There are sound mathematical principals at work, when you’re playing blackjack online. The cards are shuffled perfectly.  The dealer deals perfectly. There’s no advantage play, no collusion between casino employees and customers, and nobody handles the cards.

And yet, I’m amazed to see how many people try to ‘play a streak’ online!

Now don’t get me wrong, playing a streak in a casino can have a sound basis.  Among the techniques that you can use to determine what a streak might be due to: shuffle tracking, card counting, and dealer weakness or collusion.  With other casino games, you might attribute it to dice control (craps) or long-term wheel bias (roulette).

But in the virtual world, you need to be very careful to avoid falling into the voodoo-logic of streaks.  Just because the dealer busted the last two hands, do you honestly think it’s a good idea to stand on your 13 against a dealer 9?  I certainly hope not!

Remember that logic is your friend in the casino, whether it’s physical or virtual.  Hey, don’t get me wrong; if it’s a harmless superstition then go for it.  Don’t step on any cracks, maybe rub your lucky rabbit’s foot (though I guess that one isn’t so harmless to the bunny…), or whatever makes you more comfortable.  But if it starts influencing your play at the online blackjack table, we have a serious problem.  That kind of problem has an impact on your bottom line.

Some people have actually tried to justify online ‘streak’ play as part of a betting system.  That’s great, but will that betting system work online, without the use of card counting or other casino related factors?  Playing a streak online without regard to basic strategy isn’t part of a betting system, it’s an attempt at hocus pocus.  If it works, that’s great, but don’t bet on it working online tomorrow, boys and girls!

On that note, parts of the streak myth are two specific betting systems: the Cancellation Betting System and the Martingale system. These involve number manipulation that makes you think that you can’t lose without a horrible streak of bad luck.

The reality is, Cancellation and Martingale are both sure ways to lose your entire bankroll online. They’re based on fuzzy logic and unsound math. More people have lost their shirts with these systems than can be listed by this humble author in a lifetime. When you win, you win modestly. When you lose, you lose EVERYTHING. You lose your entire online blackjack bankroll in one sitting when it doesn’t work. What’s the point of stringing together a few modest wins if the systems will bust you in the end?

I hope that I’ve convinced you that streaks online are just an aspect of the randomness inherent in any gambling medium.  Don’t play streaks blindly, and more importantly, don’t let them play you!

Bill Ricardi
- Online Blackjack Expert

You will sometimes see people make some weird plays in blackjack tournaments because of some bizarre superstitions. When you come to the table, leave the rabbit’s foot in your dresser drawer.

I once played an online blackjack tournament with a guy who would act on a common superstition; he often hit 17s and 18s – hard hands, mind you – because he felt he was taking the dealer’s bust card. If you’ve played much live blackjack then you know this third-base position superstition quite well. Players often complain when the last player to act makes a play against basic strategy because of superstition and the dealer then draws to a made hand, beating the table. This fellow was making small bets and he honestly believed his actions were going to cause the other players at the table with big bets to lose those hands. He was following that common superstition that the third-base player controls the table. However, since the cards come out of the shoe randomly, this is certainly not the case.

Of course, this guy was constantly busting and his play was not affecting the rest of the table. The only advantage I could see from making dumb blunders like following superstition is to put other players on tilt and, unlike poker, I’m not sure if you could gain much of an edge from it, especially if you are throwing away all of your small bets in the process.

Another common superstition is to take insurance against the dealer ace when you have a made hand, like a 19 or 20. The theory is that you want to lock up a split in case the dealer has the blackjack. But just as it’s a bad bet at the live game, it’s also a bad bet in blackjack tournaments, perhaps even more so as it could cost you the lead against other players with similar hands. There are only a few reasons to take insurance in a blackjack tournament (none of them based in superstition), the most common of which is to correlate with another player who has already taken insurance or as a way to take the low post betting on the final hand if another player does not take insurance.

Many blackjack tournament players also have their individual superstitions, such as not doubling with any ace in their hand or not splitting 7s or not surrendering a 15. Whatever the superstition may be, they are all silly and only cause that player’s game to suffer in the process. Just sit down and play your best sound game and let the other players make these boneheaded blunders.

