Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
The Dealer’s Play
The Dealer’s Play The dealer has no choice in how he plays his hand. There are two popular rule variations from which the dealer can choose. You can always determine this by looking at a Blackjack table top where either ‘Dealer stands on all 17s’ or ‘Dealer hits soft 17’ is written.
The dealer is bound
The dealer is bound by very specific rules and regulations. He cannot split pairs, double down or surrender. He can’t take insurance. He can’t act on intuition or emotion or suspicion or instinct. If both the dealer and the player have the same total, it’s called a ‘push’ and no money changes hands. It’s ironic, given this obvious paucity in dealer choices and that the house still, by default, can maintain an edge. This surely indicates to the player how important good strategy is.