hey I'm calling from blackjack
apprenticeship and in this video I'm
gonna teach you everything you need to
know about how to play the game of
blackjack as well as how it can be beat
[Music]
hey I'm Colin and I'm here with my good
friend David aka Loudoun often and we're
gonna teach you how to play the game of
blackjack
we have been professional blackjack
players for roughly 15 years we have
played individually
we've played as part of teams
responsible for beating casinos for
roughly four million dollars and we now
teach others how to beat blackjack
through blackjack apprenticeship and in
this video we're gonna show you how to
play blackjack and eventually how it can
be beat before we can talk about how to
play the game of blackjack we first need
to talk about what the goal or the
objective of the game is which is to in
its simplest form beat the dealer
unlike poker where you're playing
against other players in blackjack it's
all about your game against the dealer
how do you beat the dealer basically by
getting closer to 21 than the dealer
without going over 21 that's why they
call the game 21 and how do you lose
there's a couple ways you can lose if
the dealer gets closer to 21 than you
then you lose or if you go over 21 you
lose right away so what we have right
here is 1/4 of one deck of cards so this
is 2 through ace and in blackjack the 2
through 10 are simply gonna be their
point value so a 2 is gonna be worth 2
points and a 10 is gonna be worth 10
points and then a Jack Queen and King
are also going to be worth 10 points so
10 Jack Queen and King are all ten value
cards and then an ace is unique in that
it can be a 1 or an 11 whichever is
going to be the best for the hand ace
and a 2 is gonna be a 3 or a 13
whichever is better for the hand so
let's talk about how the game is dealt
both the player and the dealer get two
cards but the dealer only shows one card
while the other card is kept facedown at
this point the player always goes first
and they have an option to take more
cards or to stay they actually have a
few other decisions we'll get to
but they always go first and decide if
they want more cards or to stay with a
goal of getting closer to 21 than the
dealer without going over the player has
an 18 as gonna stay and the dealer has a
16 and since he has to hit till he has a
17 he has no choice but to hit now he
has a 17 and even though the dealer has
a worse hand than the player the dealer
has to stay at 17 and so the player is
going to win after the round is played
there are three outcomes for payouts if
the player wins they get paid an equal
amount to what they had just bet if they
lose they lose their entire bet if they
push which is to get the same point
value as the dealer then they don't win
or lose and the next round begins but
wait there's another way that you can
win at blackjack automatically and
that's if you're dealt a blackjack or
what we call natural so it looks like
this if you're dealt an ace and a 10
value card as your first two cards we
call that a blackjack and as long as the
dealer doesn't also have a blackjack you
win automatically so if you're Delta
blackjack it gets paid right away and
like it says on this felt Blackjacks pay
3 to 2 so David is betting 400 here it's
gonna get paid 600 which is 3 to 2 or a
hundred and 50 percent but beware
because there are some greedy casinos
out there that have started to offer a
inferior form of blackjack where it
doesn't pay 3 to 2 it pays six to five
or even paying even money which would be
paying like a normal hand and you don't
want to play those games ever because a
big part of you not having a large
disadvantage from the casino or if you
learn to become a card counter like us
and you want to beat the game you're
going to need a three-to-two blackjack
game to even have a chance to beat them
so let's deal some example rounds and
show you how this works
so in this example the first player is
gonna stay so it's the second player and
the third player is going to hit and now
they would stay and in this situation
the dealer has an 18 the first player
has a 17 so he's gonna lose the second
player has a 19 which beats the dealer's
18 so he's going to win and then this
third player has an 18 which is the same
as the dealer's hand so that would be a
push they don't win or lose so in the
second example here this first player
has a 12 against the 7 they were to hit
they have 22 so that they went over 21
he's gonna lose right away regardless of
what the dealer ends up getting so he
loses the 19 he's gonna stay and the
dealer has a 13 so the dealer has to hit
and the dealer also went over 21 so this
19 is gonna win but again this is really
important that because the player always
plays first they lose if both the player
and the dealer bust the player loses
that's a big part of how the casino gets
the advantage of blackjack third example
the player is dealt boom blackjack and
