Atlassino Academy · Blackjack · Lesson 17 of 21
Third base, hot tables and the table's mood
The seat at the end of the table, the table that is said to be running hot, and what a neighbour’s decision can and cannot do to your hand.
You stand on 16. The player at the last seat takes a card, the dealer makes 20, and your bet is collected. Did that seat cost you the hand?
The short answer
Nobody at a blackjack table, on either side of it, knows which card is coming out of the shoe next, so nobody at the last seat could have known what the card they took was going to do. A decision at another betting spot changes which card reaches which hand. It does not change what is sitting in the shoe, what the dealer is allowed to do with the house hand, or what your own hand is paid.
Every betting spot is settled against the dealer’s hand
A hand is dealt to every betting spot that has money in it, and each hand is settled on its own.
The money goes into the spot before the first card comes out, and a bet that is not in its spot by then is not a bet on that hand at all.
A blackjack table seen from above. The dealer stands behind the chip tray on one side. In front of the dealer, seven betting spots run in an arc, and the hands in those spots are played one after another before the dealer plays the house hand. The seventh spot is the last one to play.
- 1plays first
- 2plays second
- 3plays third
- 4plays fourth
- 5plays fifth
- 6plays sixth
- 7plays last, just before the dealer
Then every spot is settled against one thing: the dealer’s hand. A total higher than the dealer’s is paid 1 to 1, a blackjack is paid 3 to 2, equal totals are a push, and a hand over 21 is taken as soon as it goes over.
The last seat, and the card that moved
The spots are played one after another, and the dealer plays the house hand after every spot has finished. The seat that decides last, just before the dealer, is the one people call third base.
Here is what a decision at the last seat actually does. At a shoe table the cards come out one after another, from the front, and the basic blackjack game is six decks shuffled together into that shoe. Not every blackjack table is dealt that way: at some tables the cards come out of a continuous shuffling machine instead. At a shoe table, a card taken at the last seat is a card the dealer does not get, so the dealer’s next card comes from one place further along. That much is real: the dealer’s hand genuinely is different depending on what the last seat did.
The last seat takes a card
- 9♣of clubsgoes to the last seat
- 4♥of heartsgoes to the dealer
- 7♠of spadesstays in the shoe
The last seat stands
- 9♣of clubsgoes to the dealer
- 4♥of heartsstays in the shoe
- 7♠of spadesstays in the shoe
What is missing from the blame is the part nobody can supply. Before either card came out, no one at that table could have named it — not the player at the last seat, not you, and not the dealer. So the sentence “you took my card” is said about a card that had no owner and no name until it was face up, and it is a complaint that can only be made backwards.
A dealer with no choices to make
A table gets called hot or cold, and the dealer gets called hot or cold along with it. The trouble with calling a dealer anything is that a dealer makes no decisions at all: at B.C. tables the house hand is drawn on any total of 16 or less and on a soft 17, and stopped on every other total of 17 or more, hand after hand, against every spot at the table. What a hand turns into is in the cards that came out of the shoe, and not in the dealer dealing that hand.
| The dealer’s own total | What the dealer does with it |
|---|---|
| 16 or less | takes another card |
| A soft 17 — a hand holding an ace counted as eleven, seventeen in all | takes another card |
| Any other total of 17 or more — a hard 17, a soft 18, a 20 | stops there |
At a table whose sign says something else about a soft 17, only the soft 17 row changes.
| Changes from hand to hand | Does not change all evening |
|---|---|
| Which cards come out of the shoe, and which spot each one reaches | How many decks are shuffled together in that shoe |
| Which betting spots have money in them, and how much | What a hand is paid: 1 to 1, a blackjack 3 to 2, equal totals a push |
| How the hand you are holding adds up | The rule the dealer draws and stops by, against every spot |
| How many people are sitting at the table | That nobody at it knows what card is coming next |
Everything in the right-hand column is printed somewhere you can read before your first hand: on the felt, on the table sign, or in the rules the operator publishes. Everything in the left-hand column is what the evening does, and none of it is knowable in advance.
Who you can ask, and what they may answer
All of which leaves a practical question: when you genuinely do not know what to do with a 16, who at the table is worth asking?
The dealer may answer questions about basic strategy, which is a narrower door than it sounds and a more useful one than it looks — “what does the chart say on this hand” goes straight through it. A neighbour may offer advice when you ask for it, and what arrives is an opinion. The decision stays where the money is: every decision on the hand in a betting spot is made by the person who controls that betting spot.
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
One last thing, and it matters more than anything else I have said here. Decide how much money the evening gets and how long it runs before you sit down, and stop when the money is gone or the time is up, whichever comes first. A run of hands going against you is not a debt the table owes you: putting more money down to get it back only makes the hour dearer, and the card that comes next is as unknown as it was an hour ago.
If the money on the table starts to feel like money you need, or you are playing to get away from something, stop and call one of the lines below. That is what they are there for.
If it stops being fun
If gambling stops being entertainment, help is available. 19+ in most of Canada; 18+ in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec. More on responsible gaming.
