See also

• Single Table Sit'n Go Strategy
• Poker Odds and Expectations

Technically, long ball is an easier strategy to play than small ball if you stick to playing strong hands. Unfortunately, tight-aggressive poker strategies won't get you into the money very often in tournaments, regardless of the utility factor of the tournaments you play. Card-dependent strategies are very difficult to win with in today's looser, more aggressive tournament environment. Those strategies may have had more validity in the past.

In short-stack slow tournaments, long-ball strategies are a necessity, though loose long-ball strategies will be far more profitable than tight long-ball strategies. They are more position-based than card-based and they earn chips by exploiting weak players.

Long-ball players should be much more concerned with position than small-ball players. With this style of play, you want to be able to target weak players whom you have seen giving up the lead post-flop. Such players' preflop raises should almost always be called when you have position on them, and reraising preflop is better, even if you have trash cards, as these players are likely to fold preflop. If they do not fold, they will not bet post-flop unless the flop either hits them or they have an overpair to the flop. When they check on the flop, this pot is yours (unless they flopped a monster that they are now slowplaying). Getting involved in big pots - something that small-ball players generally avoid - is often worth the risk for smallballers when the player who opened with the preflop raise is a weak player. All players should keep their eyes open for weak opponents who consistently give up a belling lead. The top players will change gears between small ball and long ball as necessary for the situation.

Read also

• Common Blackjack Playing Mistakes
• Blackjack Bets

Every blackjack player has at least six opinions on the game, which makes sense because you have one opinion of the game when you’re up and another very different one when you’re down - and many for all the stages in between. If you chat with other players about their best plays and what rules they follow, you’ll have a mind full of myths, stories, and pure fiction. Occasionally, you’ll pull out a jewel of good blackjack advice, but mostly you’ll hear “woulda, coulda, shoulda” laments.

The object is to reach 21 without exceeding it

The object of the game of blackjack is to beat the dealer, not to get close to 21. People often forget that and think since they have 16 or 17, if they hit, they will likely bust, so they shy away and think that they’ve reached their goal of getting close to 21. But the dealer doesn’t have to get close to 21. He/She/It just has to beat the player. On the other hand, people often lose a hand because they hit when they should stand.

You can only beat the dealer by having a higher total than the dealer or by not busting when the dealer busts. You absolutely must stick to basic strategy for the blackjack game that you are playing when it feels like you are “close enough” to 21. Strategy will tell you whether you should hit or stand. I know the feeling of anxiety we all feel when we hit that block of “stand” on the strategy card. The casino knows about it too, and hopes you can’t resist hitting.

We speak, of course, of standing on low hands like 12s (against a dealer’s 4, 5, 6) and on 13 and 14 against a dealer’s 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Twelve and 13 just look so low! Gosh, it’s just so tempting to hit. Standing is for losers, isn’t it? Be bold! Ask for another card! The dealer’s waiting, or the Hit button sits glowing on your computer screen. No, the sensible move is to stand. Hitting will only benefi t the dealer. Don’t give them any advantage just because you’d rather bust with 22 than win with a mere 12.

See also

• Common Blackjack Playing Mistakes
• Reading Bent Cards in Blackjack

We know that keeping track of cards already played tells us about hands yet to come. But to make use of this information, we need to know which cards are beneficial to us as players, and which cards are not. Once we know this, tracking the cards played will tell us when the remaining deck is to our liking. Ultimately, we will bet small when the remaining deck is unsavory, and bet big when it's juicy.

To help determine which cards are good for us and which are bad, we must consider the rules of the game and the difference
in playing strategies between a basic strategy player and a dealer employing the house rules. A lot can be gleaned from this comparison; there are several factors at work that show why it's important to be able to distinguish between decks made up of predominantly high cards and decks made up of predominantly low cards: 

1. The payoff structure for naturals favors the player.

When the remaining deck has an excess of aces and tens, you're more likely to be dealt a natural. This fact favors the player. Although the dealer is always as likely as we are to receive a blackjack, our two-card 21 is paid at a premium. Imagine a game in which there is at least one natural guaranteed to show each hand; that is, on each deal the player and/or dealer will have a blackjack. Let's suppose we are betting $20 a hand. When we and the dealer get a blackjack, we push and no money changes hands. When the dealer has a natural and we don't, we lose $20. But when we have a natural and the dealer doesn't, we win $30 because our blackjack pays 3 to 2. We come out far ahead overall. 

See also

• Poker Lessons
• Stealing in No-Limit Holdem

Hand reading is a very complex topic to talk about given everything that goes into hand reading well. Oftentimes it is experience that makes a player a very solid hand reader. Exposure to the game and logical actions and frequencies of the player types in the game will improve hand reading. This article aims to give some basic advice on improving this essential skill.

• It's in the ranges. We are not trying to guess our opponent's exact hand. Very often we would just never know their exact holding. Instead, we care about putting our opponent on a range of logical hands. For tighter players this range is usually easier to deduce. For looser and more erratic players, this range can be very difficult to figure out.

Read also

• Online Blackjack Tournaments
• Blackjack Bets

There is another trick the professionals use to gain a slight advantage over the house. The number of times is usually small,
but you should be aware of them in case you run into a favorable situation where this trick can be used. It also involves
getting information from the dealer looking at the hole card. What you are looking for here are bent cards.

Think for a moment about how cards might get bent in a Blackjack game. If it is a face-down game, you could bend them while you hold them, but this is considered cheating (it's like marking the cards). Or the dealer can bend them while shuffling and checking his hole card for a Blackjack. Since the dealer must check his hole card for every Ace or 10 up, these cards get bent after being in play for a while. The Ace or 10 gets bent face up like a rocking-chair rocker, while the hole card gets bent in the opposite direction. But while the hole card is picked from the whole deck, the up card is always an Ace or 10. If you begin seeing any cards that have the rocking-chair curve, however slight, you can be fairly certain they are Aces or 10s. Since there are four 10s for every Ace, 80 per cent of the bent cards will be 10s.