with the blackjack as long as the dealer
doesn't have a blackjack the player wins
right away but not only did they win
right away but they get paid just like
this says Blackjacks pay three to two
the player is going to get paid three
chips to his two or a hundred and fifty
percent and that doesn't matter if
you're betting $5 or $5,000 you get paid
a hundred and fifty percent of your bet
when you get a blackjack and that's
really important because that's part of
how the player can try to regain the
advantage against the casino the player
needs that extra 50% on Blackjacks to
even have a fighting chance against the
casino so let's talk about playing
decisions there are four main playing
decisions that you as a player can make
at the blackjack table
there's hitting standing splitting and
doubling down and we're gonna break down
each one of those for you but just so
you know there's actually a chart and
we'll put a link to it in the
description below that will tell you the
proper playing decision for every hand
of blackjack it's called basic strategy
and it was created by mathematicians and
it is the best way to play every
possible hand in the game David how long
would you
say it takes to memorize basic strategy
a couple hours a day for a couple weeks
yeah couple hours a day for a couple
weeks to know how to play perfect
blackjack that's not gonna give you the
advantage over the casino you need card
counting for that but with proper basic
strategy you're playing every hand
properly and it's gonna cut the casinos
edge to a very small margin roughly 1/2
of 1% first let's talk about hitting why
would a player hit yeah yeah to take
another card so let's show you what that
looks like so in this situation we have
an 8 against the 7 so the player is
gonna want to hit and you're gonna do
that by tapping or scraping or some some
form of tapping the table and then the
dealer will give you another card so
then your next option would be standing
and that's if you don't want another
card so now you have an 18 against the
dealer 7 you're gonna want to stand and
so you're gonna just wave that hand off
and then your hand is over our next
playing decision would be to stand when
would you stand when you have a good
hand or you don't wanna bust so the
third option would be doubling down and
that's only available on your first two
cards or sometimes after you split your
hand we'll show you that in a minute and
when you double down you're going to
place an equal bet to your original bet
you can bet up to your original bet a
little pro tip you would never double
down for anything less than the full
amount and you would always double down
when basic strategy says to double down
so let me show you what that looks like
so it's doubling down each of these
hands are actually technically a hand
you should double down so this first
one's a 9 what you're gonna do is put an
equal bet next to it and place one
finger out and the dealer's gonna give
you one card sideways to signify that
you can't hit that hand that hand is
over here's an 11 and 11 is always going
to double down against a 6 and then
again on this last hand it's a soft 18
so this is an 8 or 18 and the correct
decision would be to double down and at
that point all three of these hands are
done and you have to just hope that the
dealer's going to bust boom and then you
get paid out on all those bets another
thing to be aware of as far as proper
basic strategy at blackjack doubling
down situations are all situations where
you have an advantageous hand so while
you might feel scared to put another bet
out there to to match your original bet
it is the proper way to play it and if
you don't double down when you're
supposed to you're really just costing
yourself money over the long run
splitting is an option when you have two
cards that are of equal value to each
other so if you have a pair of two's or
a pair of sevens or even a pair of tens
you have the option to split those cards
so here we have a pair of eights and to
split those you're going to put a second
equal bet out and split your fingers
like saying two hands and then you're
gonna get dealt and here you got another
eight so you can actually split that
again so you can do the exact same thing
and then you're gonna get dealt into
three separate hands and you're gonna
stand on each of these and then over
here we have a pair of aces which is
always going to split so again you put
two fingers out to say two hands and
with a pair of aces
you only get dealt one card to those and
so the dealer's going to put them
sideways to signify that you can't hit
and those hands are over and then the
dealer's going to play out their hand so
again if you want to know how to play
proper basic strategy there's a link
below in the description so you can
learn the proper way to play every hand
of blackjack which doesn't guarantee
you're gonna win so there's one other