By Johnny Kampis
- Blackjack Expert

If you’re playing a 25-hand blackjack tournament, you’ve reached the middle stage at about hand 12 or 13. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll call the middle stages hands 13-20. These eight blackjack hands are key to your success in the tournament, hopefully positioning you for the end game. Even if you make some mistakes or get unlucky here in the middle, you still have the final five hands to catch back up. Here are some helpful hints:

Get close to the lead. A good blackjack tournament goal is to get within one-half of a max bet of the table leader by the end of this stage. Let’s say that one player has been betting big early, pulled ahead and is now betting the minimum. You can do some quick calculations and figure out how much you need to bet in the next several hands to get within a half-max bet of this player. If this player has $2,500 on hand 15 and you have $1,800 and he begins betting $25, you can bet about $200 to try and creep up slowly to the leader. Even if you lose, you can bet $200 again on the next hand as you still have time to reach your goal of getting within the half-max ($250) bet of the leader by hand 21. You may eventually have to throw out a $500 max bet and hope for the best if you lose a few of these $200 bets.

Note that it’s not that important to have the lead in the middle and can actually be advantageous to not have the lead with five hands to go. That’s because the trailing players in a blackjack tournament tend to pay the most attention to the leader’s chip count and focus on him. If you’re second, you stand a chance of flying under the radar for the time being.

Don’t chase the big bettors until late in the stage. If there are a few big bettors in the blackjack tournament, don’t panic and begin chasing them with your own big bets early in the middle stage. If they happen to win a few big bets early they may seem invincible, but odds will usually bring them back to earth with some big losses as well. If they bet big and keep winning, you may have to start chasing, but wait until the last few hands of the middle stage to see what develops.

Calculate your final hand betting position. Do this on hand 20, the last hand of the middle stage of the blackjack tournament. Knowing your betting position on the last hand will affect your betting strategies as you enter the end game of the blackjack tournament. You will need to try and open up a lead if you bet first, but can hang back and play more conservatively if you bet last on the final hand. Remember that good play in the middle of a blackjack tournament can lead to a win.

By Johnny Kampis
- Blackjack Expert

Keeping track of all of the events of a blackjack tournament can be quite confusing at times, and most players could benefit from a few tips and some good advice. Consider that you must keep up with five to seven players, their bankrolls and the hands they are dealt. At least in online blackjack, their stack sizes are always there for you to see, a luxury live tournament blackjack players don’t have.

But even with that benefit, there is still no handy calculator that will do the math for you as to the possible final results for each hand and how that will affect the stack sizes going into the next hand, and the hand after that and the hand after that…

Given that many tournament blackjack matches are tightly-contested affairs, here’s some simple advice if you’re not sure what to do – throw out a big bet.

In most blackjack tournaments, you will have to make a big bet at some point to take the lead or win the match, so if you’re in the middle of a tournament there’s no reason not to throw a big bet out there if you aren’t sure what to do. In fact, many matches have been won by a player having the gumption to take this advice and slide a big stack to the betting circle and getting lucky enough to hit a big blackjack or double down to take the monster lead.

If you make a small bet, those BJs and doubles don’t mean nearly as much. You also have the option to surrender, but here is a tip: you want to avoid that in most situations with a big bet on the table.

So what is the best advice if you make a big bet and win it? Depending on the size of your lead, you will probably want to try and correlate your bets with those immediately behind you and just hope for the same results on each hand to protect your lead. Or if you have a really big lead, you could bet the minimum and make the trailers make a big bet to try and catch you.

And if you lose that big bet? Hey, it just isn’t your tournament. Hop into another one and start anew.

By Johnny Kampis
- Blackjack Expert

One thing I love about multi-table and multi-round blackjack tournaments, other than the obvious higher payout for finishing first, is that you generally only have to win the final table for the big moolah. In the preceding rounds, you only need to finish in the top two or three to advance through the event to the final table, which has a big impact on your strategy.

This should greatly affect how you play the round so make sure you know how many from your table will advance to the next round. This number is not constant from tournament to tournament, or even round to round, and can change based on the number of entrants.