Practice table
The practice table deals hands from a shuffled shoe and checks your first decision on each hand against the chart for the table rules you pick. Decide with the buttons or with the keys H, S, D and R. There is no money on this table: the amounts it prints for each decision are averages for the example bet you choose.
What it practises is your own hand, because that is the only thing at a blackjack table you decide. There is no drill here for a neighbour’s decision, and there cannot be one: a decision at another spot leaves you nothing to practise.
Rules differ by province. Pick the rules closest to the table where you play; this table then answers by the chart for those rules. The bet is only an example for the amounts shown, not a suggested bet.
Dealer
You
Lesson done
Review my mistakes (0)
Progress stays in this browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
The practice table needs JavaScript. Here is one hand from it, with the answer.
Dealer shows a 7
You hard 16
The chart says: Hit.
Hard 16 against a 7: The dealer card is strong: standing on 16 loses whenever the dealer finishes on 17 or more, 73.8% of hands against a 7.
Average result per hand on an example bet of $10 (a minus means money lost): stand −$4.77 · hit −$4.09 · double −$8.17 · surrender −$5.00. Standing instead costs about $0.68 more each time.
Check yourself
Mayaformer floor supervisor · manners, money and breaks
Five quick ones. Pick an answer, then check it. No timer, no points: just whether it stuck.
Where to play
19+ (18+ in AB, MB, QC) · Play responsibly · help, day or night: Gambling Support BC 1-888-795-6111, 24 hours
How it’s worked out
Rules, numbers and hosts
Numbers. The share of a bet the house keeps is worked out when the page is built, by the same engine as our blackjack strategy tool, for the table rules this lesson is set to. It assumes the full chart — hard totals, soft hands and pairs together — and cards shuffled after every hand.
The two bars. The upper bar is that same share, and it is labelled with it. The lower bar is drawn to the share printed for the habit of assuming a ten, which comes from the source behind the button beside the bar and was solved for a different set of table rules, not for the rules here. The two are therefore not a pair of figures from one calculation, and the lower one is deliberately not printed as a number: the bars are there to show that one share is many times the other, and nothing finer than that.
What is deliberately absent. There is no figure here for how often a decision at one betting spot changes the result at another, no figure for how often a dealer’s hand ends one way after a card has moved, and no count of hands at a table. Each of those would need something no publisher we could read puts in print, and a figure our own engine cannot recompute does not go on a page. The seat at the end of the table is described by when it plays, not by which side of the dealer it sits on, because none of the published rule books says which side that is.
The order the spots are played in. Two halves of that order are named on this page, and they do not come from the same place. That the dealer plays the house hand after every spot has finished is printed in the published rules, behind the button beside it. That the spots themselves are played one after another, with one spot last before the dealer, is how a dealt table works: none of the rule books we could read sets it out in a sentence, and no button stands behind that half.
The practice table. It is the blackjack practice table used across this track, and it drills the chart. A drill of its own for this lesson would have to deal a neighbour’s decision and then ask what it changed, and the honest answer would be the same every time.
Hosts. Maya is an illustrated character. Her backstory, a former floor supervisor, is written for the course: she is not a real person and does not speak for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from her experience.
No promise. Blackjack is played against the house. Nothing on this page makes the game cost nothing, and nothing on it says how an evening will end.
The order of a hand
In our words: Going over 21 is a bust: the bet is lost on the spot, apart from the special cases for doubled and split hands.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
In our words: A busted hand is cleared at once, unless it is a split or doubled hand and the dealer’s face-up card is an ace or a ten-value card.
In our words: When every player has finished, the dealer plays by fixed rules:
In our words: draw on 16 or less, and on soft 17;
In our words: and stop drawing at hard 17.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.5 to 8.9
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What a hand is paid
In our words: Apart from a blackjack, every paid hand gets even money, 1 to 1.
In our words: A blackjack pays 3 to 2.
In our words: Equal totals are a tie, called a push: the bet stays where it is.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
If the player gets a blackjack, the bet is paid 3 to 2, except when the house's hand is also a blackjack.
Section The payouts, General rules
A hand over 21
In our words: Going over 21 is a bust: the bet is lost on the spot, apart from the special cases for doubled and split hands.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
In our words: A busted hand is cleared at once, unless it is a split or doubled hand and the dealer’s face-up card is an ace or a ten-value card.
In our words: When every player has finished, the dealer plays by fixed rules:
In our words: draw on 16 or less, and on soft 17;
In our words: and stop drawing at hard 17.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.5 to 8.9
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Equal totals
In our words: Apart from a blackjack, every paid hand gets even money, 1 to 1.
In our words: A blackjack pays 3 to 2.
In our words: Equal totals are a tie, called a push: the bet stays where it is.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
If the player gets a blackjack, the bet is paid 3 to 2, except when the house's hand is also a blackjack.
Section The payouts, General rules
Six decks, dealt from a shoe
In our words: The dealer deals from a shoe holding six ordinary decks.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 1.1 to 1.3.1
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What a hand is paid
In our words: Apart from a blackjack, every paid hand gets even money, 1 to 1.
In our words: A blackjack pays 3 to 2.