option for the player when the dealer
has an ace up and that's to buy
insurance so how that works is that if
you want to insure your hand against the
dealer's blackjack they're gonna let you
they're gonna do this and say insurance
and let you buy insurance to do that you
would put half of your bet into the
insurance line right here and at that
point if the dealer does have a
blackjack you would lose your hand
because you have a fourteen and they
have a blackjack but then insurance is
going to pay two to one and so that
means basically you're gonna break even
now if you're just following basic
strategy you should never buy insurance
but that's how that playing decision
works so unless you're a card counter
don't ever buy insurance
David do you agree well basic strategy
says it's not so when you're at the
casino there's gonna be other players or
dealers that are gonna say oh well you
shouldn't insure if you have a good hand
or don't insure a bad hand oh that's all
just kind of casino mumbo-jumbo it's not
based on math or logic and so unless
you're learning how to count cards like
David and I just don't ever buy
insurance there's one other playing
decision that we didn't talk about yet
which is called surrender and it's only
offered at maybe ten percent of casinos
but if the casino does offer it it
actually is valuable to the player if
you know how to play it properly so if
you're at a casino that offers surrender
if it's a hand that you want to
surrender what you're gonna do is slide
your finger across the table make a line
and you probably want to say surrender
just so that the casino knows that
that's clearly what you want to do and
how it works is you forfeit your hand
right away and only lose half your bet
so you would lose five of the ten
dollars right there before the hand has
ever played out and the hand is over
mathematically if it's a hand where the
casino has a better than 50% advantage
over you you would just surrender half
your bet and move on to the next round
this point you might be thinking hey
this sounds great all I have to do is
follow basic strategy and beat the
dealer is it that simple David well you
do have to use your brain a little bit
yeah so well what if I just am a lucky
blackjack player well that's great
that's not gonna guarantee profits over
time that's right so casinos are no
dummies they've designed the game in a
way where they have the advantage over
the player and there are really two
reasons for that
the first reason is that very few
players actually follow basic strategy
how often do you find a perfect basic
strategy player at the blackjack tables
less than 5% of the time yeah it's
really rare and so even though basic
strategy won't give you a winning game
it cuts the casinos advantage to about
half a percent whereas the average
gambler at blackjack table is probably
playing with about a 2% disadvantage
which is really about the same or not
much better than the slot machines you
want to just play slot machines no the
second reason why people don't have the
advantage is because
how the game is designed so I showed you
before if both the player and the dealer
bust who loses well if the player busts
before the dealer that's right since the
player always goes first even if they
both bust the player loses and so even
though Blackjacks helped the player
double downs help the player those
aren't enough to gain the advantage over
the casino you need something more which
is card-counting so in the short run
anyone can get lucky on a given day or
night but over time the odds are going
to work out and if you're playing even
if you're playing perfect basic strategy
the casinos gonna end up with your money
over the long haul
now you can gain the advantage but it
takes more what's the first step to
getting the advantage over the casino
basic strategy getting that perfect
perfect basic strategy and the second
step is counting cards
that's right and that's illegal right no
sizing your brain I thought using your
brain was illegal in casinos no it's
legal to use your brain the casinos have
invited you to play a game use your
brain beat it this is what David and I
have done for 15 years we have played as
professional card counters we've between
the two of us won over 1.5 million
dollars and we've been a part of teams
one of the more notorious ones was
called the church team which beat
casinos for 3.2 million dollars legally
through card counting and what karkenny
does is tells you how to bet and when to
change your playing decisions in a way
that gives you the advantage over
casinos and be honest with you though
casinos don't like people that can beat
them so they have a right to refuse
service to whoever they want but if you
want to learn how to beat casinos that's
what we're all about you can learn more
by subscribing below you can watch our
videos on card cutting or you can check
out blackjack apprenticeship calm