Canadians love to play blackjack at land casinos. Therefore Canadian online casinos offer blackjack variants in their portfolio. In blackjack players have to know the optimum strategy, because this ensures close to 100% average returns. However many players are unaware of optimum strategy. The best Canadian online casinos are aware of this and have therefore incorporated a tool called strategy card in their blackjack games.
Optimum blackjack strategy is arrived at after simulation of a very large number of blackjack hands on a computer. It is dependent on two major factors. The first factor is the value of the dealer’s face up card. The other factor is the current value of the player’s hand. Hence blackjack strategy is simply depicted in a tabular form, with the columns representing the value of the dealer’s face up card and the rows representing the player’s current hand value. Every combination of the dealer’s face up card and the player’s hand is covered in the table. The player has to read the cell corresponding to his given situation at any time for the move he is required to make.
Soft and hard hands become important when reading the player’s hand values. The strategy for a soft 15 is not the same as the strategy for a hard 15. A soft 15 contains an ace that is currently valued at 11 but could be valued at 1 as well. Therefore there are separate rows for soft totals and hard totals in the blackjack strategy card. Pairs, which are the first two cards of the same rank, also have to be dealt with separately and form the third section of the rows.
Players at Canadian online casinos will be able to read the blackjack strategy card easily. Assume that the dealer’s face up card is a four and the player holds a seven and a six with a hand value of 13. The corresponding cell on the strategy card will ask the player to stand. The moves on the blackjack strategy card are stand, hit, double and split. The blackjack strategy card is color coded for double protection. Each blackjack move is printed on the background of a different color so as to make identification easier.
Different blackjack variants have slightly different rules and therefore different optimum strategies. Hence the blackjack strategy card is not a single shoe that fits all sizes. Canadian online casinos have developed separate strategy cards for the variants that they offer. The correct strategy card for that variant will be included within the game and can be accessed by clicking a button in the menu.
If players have to toggle between the strategy card and the game screen for every move then the game play will become cumbersome. The best Canadian online casinos have an answer for that as well. They have provided an auto play feature. To simplify the issue, the feature requires players to select the bet amount and the number of hands. Then when the feature is activated the software will play out that many hands, making all the moves for the player in accordance with the optimum strategy. Some players may feel that this takes the fun out of the game. They can memorize the given strategy card and make their own moves in the normal manner.