In our words: Equal totals are a tie, called a push: the bet stays where it is.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
If the player gets a blackjack, the bet is paid 3 to 2, except when the house's hand is also a blackjack.
Section The payouts, General rules
The dealer has no choices
In our words: draw on 16 or less, and on soft 17;
In our words: and stop drawing at hard 17.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.5 to 8.9
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
In Blackjack, the dealer is bound by the rules of play: The dealer must stand on 17, continue to draw if a hand is less than 17, and stand when the total is from 17 to 21.
What nobody at the table knows
GameSense Tip: Blackjack is not a team sport. No one knows what card will be dealt next.
Three ways of playing a hand without the chart
Three popular bad strategies encountered at the blackjack table are: never bust, mimic the dealer, and always assume the dealer has a ten in the hole.
This "never bust" strategy results in a house edge of 3.91%.
This "mimic the dealer" strategy results in a house edge of 5.48%.
This "assume a ten" strategy results in a house edge of 10.03%.
What following the chart does to the cost of play
By following basic strategy you can reduce the house advantage and your cost of play.
What the correct play does and does not do
Blackjack has an element of skill, but making the statistically correct play does not ensure a winning outcome.
Where a bet goes, and when
In our words: A bet counts only if it sits in the betting spot before the first card is dealt.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 5.1 to 5.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Bets must be placed on the designated spot before the first card is dealt.
Section The bets
What a hand is paid, and what a hand over 21 costs
In our words: Apart from a blackjack, every paid hand gets even money, 1 to 1.
In our words: A blackjack pays 3 to 2.
In our words: Equal totals are a tie, called a push: the bet stays where it is.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
If the player gets a blackjack, the bet is paid 3 to 2, except when the house's hand is also a blackjack.
Section The payouts, General rules
In our words: Going over 21 is a bust: the bet is lost on the spot, apart from the special cases for doubled and split hands.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
In our words: A busted hand is cleared at once, unless it is a split or doubled hand and the dealer’s face-up card is an ace or a ten-value card.
In our words: When every player has finished, the dealer plays by fixed rules:
In our words: draw on 16 or less, and on soft 17;
In our words: and stop drawing at hard 17.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.5 to 8.9
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
The order of a hand
In our words: Going over 21 is a bust: the bet is lost on the spot, apart from the special cases for doubled and split hands.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 7.1 to 7.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
In our words: A busted hand is cleared at once, unless it is a split or doubled hand and the dealer’s face-up card is an ace or a ten-value card.
In our words: When every player has finished, the dealer plays by fixed rules:
In our words: draw on 16 or less, and on soft 17;
In our words: and stop drawing at hard 17.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.5 to 8.9
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Six decks in the basic game
In our words: The dealer deals from a shoe holding six ordinary decks.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 1.1 to 1.3.1
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
A table dealt from a shuffling machine
In our words: Free Bet uses six ordinary decks, dealt from a continuous shuffling machine.
Section 3.0 Free Bet Blackjack with Push 22 Side Bet, 1.2
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
What nobody at the table knows
GameSense Tip: Blackjack is not a team sport. No one knows what card will be dealt next.
The dealer rule at a B.C. table
In our words: draw on 16 or less, and on soft 17;
In our words: and stop drawing at hard 17.
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.5 to 8.9
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
A dealer is not hot or cold
But what happens in the game is only in the cards – not because of a “hot” or “cold” dealer.
The dealer draws by the rule posted on the table
After revealing the house's face-down card, the dealer completes the house's hand, if necessary, according to the house strategy indicated at the table which may either be:
HIT on a count of soft 17 or less and STAND on a count of hard 17 or more, or
HIT on a count of 16 or less and STAND on a count of (soft or hard) 17 or more.
Section The house strategy
The Dealer must draw cards according to the rules posted on the table;
This means that the dealer will hit their hand up to and including an ace or aces that can be totaled as either 7 or 17.
"Dealer Must Stand on 17" - This means that the dealer will hit their hand on anything less than a total of 17.
Section Blackjack
Where the dealer’s second card is
In our words: then deals the dealer’s own card face up, in front of the chip rack;
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 8.2.1 to 8.2.3
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
The dealer deals one card to each player and one card face up to the house. The dealer then deals a second card to each player, and a second card face down to the house.
Section The deal
The Dealer also receives two cards; one face up and the other face down.
Section Blackjack
Three ways of playing a hand without the chart
Three popular bad strategies encountered at the blackjack table are: never bust, mimic the dealer, and always assume the dealer has a ten in the hole.
This "never bust" strategy results in a house edge of 3.91%.
This "mimic the dealer" strategy results in a house edge of 5.48%.
This "assume a ten" strategy results in a house edge of 10.03%.
What you may ask the dealer
The dealer is only allowed to answer basic strategy questions.
Advice from another player
If another player asks for your advice, feel free to offer it.
Who decides the hand at a betting spot
In our words: the seated player who holds the spot makes every call on that hand;
Section 1.0 Basic Blackjack, 5.5.1.a and 5.5.7
BCLC · Rules of Play for Table Games — Blackjack · read
Spotted a mistake on this page? Tell us
Been here before? Review us on Trustpilot