Best Blackjack strategy for this kind of Blackjack game

I play this blackjack game on one of the websites I frequent a lot. It's just for fun but there is a score and I want to know the best strategy so I can get more points. Even though it is for fun, these points are worth something on this site. Here is how it goes.

It's me against 1 other player. I don't know who the player is, when he is going to play or how he is going to play.

I click play and am dealt 2 cards. My only options are to hit or stay. Once I am happy with my hand and click stay (or I bust) it then shows me what the other person stood with. Whoever was higher would get the points from the loser. If we tied no points would be exchanged.

If no one else has played yet, then my hand stays in a sort of queue waiting until someone plays. I cannot play anymore games until someone plays and my game is finished. Once that person plays, he is shown my results and points are exchanged as above. Then I get a notification saying the results and I can play again. This is a very casual game so there can be quite a bit of time from when I play until when someone else plays.

I don't know this for sure but I am assuming we are both drawing from our own single deck of cards. So the way I have been playing so far is to get as high as I can without busting. I've been hitting on everything 11 or less, staying on anything 14 or above, and sometimes stay or sometimes hit on 12s and 13s. My hope is that everyone else is going to play the regular blackjack strategy and will bust more than me.

So with all that information, can someone figure out the best strategy for me? Thanks.

Hi Clutz, and welcome to the forums!

This turned out to be a much more interesting post than the first sentence "I play this blackjack game on one of the websites..." led me to believe =).

So it would appear that you're not playing blackjack, but you're using the scoring of blackjack to total your hand. Or I suppose you could count this as an extremely weird blackjack variant. It doesn't sound as though you're playing against a dealer, or playing against a dealer up card, so that throws basic strategy RIGHT OUT the window. You're now playing a hand "scored like blackjack" blind against another hand of the same.

Here's the hard part. For "normal" blackjack the average hand is about 18.25... but this is considered "average" for basic strategy and regular rules. I don't know what the "average" hand in this scenario might be. If you had a dealer up card to play against and played BS, then the strategy for playing your hand against the other players would be to beat 18.25 (the average).

I think it would be a cool exercise if one of the bigger math buffs than me broke this game down and came up with a strategy. My gut is similar to yours though, where of course you're hitting any hand you can't bust on, and I'd probably stay on 14 or anything higher as well. Even if they're not playing regular blackjack strategy your hand of 14 forces them to "play regular." Think about the hands that beat you when you have 14... someone would had to of had an easy decision (5-11), or they hit their 12, 13, or 14 to beat you... Which if you have 14 and they have one of those 3 hands, you'd want to stay and let them swing at busting.

In babbling on, this makes me think that perhaps you wouldn't want to hit ANY hand that could bust you... but again, this is just off the top of my head without a deep dive =). Just wanted to get the conversational ball rolling!

You hit 16.

Assuming if you both bust it's a standoff, if you were playing against someone who played like a dealer (i.e. hit hard 16) then you should do the same - actually hitting 16 is even more obvious than at standard Blackjack because a bust is not an automatic loser (EVs Stand -.436 157 Hit -.332 003 dealer draws from six decks, you from infinite).

Strangely if you thought the other player might stick on 16 then you still hit 16.
However if you thought the other player might stick on 14 or 15 then you probably stand on 16 but still hit 15.
Similar if you thought they might stick on 12 then you still hit 14 - which is why it is reasonable to assume the other person always hits 14.

If the other person is a good player then they'll also be hitting 16 - so you should as well.

If you don't know anything, then players not hitting 16 are playing inferior tactics, so you should be able to beat them, thus hit 16 until you gauge their playing style for certainty; but as you see from above you'll still hit more often than them.


btw many years ago I stumbled across a real money game called Californian Blackjack (different from the one https://wizardofodds.com/games/california-blackjack/) - it used single deck with 8 Aces where AA was their "Blackjack". The dealer has an up-card but can see the player's drawn cards. If I recall bust hands lose to the dealer if their bust total is bigger else standoff.

Thanks for the replies. Sorry my first sentence threw you off a little. lol. But yeah, you are right. It's more of using Black Jack as a way to get a score and then compare that score to someone else and name a winner. If we both bust, its a draw. We never know who we are going to be playing against so I never know how they will play. If me and another player happen to be online at the same time and we are going back and forth a lot then I can assume my next few games will also be with him and gauge how he is playing and adjust accordingly. But for the most part I will have no idea. Which is why I thought my best strategy would be to just not bust and assume everyone else was playing perfect strategy. This way I'd be kinda playing like the dealer which always seems to have a small advantage anyway even with perfect black jack play. Also, I've never been dealt the same cards (ie two 10 of hearts) in a single hand which leads me to believe that I am drawing from my own single deck of 52 card and it's not some kind of 6 deck or infinite deck.

@charliepatrick, Thank you for the advice. I think I will try out your strategy of hitting on 16 unless I know the style of play of who I think my next opponent will be and then play how you suggested. I'll let you know how I make out.