Blackjack Strategies

Soft Hands Ace 2 through Ace 6

This is gonna take a little explaining so I hope you are wide awake. it has to do with what you do when you are dealt a soft, and as shown in the title. Also, if you refer to the Basic Strategy chart, you will see that there are many double down (DD) situations with these starting cards.
Since that powerful Ace can be used as a I or 11, it is called soft. The flexibility of that Ace allows us to shift the total of our cards, that contain an Ace, back and forth until we have the desired total against that dealer. If you have a deuce Ace as your two cards, you could use that Ace as a 1, making your hand a card 3, which of course is of no value to you. You could make the Ace an 11 and now you have a soft 13.
No card can break you, because if you were to draw a Jack, I or instance, you could change that Ace back to a 1 an you would now have (Ace 2 10) for a hard 13. Go back to your having just that Ace 2, and you draw a 7. Now the Ace can be used as an 11, and coupled with the 2 and 7, give you a nice total of 20. It is called a soft 20 because if you wanted to hit that soft 20, and caught a 4 for instance, you would now have Ace 2 7 4, for a total of hard 14, because you converted that Ace back to a 1, so you didn't break.

Of course no one would hit that soft 20 of Ace 2 7 because you have a 20 and there's only one total better than that. You're pretty sure to post a win on that count.

Dealer is very weak with the 5 and 6 and even the 4, so we want every opportunity to get more money against her in these situations. But the Ace 2 does not double against any cards except the 5 and 6.

Finally we have the Ace 6, which obviously is a soft 17. This calls for a double down against the 3 4 5 6. It picks up a DD move vs. the dealer's 3, which the other three don't. The main reason for that lies in the fact that you have a soft 17 going in and a draw of a 10, Jack, Queen, King mill give you a bard 17 and an Ace will give you a hard 18.
Admittedly they are in and of themselves no bargain, but if the dealer ends up with standing hands of those two totals, when you match her, you'll get a push instead of a loss. So, double your soft 17, vs. the dealer's 3 4 5 6. it's a small extra going for us, but hey, a plus is a plus, no matter how little.

Now I come along and throw a wet blanket on your idea that when you double, you will get a great hand otherwise why double in the first place?? Right? Wrong! Take a look.

Next