainer, and drill the index plays with the Illustrious 18 and Fab 4 drills. Every index number is on the Illustrious 18 and Fab 4 chart.