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How Often Do You Receive Certain Hands?
"8 Decks - Hand Frequency"

Do You Play The Over Under Side Bet?

I was asked a question about how frequent would you get a Pair of Face cards?  Not a problem, the Playing 21 Blackjack Program tracks how frequent you receive every hand versus every dealer up card at each count for any number of decks you use in the game.

I could show this as simple percentages but some of the numbers are smaller and may not mean as much.  Here is how often you'd receive each hand with 8 decks of cards per every 10,000 hands in the game Blackjack.

Hard Totals Per 10,000 Hands - Dealer's Up Card (Rounded Off)
Hand	A	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Totals
5	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
6	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
7	18	18	18	18	18	18	18	18	18	73	235
8	18	18	18	18	18	18	18	18	18	73	235
9	28	27	27	27	27	27	27	27	27	110	354
10	28	27	27	27	27	27	27	27	28	110	355
11	37	36	37	36	36	36	36	36	36	147	473
12	64	63	64	64	64	64	64	64	64	256	831
13	64	64	63	64	64	64	64	64	64	256	831
14	55	55	55	54	55	55	55	55	55	219	713
15	55	55	55	55	54	55	55	55	55	219	713
16	46	46	46	46	46	45	46	46	46	182	595
17	46	46	46	46	46	46	45	46	46	182	595
18	37	37	37	37	37	37	37	36	37	145	477
19	37	37	37	37	37	37	37	37	35	145	476
Totals	551	547	548	547	547	547	547	547	547	2191	7119

Soft Totals Per 10,000 Hands - Dealer's Up Card (Rounded Off)
Hand	A	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Totals
A2	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
A3	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
A4	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
A5	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
A6	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
A7	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
A8	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
A9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	9	37	118
A10	36	37	37	37	37	37	37	37	37	145	477
Totals	108	109	109	109	109	109	109	109	109	441	1421

Pair Totals Per 10,000 Hands - Dealer's Up Card (Rounded Off)
Hand	A	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Totals
A-A	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
2-2	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
3-3	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
4-4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
5-5	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
6-6	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
7-7	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
8-8	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
9-9	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	4	18	54
10-10	73	73	73	73	73	73	73	73	73	286	943
Totals	109	109	109	109	109	109	109	109	109	448	1429
All Totals	768	765	766	765	765	765	765	765	765	3080	9969

With the rounding I have used to a whole number, I came up 31 shy of 10,000 at 9,969.  I could correct the rounding problem by using one decimal place or rounding it up and entire area and going over the 10,000 total.

One thing to remember is it doesn't matter if you count cards or not or how you count, these numbers will not change.  What will change is how often you receive these at each count if you are card counting.  So it is a cycle.  You get these hands over and over.  If you don't play each correctly every time, you can tell by how frequent some hands come up, just how many mistakes you could be making in the game.

Hard Hands do not include Pairs.  So a Pair of 8s is only tracked in the Pair of 8-8 category and not in the Hard 16 category.  Using these Statistics you can roughly say you start with a Hard hand 71.19% of the time.  If you moved the Pair of 10s up to a Hard Hand it now goes over 80% of the time you are starting with a Hard Hand Total.

These percentages will change depending on the number of decks used and these numbers are for 8 decks of cards.  If you'd like to state the above in a percentage, just move two spaces to the left and place a decimal.  So 768 becomes 7.68% or 473 is 4.73% as in you start with a Hard 11 total 4.73% of the time with 8 Decks.

You can see why the game Blackjack is hard to win at by looking at the Hard Totals.  Look how often you start with a 12, 13, 14, 15, 16!!!  Factor that in with you always play your hand before the dealer, which means, when you bust and the dealer busts on the same hand, the dealer wins and you see where the house gets their advantage in the game.  The players get it back through Blackjacks and strategic play through the remaining hands. 

The Playing 21 Program will show you how to play all these hands, at 21 different counts for every hand if you card count and the program stores all that information for you to access.  Stick around and we'll continue to show you how it all works right here in the Playing 21 site.