I would advocate a more conservative strategy than in a single-table blackjack tournament, especially if three will advance. If you’re playing on a winner-take-all table and one player’s strategy is to bet big and is pulling away from the field then in order to advance you may have to take action early, but when multiple players advance you don’t have to concern yourself with the big chip leader. You only need to play for second or third.

What often happens in these rounds where two advance out of five or six players is that one or two players will flame out relatively early. The end then comes down to maybe four or five players vying for the two spots to advance to the next table, giving you as much as a 50-50 shot by playing a conservative strategy throughout the blackjack tournament.

Once it gets down to the final few hands, your strategy should be to worry about finishing in the second or third spot so tailor your betting accordingly. Continue to bet conservatively when you are out of position and then open up and fire away when the button passes you, but only enough to put you in position for advancement. Let the other jokers worry about the “pride” of being the table winner. The only table you want to win is the final one.

If you’re going to be betting first or second on the last hand then make bets in earlier hands that will put you first or second in chips to combat your positional disadvantage. Try this strategy; put a mid-range bet out on the last hand to put your opponents to some tough decisions. If the chip counts are $1,750 for you, and $1,200, $1,600 and $2,100 for your opponents with a max bet of $500 and two players advancing, I’d recommend a bet in the neighborhood of $360. The last-place player can’t catch you without a swing (win for him, loss for you) and the player with $1,600 would need a swing or a double/split/blackjack to catch you and advance.

Considering the nature of this discussion, let’s add a new qualifier to that popular phrase. Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades AND blackjack tournaments.

By Johnny Kampis
- Blackjack Expert

You watch as the dealer (or the computer software) puts out the cards. You get an A and an 8 and the dealer upcard is a lovely 6. Wow, you think to yourself, what a great double down opportunity. Before you click the button to put those extra chips out there, however, take a moment to consider the circumstances. Here are some things to consider before making the move:

What is your lead? I’ve seen online blackjack tournament players make some foolish doubles at the end of the round and give up their leads in the process. Of course, these are the same players who play like maniacs anyway so their boneheaded plays aren’t terribly surprising. It’s quite simple: if you have an insurmountable lead in the final few hands of a tournament, play it safe. Bet small and don’t pull off any doubles or splits, no matter if you have an 11 against a dealer 5. If you have the match in hand don’t give it away.

Could it cost you the lead? In a situation in which the double will only give you a slightly bigger lead, but a loss of that double will cause you to fall into second, you shouldn’t double. If you have $3,000 and a $200 bet and the player in second place just won a bet that will give him $3,100 in chips you should stick with your soft 19 and not risk the double. You’re probably gold here to get $3,200 in chips. There’s no need to risk a slightly larger $300 chip lead when a loss of the double would cause you to be behind by $500 chips.

What is the risk/reward of the move? There are times where losing the double will hurt you much more than winning it will help you. For example, you’re playing the next to last hand of a blackjack tournament with your soft 19 vs. 6 situation and have $1,700 in chips with a $500 max bet. The table leader has $1,800 and unwisely chose to bet only $75, so he is looking at either a tally of $1,875 or $1,725 going into the final hand, barring a double or split of his own. Here you should just hit your hand. If you win it, you will have $2,200 in chips and a more than half-max bet lead in the final hand, which will put you in a dominating position. Sure, if you win that double down you will have the tournament about locked up, but you will be in nearly as great shape without the added risk if you do not double. If you lose the double, however, your opponent will have you practically locked out on the final hand. In a spot like this the risk of the double just isn’t worth the reward.

By Johnny Kampis
- Blackjack Expert

In a tight blackjack tournament match, the creative plays you can make on the final hand are often the difference between winning and losing. Combining a sound betting strategy with tricks like surrendering, splitting and doubling can pull out a victory for you in the end.

Let’s take a look at some sound plays that you can make in the end game of a blackjack tournament. In this example, the chip leader has 1,600 in chips and you are in second place with 1,500 in chips and act after the leader. Other players have either been eliminated or aren’t within striking distance. The tournament chip leader makes a max bet of 500 and you follow suit with a matching bet of 500. This actually gives you the opportunity to take the high or the low as you will soon see, important tactics that will give you the edge in the tournament.

