How to Memorize Basic Strategy
Here’s your assignment:
• Recite what I just taught you (the Splits section of the chart) 10 times today. Once you can recite it from memory, you can move on to the Soft Hands , then Hard Totals and Surrender (below the Splits video).
• If you haven’t seen it yet, Watch our Basic Strategy Video (Note: This is one of the many videos included in our Card Counting Training Course.)
Section 1: Intro & Splitting

- Always Split Aces & 8’s
- Never Split 10’s and 5’s
- Split 2, 3 & 7 on 2 through 7
- Split 4’s against 5 & 6
- Split 6’s on 2 through 6
- Split 9’s against 2 through 9, except 7
Section 2: Soft Totals
- Soft 21 and 20 always stand
- Soft 19 (Ace, 8) doubles against 6 otherwise it stands
- Soft 18 (Ace, 7) doubles against 2-6, stands against 7 and 8, hits against 9, 10, Ace. If it can’t double against 2-6, it stands
- Soft 17 (A, 6) doubles against 3-6, otherwise it hits
- Soft 16 and Soft 15 (A, 5 and A, 4) doubles against 4-6 otherwise it hits
- Soft 14 and soft 13 (Ace, 3 and ace, 2) doubles against 5 and 6 otherwise it hits
Section 3: Hard Totals & Surrender
- Surrender 16 against 9 – Ace
- Surrender 15 against a 10
- Hard 17 and above will always stand
- Hard 13 through 16 will stand against 2-6, hit against 7-ace
- Hard 12 will stand against 4-6, hit against everything else
- Hard 11 will always double down
- Hard 10 will double against 2-9
- Hard 9 will double against 3-6
- Hard 8 and below will always hit