Poker-UK.net
Unique amongst casino games where you play against the house, a skilled player can actually win at blackjack. The odds are in the casino's favour of course, but you can buck their small percentage by learning basic strategy and card counting.
A player can minimise his losses by learning Basic Strategy. This is the most efficient strategy for a given set of rules, and by playing it you will lose less than with any other strategy. These strategies are worked out by statisticians and computer simulations. You will still lose in the long run, but knowing the Basic Strategy for the game you're playing reduces the house's advantage as much as possible (to typically 1 - 1½%), and you can begin to work on bucking that advantage by modifying your basic strategy in accordance with a card counting system.
Essentially, card counting means keeping track of which cards have been dealt. Knowing what cards remain in the deck, for example the ratio of tens to low value cards, allows you to make a more informed betting decision. Card counting systems vary from the very simple to the very complex, but they all revolve around the concept of keeping a Running Count, where each card is assigned a points value, and you tot them up as the cards are dealt.
Casino operators often take the view that card counting is cheating, which is of course ridiculous - you accept the rules to their game and can become good enough to win money through acquiring advanced card counting skills - but they can choose to do business with whoever they like and if a casino thinks you are winning money from them by card counting then you will likely be banned from their tables.
Generally, the Basic Strategies published up till now have been most relevant to the American Blackjack game. Accordingly, the Card Counting strategies based on them are also more relevant to the US rather than the UK. There's no doubt they are extremely useful to UK play, just not as accurate as for the sets of rules they were devised for.