The online blackjack game begins with the player being dealt two cards and the dealer being dealt one card face up. The player can see both his cards and one of the dealer’s cards. The player then has to make his moves. The most common of them are whether to stand (not take another card) or hit (take another card). However, there are other moves like split, double down, surrender and insurance. If the player makes the correct moves then he can achieve an average payout ratio of very close to 100%. With wrong moves the average payout ratio falls drastically.

Therefore it is essential that blackjack players are aware of the correct strategy. Unfortunately correct blackjack strategy cannot be figured out on the spot. It has been developed by simulating a very large number of blackjack hands on the computer. The strategy therefore has to be known. There are two major factors that govern the blackjack strategy. One is the value of the dealer’s open card. The other is the current hand value of the player’s cards. This has resulted in an easy way of representing the blackjack strategy in a matrix form. The columns of the matrix represent the value of the dealer’s open card. The rows of the matrix represent the player’s current hand value. Therefore each cell in the matrix represents a combination of the two major factors that govern blackjack strategy. Each cell instructs the player what move he should make given the situation represented by that cell. This matrix is known as the blackjack strategy card.

The blackjack strategy card is very easy to read. For example the dealer’s open card is a four and the player holds a seven and a six giving a hand value of 13. The corresponding cell on the strategy card will say “stand”. This means that the optimum move for the player is to refuse another card. Usually the blackjack strategy card is coded. It does not carry the complete instruction. It would probably use the letter S for “stand” and the letter H for “hit” and so on. The strategy card is color coded as well. The cell may have a yellow background for “stand” and a red background for “hit” and so on. While playing at land casinos players cannot take the strategy card with them. But while playing blackjack at online casinos players can keep a strategy card in front of them and make moves accordingly. There are several online blackjack sites that offer strategy cards in downloadable formats.

It must be stated that though the dealer’s open card and the player’s current hand value are by far the most important determinants of blackjack strategy, they are not the only factors. Several minor factors also come into play. Some of these are the number of decks used in the game and whether or not the dealer is allowed to hit on a total of soft 17. It is impossible to include all these factors in the blackjack strategy card. Therefore separate cards have been developed for separate rules and players should use the appropriate cards to the extent possible. It must also be stated that variations in the minor factors would affect only a few of the cells of the blackjack strategy card and therefore not much will be lost if the exact strategy card is not available.