Barona Blackjack rules

Blackjack Surrender – Surrendering in blackjack is a great move when used in the right situation. Unfortunately most blackjack players either ignore this option completely or surrender when they really shouldn’t. Knowing and using optimal surrender strategy helps reduce the house edge for casual blackjack players and increases profitability for card counters. Let’s take a closer look at the “who, what, where, when and why” of surrendering in blackjack and see how this valuable player option might be able to help us at the blackjack tables…

Who:

So who is it that you’ll see using the surrender option at the blackjack tables? Is it a fearful player that quickly throws in the towel? Is it a superstitious player trying to change the flow of the cards? The truth is that it’s the smart blackjack player that takes advantage of great surrendering opportunities. There are certain situations in blackjack when the expected value of your hand is a loss of more than 50% of your bet. When that’s the case, clearly you’re better off surrendering and getting half of your bet returned to you rather than playing out the hand.

Here’s a look at the expected loss on a $100 bet without card counting. The reality is that whether you’re keeping track of it or not, there is always a count. The more positive the count goes, the higher the expected loss is when hitting this 15 or 16…

What:

For those that are new to blackjack or just haven’t played many games where surrendering was an option, let’s clarify exactly what surrendering is. When you surrender in blackjack you are immediately forfeiting your hand and getting 50% of your bet returned to you. An example would be if you bet $100 and were dealt a 16 versus a dealer’s 10, you might prefer to “surrender” the hand and get $50 back instead of potentially losing the entire $100. You’re taking an instant loss of half your bet in order to save the other half of the bet. Surrendering is only an option on your first two cards before you take a hit. Once you have taken a hit you can no longer surrender and must finish playing out your hand.

Where:

So where is blackjack surrender offered? Surrendering is usually only allowed on certain shoe games that use 4, 6 or 8 decks. There are only a handful of exceptions that I’ve seen on the west coast (none in Las Vegas)…

Double Deck Blackjack with Surrender (Southern California)

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