**Dealer up card is 5: Double down, 19.7-cent average profit hit, 9.9-cent profit stand, 3.8-cent loss.
**Dealer up card is 4: Double down, 12.3-cent average profit hit, 6.2-cent profit stand, 7.6-cent loss. But if you stand, the hand is negative with an average loss of 11.6 cents per $1. **Dealer up card is 3: If you double down, your average profit is 5.7 cents per $1 of your original bet. You can always count that Ace as 1 instead of 11.Īs for the specifics of soft doubling, let’s look at average results in a six-deck game in which dealer hits soft 17 and you start with Ace-6. And with soft 17, you can’t bust with a one-card hit. If the dealer makes a standing hand, your 17 pushes a dealer 17 or loses to a dealer 18 through 21. It’s a winning hand only if the dealer busts. Seventeen is not as strong a starting hand as some players think it is. It just feels right to me to stand on 17. Basic strategy cards tell me to double when the dealer shows 3, 4 5 or 6. Most blackjack players understand it’s best to hit soft 17 rather than stand.īut many won’t go the next step and double down, as underlined by a recent email that said, “I can’t bring myself to double down on soft 17.
