Blackjack Strategies

Surrender 4 5 6 17

I think it is important for me to delve deeper into the reason for surrendering the bands I mentioned in the previous chapter. Let's start with the hard 4 5 6 7 and see if you can agree with the logic behind this move. Remember, the surrender is suggested in these cases only when dealer displays a power card as the up card.

Where are you going with the four miserable hands I listed above? Not one of them can be significantly improved by a single draw. Every one of them requires a minimum of two cards to just get a decent hand of 19 or 20 or 21. Even the marginally lousy 18 can be achieved with a single card draw in only one instance: catching an Ace to go with the hard 7, thereby giving us an 18.

That's hardly even a decent total to go to battle with, especially when the dealer is starting with a power card and can jump to 19 through 21 with six different cards and a simple chore of turning over that down card. Every one of the hands I pointed out is in need of two cards to get to a decent hand and in all honesty, you just ain't gonna get those two needed cards a majority of the time.

Let's just take the 7, since that is the highest of the lot, and as bad as it is, it is still better than the other two. Suppose we take a hit on the 7 vs. the dealer's Jack (or any power card). Here are the possible results:

I .     An Ace gives us a soft 18 and by using correct basic strategy would call for a hit because of its weak standing vs. the power card.
2.    A 2 or 3 or 4 gives us 9 or 10 or 11, but as strong as those hands potentially are, another hit is needed to get to a power position. And we definitely wouldn't double that 10 or 11 vs. the dealer's power card which will be addressed shortly.
3.    A 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 gives us a breaking hand of 12 or 13 or 14 or 15 or 16 and the need to take a hit with that breaking hand against a power card.
4.    A 10 or Jack or Queen or King gives us the ever weak, sloppy total of 17, which will be explained shortly as to how weak that total is.

Go back to number 3 and the drawing of a 7 that will give us two 7s. That is not a splitting situation. You would never split 7s against a power card just in case you were thinking it is an option. Well, it ain't!!

I hope you see the hopelessness of being stuck with a 4 5 6 7 vs. the dealer's power card and can see the logic in surrendering it, to at least save 50 percent of your bet. Skeptics will question this move but that is because many of them never played the game; they try to figure it out with a handful of numbers and a computer run.

Sitting at a blackjack table for lo these many years gives a total understanding of the fruitlessness of fighting that dealer's power card. I am well aware of the fact that I am telling you to give up half your bet without a fight, but sometimes you gotta teen times out of twenty. Do it over and over and over again and dealer will destroy you 75 percent of the time.

I am trying to prove to you how bad your hand is, even starting with a 17 and fighting that King as the up card. We can't consistently beat that power card. OK, when you have done this twelve or thirteen times and are convinced that the dealer is too strong, try one more different starting situation.
Give yourself a ready made hard 18 (Queen 8) and do the process over again with the dealer having a power card and the player having a starting total of 18, hand after hand. Dealer MAII win twelve of those twenty hands constantly. This will prove to you how totally bad off you are with a hard 17 and then reaffirm it with an almost same result with an 18. Try it!!