Black Jack / Next Categories / Mordecai 89

Thought we would be back in a couple of days. Sorry! Life's little dilemmas have certainly caused me many delays in my life. Anyway, now to the business at hand. We were talking about  the game of Black Jack; See my last Blog ( Mordecai 88 ) below. Yours truly talked about "counting". That was category 1. Today we will get into some other categories.

Good day girls, boys, Romans, and countrymen; Lend me your eyes for a little while and we will "get into" a little Black Jack.

Category number 2  in BJ, is what yours truly calls, passive play. It is a system predicated to the player never drawing  a card to a potentially breaking hand. Pure and simple, the player stands on any count between 12 and 16. Of course, the rationale here is that you're ALWAYS in the game. You never penalize yourself by breaking. Thus, if you are in the game, you always have that chance of winning the hand. There is much to be said favorably for this system; After all, How many times have you seen the dealer showing a face card, and then exposing a 5 or 6 in the hole? If you've stayed in the game with the passive system, then the chance is great that the dealer will break, and you will win the hand. Not the worst of systems, Pilgrims! But remember, this system (as most do), requires consistency, without wavering or variance. Also as part of this system, you double down ONLY when you have an 11 count with the dealer showing either a 4, 5, or 6. Finally, ladies, you will only split a pair of  twos, threes, or eights, but again, ONLY when the dealer shows a 4, 5, or 6.
So much for passive play! Now let's talk about the most widely used form of BJ play. Category three is "Basic Strategy". In a nutshell, this system always presumes a dealer to have a 10 (or face card), in the hole. Thus, if the dealer shows a 9, the presumption is a 19. Therefore you must take a hit on any hand under 17, and keep hitting until you reach at least 17. When the dealer shows less than 7, you stand when there is a risk of breaking. You must not take a chance of breaking in this type of situation. Of course, the theory here, is that the dealer will break when he shows less than a 7.There  are many "cheat sheets" floating around showing the complete way of using basic strategy, but we have pretty well summed it up here. You get the idea.
In these last two operas, we have given a ground work on the the possible use of three different methods of BJ play. You ladies can chew on it, and think about which method of play you would be most comfortable with. In my next little opus, in a few days, Ol' Mordecai here, will tell you how we play this game. That probably will throw you all into shock, but I promise, it will be interesting.

I have just spotted Grandma walking through the house carrying her Bingo bag. She just gave me the "evil eye". I think she is trying to tell me something?!  Time to start up the car. Damn! Not even time for a Martini! See you all in a few days.