If you want to really confuse someone in a major way, sit down a blackjack player at a pontoon table and watch what they do. A lot of people think that pontoon and blackjack are more or less the exact same, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Some of the basic principles are similar, but it's all set in a completely different context. Here we're going to show you the strategic elements of pontoon and show you how to think about the game so that you aren't just treating it like another blackjack variation.

There are two main principles that drive the entire foundation of pontoon strategy. The first is the concept of the five card hand, and the second is the lack of a dealer up card. With the five card hand rule, your hands become more valuable as you add more cards to it. This means that your aggression is going to be partially figured by how many cards are in your hand, and this is an aspect of pontoon strategy that you never really see in blackjack except in obscure variations that aren't really ever spread on the Internet.

With the lack of a dealer up card, you have one less piece of information to base your plays on. This means that you'll have to focus more on what your total is and whether you have a hard or soft hand. You aren't allowed to stand unless you have a total of 15 or more, so you don't have the option to stand on something like a hard 12 to try to give the dealer a chance to bust. One upside of this is that it makes hard hand strategy extremely easy to learn since you always hit with 14 or less except for doubling with totals of 10s and 11s. You'll also double with nines if you have three cards, and you'll double with all four-hand totals of 16 or lower while just hitting on a four-card 17.

The four card rule is a pretty big deal, and there's a cool effect that comes along with it: You always double with a soft four-card hand. Because it's impossible to bust by doubling a four-card hand in the game of pontoon, you are always promised a double-sized bet with a five card hand, and that's an extremely valuable proposition in pontoon.