Synthesis and Observations

The preceding chapters have amply illustrated their contention that blackjack is a game that gives Player many options and as a result can be optimized exhaustively. The reader’s exhaustion may well have begun a number of pages back! But from the body of material presented a synthesis can be extracted. A simple picture for nearly optimal blackjack emerges, one that greatly enhances Player’s yield yet avoids elaborate procedures that do not seem to justify their effort. Let’s synthesize that picture, and then compare blackjack as a game and as an enterprise. The most important message is that how one should play blackjack depends on why one is playing. The great majority of patrons in casinos are there primarily to have a good time. They enjoy the exciting atmosphere, the pleasure of playing an absorbing game, the thrill of risking a modest amount of money. Although they hope to go home financially ahead, they realize that they probably won’t; their priority is to minimize losses and avoid ruin, which would abruptly and prematurely end their session. The remaining patrons, a small minority, are playing primarily to win and are prepared for the hard intellectual effort that winning takes. While the game is just as absorbing and exciting for these Players as for the recreational majority – possibly a good deal more so – it is the financial outcome that motivates them. Their competition against the house is uppermost and they search out every available tool to gain the edge.