The owners of this website believe that there is nothing wrong with gambling. For most people, gambling is healthy and normal, and some people might argue that gambling is inherent to the human condition. But you came to the site for strategy tips and how to become a winner at blackjack, not for validation that it's okay to be a blackjack player. And while lots of people can gamble and lead healthy, enjoyable lives, not many people can win on a truly consistent basis. So we've listed some of the traits to develop within yourself to become a winning blackjack player below.
Winning Blackjack Trait #1 – Knowledge
Winning blackjack players know how to play the game. This means having a complete knowledge of how to play blackjack, not just a basic understand of the gameplay and how to place bets. To win at blackjack, you start with the fundamentals of basic strategy - how to play hard hands and how to play soft hands. You alos learn when to split pairs and when to double down against the dealer. Then once you've mastered that, you start learning more advanced strategies, like simple card counts, dealer tells, and shuffle tracking. It's important to note that the advanced strategy stuff, the stuff that gives you the edge, comes AFTER you've learned the basic stuff like basic strategy.
Winning Blackjack Trait #2 - Self Awareness
Some people are afraid of reality and live in a perpetual state of wishful thinking and delusion. Are you one of those people? If so, it's okay, but getting a firm grounding in reality is one of the first steps in becoming a consistent winner at any kind of gambling, black jack included. Hunches prevent winning blackjack play because they encourage mathematical mistakes. Selective memory is a fault almost everyone shares, but it's death to your hopes of winning at blackjack. Believe in luck? Even a little? You need to get over that too; beating blackjack is a mathematical endeavor, and there is no such thing as luck, just standard deviation.
Winning Blackjack Tip #3 – Dedication
Learning to play blackjack as an expert is HARD. Not only do you have to memorize all the correct strategic moves, you also have to consistently make the correct plays. Otherwise you're just going to lose. The house edge will increase with every mistake you commit, and your bankroll will dwindle to nothing. You have to be dedicated enough to learn to play correctly, then disciplined enough to actually play correctly, and then obsessed enough to keep good records of your results. (You cannot manage what you did not measure.)
Winning Blackjack Tip #4 – Stubbornness
Correct blackjack plays will sometimes meet with disbelief and "helpful suggestions" from other players. You have to be stubborn enough to ignore any kind of peer pressure. Successful card counters will receive heat from the casino management. You have to be stubborn enough to play anyway, even if it means playing in disguise. Friends and relatives might try to discourage you from becoming a card counter for a variety of reasons. Are you hard-headed enough to ignore them and do what you want to do anyway?
Winning Blackjack Tip #5 – Experience
The only way of getting experience is to practice. And in black jack, that means you have to play. The more you play, the more experience you get. And the more experience you have as a blackjack player, the better your chances of beating the game become. Experienced players make fewer mistakes, they're able to concentrate for longer periods of time, and they're able to analyze new situations and strategies quickly in order to determine whether or not they're advantageous to their play. You can get some experience playing blackjack online, but you should also get some actual casino experience playing as often as you can. There are plenty of low stakes black jack games where you can get your feet wet these days.
If you have some of the traits of winning blackjack players above already, then great - you have a head start over the competition. If you have none of these traits, maybe blackjack isn't for you at all. That's okay and there is no shame in it. But if you have some of those traits to some degree, you can develop these characteristics in yourself in order to become a real blackjack expert. And the satisfaction available to those people who can march to the beat of their own drummer and be truly excellent at something is unparalleled.
