Blackjack is one of the most enjoyable card games to pass the time. Whether you choose to play blackjack online in the comfort of your own home, or in a bricks and mortar casino downtown, it’s important that you understand the basics to get the most from your gaming experience. Learning how to master an online blackjack game is very beneficial because it gives you an advantage over the dealer, which in turn will increase your chances of winning. Those new to blackjack can easily find the basic rules of the game, but as you begin to play blackjack more and more, you’ll find that things get a little more technical. You’ll find phrases such as ‘dealer must hit soft 18’ and if you aren’t a seasoned player, it may seem foreign to you. That’s why today, we’re looking at soft and hard hands in Blackjack.
The difference between soft hands and hard hands
No, we’re not talking about actual hands so don’t worry about rushing out to buy hand cream lotion or anything like that. Jokes apart, you very well know we’re talking about the cards. You see, when you play an online blackjack game, you need to know the values of the cards. Under standard rules, aces must have a value of 1 or 11. Now, a hand which does not consist of an ace, or a hand where all aces have a value of 1 is commonly referred to as a hard hand. So, as an example, if you have an ace, a 6, and 7, you have a ‘hard 14’. As you have probably figured out, a hand where an ace is simply counted as an 11 is commonly known as a soft hand. So, if you have an ace and a 5, you have a soft 16.
Why are they so important?
So, you’re now probably wondering why these hard and soft hands are considered so important for the game of blackjack. Well, to begin with, these hands help to define the rules of the dealer’s game of blackjack. Remember earlier how we said you may come across phrases such as ‘dealer must hit soft 18’? Well, now you hopefully will understand why that is. Primarily however, when you play blackjack, you should hold out hope of holding a soft hand. The reason for this is that as long as you are in possession of a soft hand, you are always able to draw one more card without having to worry about going bust. If you speak to seasoned blackjack experts, most of them will advise players to continue to hit with soft hands, until said hands turn hard. There are of course certain exceptions to this rule so please don’t adopt it as your only strategy when you play blackjack online because it isn’t a guaranteed way of winning by any means. It does however, give you much better odds, and that’s all we can really ask.