The chip leader is dealt a 5-4 and you are dealt a 9-9 against the tournament dealer’s upcard of J. Since you hold an 18, your opponent is going to either hit to try to make a hand similar to you in hopes that you have similar outcomes or double, fearing that you may split your nines.

Let’s say he decides to double. He gets the card face down and his result is a mystery, but we know he has 1,000 in bets on the table with a 100 chip lead going into the hand.

What do you do here?

A common blackjack option would be a split, but unless you get another 9 or an A, 2 or 3 on one of the 9s you will be faced with a daunting double down with a hard hand above 11 to try to catch up. No, your best bet here is to stand (or surrender) and hope the dealer beats your opponent’s double. Whether you both lose or you win and he loses doesn’t matter. You will win the match as long as the dealer can beat your opponent. This kind of blackjack tournament strategy takes a little getting used to.

Now let’s go back to the start and say that your opponent decides to hit his 5-4 rather than double it, requiring a different strategy. If he doesn’t bust his hand before the completion of his turn, you need to determine how to play your hand; you will then split your nines (if he stands on 16 and you stand on your 18 you will only win if the dealer makes 17 or 18.) If he ends up busting, your strategy is now obvious. You will surrender your 18, which guarantees you the victory in the blackjack tournament.

If for some strange reason your opponent chooses to surrender his hand as his strategy, your best hand would be to stand on your 18 and hope to beat the dealer in the final.

This is just one example of the myriad options that are available to you if you act last on the final hand of a blackjack tournament. The more your practice and work out the various scenarios in your head, the better tournament blackjack player you will become in the long run.

By Johnny Kampis
- Poker Expert

Today I would like to offer some advice to the very new online blackjack players out there. Although it is easy to get carried away when you’re just starting out at a new blackjack site, I encourage you to take a step back and have a good look at the software. There are probably a lot more options available to you than you first thought!

The first recommendations I have for new players is this: Become familiar with the interface. Putter around the screen and see what you can click on, and what’s just part of the background. Can you resize the screen and make the blackjack tables bigger or smaller? Does the chat box stay in a fixed position, or can it be detached? Does clicking on the top of a column in the lobby re-sort the tables available? These little details are something to explore now, rather than when you’re pressed for time, or tired, or frustrated.

Now go through the menus in the lobby. Most options that you discover will have an entry in the game’s help, so if you get stuck, check the help or the blackjack sites web page for more details. The level of detail available to them in these menus surprises many people. They never realized how much they could learn about, and customize, their online blackjack experience.

Other recommendations include studying in detail the Cashier functionality. Explore every option available to you. There might be great deposit and withdrawal options that suit your particular situation better than the obvious ones. Look at the turn around time for requests, any transaction fees, and other details that might suggest one service over the others. Bankroll money can sometimes be saved simply by choosing the optimal deposit and withdraw method for your personal situation. There might also be online blackjack bonus offers available to you, so pay attention.

Now study the actual online blackjack game play. Note the pace at which the game is dealt. Look at the text window, and see what options there are for verbose dialog from the dealer, VS briefer options that might be available to you. You might be able to interact with other players, or stop them from chatting with you. There might be shortcuts or betting, surrendering, doubling down, etc. You would rather know about those sooner than later, so that you don’t accidentally hit them during a real game. Figure out all of these functions, so that you can focus on the game itself when you start playing.

Final recommendations include checking out the blackjack site’s web page. There might be additional blackjack website information for you to consider, ways that you can give feedback, and announcements of upcoming events. It’s good to note down contact information, just in case there’s an outage on the blackjack server, and you need to give them a buzz.

By Bill Ricardi
- Blackjack Expert

Comparing regular blackjack and blackjack tournaments is like comparing apples and oranges. So it seems logical that you can’t play the two formats the same way, based on rules variations.

