Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart

A basic strategy chart is a color-coded lookup grid. You find your hand on the left, the dealer upcard across the top, and the cell tells you whether to hit, stand, double, split, or surrender. These decisions come from running millions of simulated hands. Following the chart cuts the house edge down to roughly 0.5% on a standard 6-deck game.

Find your hand total in the left column, then move across to the column matching the dealer upcard. The cell tells you the correct action: H for hit, S for stand, D for double down, Sp for split, Ds for double if allowed otherwise stand, and Su for surrender. The chart is divided into three sections: hard totals, soft totals (hands with an Ace counted as 11), and pairs.

Yes. The chart shown here is for the most common rules: 6-deck shoe, dealer stands on soft 17 (S17), double after split allowed (DAS), 3:2 blackjack payout, and late surrender. Rule variations like H17, no DAS, or fewer decks require adjustments to a small number of borderline hands.

No, and trying to cram all 290 cells at once is a recipe for frustration. Start with hard totals since those come up the most. Once those feel automatic, layer in soft totals and pair splitting. Most players get the full chart down in 2-3 weeks with regular practice. The BlackjackGPT trainer lets you drill specific sections.

Ds means the optimal play is to double down, but if the table rules do not allow doubling in that situation (for example, after a split or on certain totals), you should stand instead. It is common with soft 18 against dealer 2-6 and soft 19 against dealer 6.

Yes. The math works the same whether you are at a physical table or playing online. Online games often use continuous shuffle machines or random number generators, but that does not change which play is optimal for a given hand. Basic strategy decisions depend on your total and the dealer upcard, not on how the deck is shuffled.

With perfect basic strategy on a standard 6-deck S17 game with DAS, 3:2 payout, and late surrender, the house edge is approximately 0.26%. Without basic strategy, the average player faces a house edge between 2% and 5%, depending on how many mistakes they make.

Late surrender is correct on hard 16 vs dealer 9, 10, or Ace, and on hard 15 vs dealer 10. On these hands, your expected loss from playing out the hand is worse than giving up half your bet. It feels counterintuitive to fold, but the math is clear: surrendering these specific spots saves money over thousands of hands.