To be a good blackjack player, you need to know and understand blackjack basic strategy. Beyond memorizing a simple chart, it is a good idea to know why certain decisions are made. In the past I have posted series of blogs that delve deep into the reasoning behind basic strategy decisions. One of many things that basic strategy takes into account is the probability of busting when drawing a card. This morning, I posted a blog discussing the probability of busting when you (or the dealer) have a certain hand total.
However, one of the difficult things about togel hongkong is that you don’t know what hand the dealer has. Since the dealer has a hole card face down, you can only guess what his hand is. Luckily, mathematicians a whole lot smarter than me have already calculated the likelihood of the dealer busting based on what his up card is. These statistics are found by determining, based on what up card the dealer has, what hands he is likely to have, and from there determining how likely he is to bust with that hand. A full chart follows.
When looking at these numbers, you may be surprised because the highest hands have the lost bust percentage. That is because the dealer in those cases is likely to have a hand high enough that he would stand rather than drawing again. For example, if the dealer shows a ten-value card, he is not likely to bust because he would stand on a hand of 17-21. If he shows a 10, that means 8 cards (7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, ace) would give the dealer a hand in the 17-21 range and only 5 cards (2, 3, 4, 5, 6) would give him a stiff hand that is likely (31-62%) to bust when he hits.
The following list has 3 numbers. The first is the dealer’s up card. The second number is the dealer’s bust percentage, or the likelihood that the dealer will bust when he has that up card. The third number is the player’s odds when the dealer has that up card. It should be noted that those odds take into account that the player plays perfect strategy. Also, because this doesn’t take into account what hand the player has, the odds will change based on the player’s cards. A percentage in parenthesis means the odds favor the dealer.
Up Card – Dealer Bust % — Player Odds %
2 – 35.3% — 9.8%
3 – 37.56% — 13.4%
4 – 40.28% — 18%
5 – 42.89% – 23.2%
6 – 42.08% – 23.9%
7 – 25.99% — 14.3%
8 – 23.86% — 5.4%
9 – 23.34% — (4.3%)
10 – 21.43% — (16.9%)
Ace – 11.65% — (16%)
Blackjack Odds: Chance of Busting
If you are new to the game of blackjack, whether you prefer to play at online casinos or the brick and mortar variety, you have likely studied the basic strategy charts. You may have even studied the reasons behind each of the player decisions, as I have covered in various series in this blog.
Player decisions are based on the likelihood of your hand beating the dealer’s hand. One thing that plays heavily into that strategy is the odds of busting, both for the dealer and for the player. Anytime you have a certain hand, there are a number of cards that can help you and a number that will not. Depending on the hand, some cards may cause you to bust. Therefore, being a good blackjack players means knowing how likely you and the dealer are to bust. Here is a short guide to help you with that.
Players and dealers can only bust if they have a hand of a hard 12 or more. If you have a 12, there is a 31% chance of busting if you take a hit. Hitting a hand of 13 gives you 39% odds of busting. A full chart is listed below. You may notice that as your hand total gets higher, so do your odds of busting. That is because as your hand gets higher, you are getting closer to 21, so that means more cards would put you over that limit. Remember that the dealer will always draw to a 17:
Hand value — % of busting
21 – 100%
20 – 92%
19 – 85%
18 – 77%
17 – 69%
16 – 62%
15 – 58%
14 – 56%
13 – 39%
12 – 31%
In the next blog I will show the dealer’s likelihood of busting based on his up card as well as the player’s odds when that card is shown.