Anyone who has played enough casino blackjack knows the basic strategy of the game. You split aces. You always double on 11. You never take insurance – unless you can count and the count is favorable. These are the basic tenements of the game that have handed down from generation to generation since blackjack became popular in casinos in the mid 20th Century.

But if you’ve also played enough blackjack tournaments, you know that you can often throw the book out the window. You will often have to deviate from basic strategy to come out on top in a blackjack tournament. The rule variations alone account for some of the differences.

Sometimes an unorthodox tournament play like doubling on a hard 17 is absolutely necessary on the last hand of the round; unorthodox, but really a standard deviation to increase the odds in your favor. For example, you have $1,400 in chips and have bet the $500 max on the last hand of an online blackjack tournament. Your opponent has $2,100 and bet $150 to protect his lead. If you are dealt a hard 17 you must double it. It’s your only chance at winning the tournament. And if you are dealt a 19? Same play. Just pray for an ace or deuce.

You will also have to double down occasionally on a blackjack in a tournament, rather than accepting the 3-2 payoff. If you’re in one of those final hand situations where you are more than a max bet behind then you have to try for the higher payoff if it will make the difference in the match.

You also must take insurance in certain situations, which you would almost never do in regular blackjack. If the dealer shows an ace and a second-place player who is just behind you in chip count takes insurance you should take insurance too, which you can bet will help your odds. Otherwise, if the dealer has the blackjack, you will lose your lead in the tournament, and wish you had taken the insurance.

In regards to splitting, you will have to make some seemingly foolish splits on the last hand. Consider the basic doubling example above. If you were dealt two 10-value cards in that situation against a dealer 10 you would be forced to split. It’s a bad play generally, but here it’s your only chance at winning the blackjack tournament.

Sure the odds are certainly against you in the above situations, but you have to make the right play and hope for a miracle. Don’t be the player who passes up his only chance of winning because he didn’t consider making a basic play he would never generally think of making. In tournament blackjack, basic strategy is often left behind.

By Johnny Kampis
- Blackjack Expert

You’ve battled through an online blackjack tournament and the other players have dropped out, one by one. There are only a few hands left and you are heads-up with one opponent. You both have $1,500 in chips. How do you play it? It’s time to maximize your heads up black jack tournament tactics.

One on one play at the end of a tournament is a bit of a dance, and you had better learn the proper blackjack tactics steps if you want to come up on top the majority of the time. This is what tournament blackjack is all about — the pulse-pounding finale as your shrewd bets, plays and shrewd tactics carry you to the finish.

Players tend to take turns trying to get the lead in these situations. They do this by betting more than their opponent when they are last to act. There’s nothing that the player betting first can do about this other than by betting the max, hence the power of the positional advantage, which makes plays in a blackjack tournament very similar to what you see in tournament poker.

If the leader bets second, then blackjack tactics dictate he match the bet of the first and trailing player to likely maintain that lead. Of course, the leader then bets first on the next hand and has the positional disadvantage. This see-saw battle will often continue until the end of the blackjack tournament.

One standard play by a leader betting first is to “bet the gap.” Let’s say, for example, that you have $2,900 in chips and second place has $2,400. You bet $450. This will keep you in the lead if both players lose the hand and will force the player in second to bet large to take the lead. Your opponent can’t take the low and bet $100 to pull ahead of you if you both lose the hand. Since the dealer wins most hands during a blackjack tournament you want to make a trailing player win the hand to take the lead.

Going into the final two hands in the tournament, position is obviously key factor in blackjack tournament tactics and strategy. If you bet first on the final hand then you want to try to get the lead on the penultimate hand and your one-on-one opponent can’t catch you. If you bet last on the final hand you must still make sure you are reasonably close to your opponent in chips after the penultimate hand, but it’s less important to have the lead. For example, let’s say that you have $1,500 in chips on the next to last hand and your opponent has $1,900, with max bets of $500. You don’t want to make a small bet because your foe can pull away from you with a solid win here, preventing you from catching him on the last hand. Bet at least $400 to keep your opponent within striking distance, then depending on the chip counts on the final hand you can decide whether to take the high or low strategy based on his bet.

By Johnny Kampis
- Blackjack Expert