Guide

Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart: When to Hit or Stand

Blackjack basic strategy is the set of hit-or-stand decisions that gives you the best long-run result. It is not a secret system — it is arithmetic. This blackjack strategy chart shows the best move for every hand you can hold against every card the dealer can show, and explains the ideas behind it.

Updated: October 28, 2026

What basic strategy is (and isn't)

Basic strategy answers one question: given my total and the dealer's card, should I hit or stand? Following it means you make the choice that wins more often (or loses less often) over thousands of hands. It does not predict the next hand — blackjack is random, so even perfect play loses plenty of individual hands.

Two honest caveats. First, perfect strategy reduces the casino's built-in advantage but does not remove it, and nothing in this guide is a way to make money. Second, short sessions are dominated by luck: you can play every hand correctly and still lose ten in a row. That is normal variance, not a mistake.

A simple rule for this table

When you can't see any of the dealer's cards, the best you can do is play against the “average” dealer. Averaged across every card the dealer might hold, the dealer busts about 30% of the time and otherwise finishes with 17 to 21. We worked out the best fixed rule against that average:

• Hard totals: hit on 14 or less; stand on 15 or more.
• Soft totals (an ace counted as 11): hit on soft 17 or less; stand on soft 18 or more.

In a simulation of 3,000,000 hands at this table's rules, this rule won about 42.7% of hands, tied 8.4% and lost 48.9%. For comparison, following the full chart below with the dealer's card visible gave 43.4% wins, 8.7% ties and 47.9% losses — so seeing one dealer card is worth roughly three-quarters of a percentage point.

Hard and soft hands

Strategy treats hands with an ace counted as 11 (“soft”) differently from every other hand (“hard”), because a soft hand cannot bust on the next card. If you need a refresher on the terms, see how to play.

Dealer bust probability: why the dealer's card matters

The dealer must keep drawing until reaching 17, so some starting cards are far more dangerous for the dealer than others. A dealer starting with a 6 is in trouble: most of the ways to reach 17 or more involve going over. A dealer starting with a 10 or an ace usually finishes with a strong hand. The table shows how often the dealer busts from each starting card.

The cards 2 through 6 are the dealer's weak cards: the dealer busts roughly a third to two-fifths of the time. The cards 7 through ace are strong cards, where the dealer finishes with a made hand far more often. That single split drives most of the advice below.

Hard totals chart: when to hit or stand

Find your hard total on the left and the dealer's card across the top.

In words:

• 11 or less: always hit. You cannot bust, so there is nothing to lose by taking a card.
• 17 or more: always stand. The chance of busting is high and the improvement is small.
• 13 to 16: the “stiff” zone. Stand if the dealer shows a weak card (2–6), because the dealer is likely to bust. Hit if the dealer shows a strong card (7–ace), because standing on a poor total against a likely 17+ usually loses.
• 12: stand only against a 4, 5 or 6. Against a 2 or 3 the dealer busts a little less often and hitting is marginally better.

Soft totals chart: hitting and standing with an ace

Soft hands are more forgiving because the ace can fall back to 1. That makes it worth drawing more often.

• Soft 17 or less (ace + 2 through 6): hit. You cannot bust and 17 or less is weak.
• Soft 18 (ace + 7): stand against 2 through 8, hit against 9, 10 or ace. It looks like a good hand, but against a dealer likely to reach 19 or 20 it is better to try to improve.
• Soft 19 or more: stand.

Chance of busting when you hit

Part of strategy is knowing how likely you are to bust. This table shows the chance that the very next card takes a hard total over 21. Four of every thirteen cards are worth 10, which is why the numbers climb so quickly.

Notice that hitting a hard 16 busts more than six times in ten — and yet against a strong dealer card it is still the better choice, because standing loses even more often. Strategy is about picking the lesser risk, not avoiding risk.

Common mistakes and myths

• Playing scared with 12–16 against a strong dealer card. Against a 7, 8, 9, 10 or ace the dealer usually ends with 17 or better. Standing on a stiff total and hoping the dealer collapses rarely works; the bust risk from hitting is the price of having a chance.
• Hitting stiff totals against a weak dealer card “to be safe”. When the dealer shows 2–6, letting the dealer do the drawing is your best weapon. The dealer busts 35–42% of the time.
• Believing a win is “due”. Random results produce runs. A losing streak does not make the next hand more likely to win, and a winning streak does not mean the table has turned against you.
• Playing on gut feeling. Some decisions are razor-thin — hard 16 against a 10 is almost a coin flip — but others, like hitting a hard 12 against a 10, are clear. Learning the chart means you stop second-guessing the clear ones.

How these charts were made

We calculated every hit-or-stand decision exactly using a probability model (dynamic programming) of this table's rules: hit and stand only, a dealer who stands on all 17s, naturals settled before you act, and a shoe large enough to treat each card as independent. A six-deck shoe is very close to that assumption, so the charts match the standard multi-deck basic strategy once doubling and splitting are removed. The closest calls — hard 16 against a 10, hard 12 against a 4 and soft 18 against an ace — are so close that either choice costs almost nothing.

The charts maximise the average result per hand. Because Four Tables scores ties as non-wins, a handful of the closest calls could differ if you only cared about win rate; the effect is tiny.

This guide is educational and written for entertainment. It is not betting or financial advice and does not promise any result. Please read our disclaimer and responsible play notes.

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