Blackjack has 34 starting hands, or more if composition matters – Atlantic City Weekly

JOHN GROCHOWSKI

A shuffle through the Gaming mailbag:

Q. I was talking with my dad, who taught me how to play blackjack, and we were wondering how many different starting blackjack hands you could get.

A. That depends on how you look at it. If you consider all hard hands with the same two-card total as one possible hand, there are 34 starting hands. That counts hard 12 as one hand even though it can be made as 10-2, 9-3, 8-4 or 7-5. Two 6s are counted separately among pair hands rather than hard hands.

Similarly, the 34 total includes all pairs of 10 values as one hand, instead of separating out King-King vs. King-10, Queen-Jack or any other pair totaling 20.

That leaves 15 hard hands from 5 through 19; eight soft hands from Ace-2 through Ace-9; 10 pairs from 2-2 through 10 value-10 value, plus blackjack.

If you want to consider the different ways to make hard hands and the different ways to make pairs of 10s as separate hands, the number of starting hands climbs to 55.

To most players, the composition of a two-card total makes no difference. Some advanced players augment basic strategy by with composition-dependent strategies.

For example, in a two-deck game where the dealer has a 4 face up, basic strategy indicates you should stand. However, those who take advantage of composition-dependent strategies stand on 9-3, 8-4 or 7-5 but hit on 10-2. The presence of the 10 in your hand makes it slightly less likely you'll bust. That's enough in a close-call hand to shift strategies.

See the article here:

Blackjack has 34 starting hands, or more if composition matters - Atlantic City Weekly