Blackjack is a card game that has a great history. Something that makes it one of the favorite card games for users around the world. Today, we will talk about a strategy Blackjack players use worldwide: doubling down in Blackjack.
What is Doubling Down?
In this section, we will see what it means to double down in the casino card game Blackjack. As it may already sound to some, the Blackjack doubling function is a way to increase our winnings during the game. Of course, for this, we must have received a strong hand. If one of the players decides to double after receiving the initial hand, it means that he doubles his initial bet receiving just one more card. Once this card has been dealt, the game’s turn is over.
As we see, a player can decide to double after having obtained the first two cards. And in general, we shouldn’t double down if we get Blackjack or make an insurance bet, although, on many occasions, we can double down on split hands. Likewise, we can double as many times as we want during a game, but only once per round.
However, its name leads some players to mistakenly suppose doubling down means adding two more cards to your hand. Although after reading this article, we will not have any doubts.
When to Double Down?
And now comes the critical question many of us will ask ourselves: when can you double down in Blackjack? Most strategies to play Blackjack online recommend doubling down if the sum of the two cards we receive in the initial hand has a total value of 11. That offers us a probability of 53.8% of finishing the round with a strong hand with a value reaching 18 and higher. And a slightly lower likelihood, specifically 30.4%, of getting Blackjack.
We also often find recommendations that it would be good to double down in Blackjack if our starting hand has a value of 10 (even if we have two 5’s). That is, if with one exception, the face-up card in the dealer’s area is a 10 or an Ace, we shouldn’t proceed to Blackjack doubling. Whereas, if our starting hand has a value of 9, the odds are that we should double down as long as the dealer’s card has a value between 3 and 6 (usually when it’s easier to go over 21).
If we have a hand that contains an Ace (known as a soft hand) and an 8 or a card lower than 8, it’s recommended to proceed to double when the dealer card at that moment is between the mentioned values since there is a risk of going above.
Things to Avoid
We have already seen how to double and the recommendations to carry out this strategy within this classic game. Now the time has come to find out when we should not double Blackjack. Except when our initial hand has a value of 11, under no circumstances should we double down if the dealer has an Ace or a 10 on the table.
In both cases, the dealer will have the probability that we have mentioned in the previous paragraph: 53.8% of obtaining a hard hand with a value of at least 18, plus the possibility of getting Blackjack if the first card he has is an Ace (with a 30.4% chance). Likewise, we should never double down on a hard hand whose value is between 9 and 11.
