—Hossan, GTA IV opening sequence
The Definitive Gaia Blackjack Strategy Guide, version 4.2
I've noticed that there are a large number of Blackjack guides around here that are flawed in many different ways. Some were written with real-world blackjack in mind. Some were written with multiple-deck games in mind. Some were written by people who'd never played Gaia's peculiar version of Blackjack. Some were written by complete morons who should never be allowed near a computer. I've been asked by a few Gaians to write a review and strategy guide for Gaia Blackjack, so here I am.
I am a professional online gambler in real life. I currently make most of my money playing poker; however, I got my start on casino blackjack bonuses, and have played in excess of 100,000 real money hands of blackjack. Because of this, I'm uniquely qualified to give advice on how to play gambling games to maximize your expected profits. What I'm not so hot on are those aspects of Gaian "gambling" that aren't part of the games. If you have questions on a non-strategy, non-in-game aspect of Gaia's games, consult the official Gaia FAQs. If you have questions about a strategy or play I advise, please feel free to post them or PM me for more information.
I'm not going to go over the basic rules of blackjack here. If you've found your way here, you already know how the game works. If you don't, read the official Gaia Cards FAQ and Dilettante's (Yet Another) Blackjack Guide, then come back here. This game has some big differences from normal blackjack, though, and I've noticed that most players don't adjust for them at all.
(Note: I know face cards exist. When I say "ten" or "T", I don't just mean tens, I mean all ten-value cards. I also refer to the dealer inconsistently as him, her, and it. All of these are applicable at some point, so I have an excuse for bad grammar—I'm a gambler, not an English teacher...)
Please note that I originally wrote this guide three years and about ten accounts ago. I've mellowed out since then, and I haven't played this at all. I'm updating this based on what I've read from around the Guide forums. If there are any new forms of cheating that I'm not aware of below, please PM me any information you have and I'll update this.
The Peculiarities of Gaian Blackjack
In most real-world blackjack games, if the dealer's upcard gives him a possible blackjack, (an A or T showing) they have to check their downcard to see if they have blackjack, and reveal it immediately if they do have it. In Gaian blackjack, the dealer does not check for blackjack. This necessitates some strategy changes that I've seen exactly nobody make thus far, so I'll be detailing them later on.
In most real-world games, more than one deck is used, usually either four decks installed in a machine that continually shuffles used cards back into the deck, or six or eight decks shuffled together. Gaia uses one deck, shuffled after every hand. This gives you a considerable edge, because you can use knowledge of what's less likely to come out of the deck to make your actions.
In real world games, you can split pairs. In Gaia, there is no splitting. This is bad, but not nearly as bad as you may think. Splitting tens is the worst possible play anyone can make, and I'm insanely happy that Gaians can't do it. This is bad for you because in the real world, you always split aces because the odds favor getting at least one 21, and you always split eights because two hands starting with 8 on average lose less money than one hand of 16.
At times, I'll refer to "soft" and "hard" hands. A "soft" hand is one that contains an ace that currently is being counted as 11. A "hard" hand doesn't have an ace being counted as 11. Soft hands can't be busted by a single hit, so you can take more chances with them than you can with hard hands.
General Advice
DO NOT use the "Play Winnings" button. Ever. Only people who hate money do this. Plan ahead by buying at least 2000 tokens. Stock up, there's no harm in buying too many; if you give up the game you can always sell the leftover tokens. Tickets currently sell in the marketplace for 33,000 to 100,000 gold each. Don't sell them for 1 gold each by playing them back into the game. Remember, if you play your winnings back into the game, you hate money.
Some of the plays below are designed to move money across the table as fast as possible and aren't appropriate for normal blackjack. These plays work on Gaia because the exchange rate is enough to give them positive long-term expectations. Those plays may cause you to show a net loss of tokens, but you recoup the losses and more when you sell the tickets for 30k+ gold each. Because of the exchange rate, the game essentially pays 30k+ to 1 on your winning hands, and we take advantage of that with several of the more "risky" DOUBLE plays. Don't be scared, it all adds up in the end.
DO NOT act like the dealer. The dealer is required by the rules to hit 16 or less, and stand on 17 or more. You are not. This is where a big part of your edge comes from. The dealer has to do things with 15 and 16 that you generally won't want to do. Remember, the dealer is stupid. Don't be like the dealer.
DO NOT waste Cheat activations. Cheating is the biggest, best weapon in your arsenal, and to be truly successful, you will need to save your Cheat powers for the times when they will do you the most good.
Cheating — Fun for Everyone
You'll notice that both you and the dealer each have an energy meter, separate from your life bar and displayed below your avatar. This is a Cheat energy meter. Each time you or the dealer wins a hand, you get Cheat energy added to your meter. Generally, it takes ten to twelve hands to fill your Cheat meter. When your meter is full, a red Cheat button will appear below the meter. When you use this button to Cheat, the dealer's hole card will be revealed and your Cheat energy will be emptied. Remember how the dealer never checks for blackjack? You'll be checking it for him by Cheating more often than not. Cheat ONLY when I tell you to below OR there is at least one Pushed hand in escrow, your hand is 17 or less or soft 18, and I don't tell you to stand below. Don't waste Cheat energy. I can't stress this enough, DO NOT waste Cheat energy.
The dealer's cheat abilities include "Pocket Ace", which replaces the dealer's downcard with an ace or stacks an ace on top of the deck for the dealer to hit, and "Fresh Start", which burns both the dealer's cards and gives her a new hand. On the surface, these appear to screw up our strategy, but there's one thing they both have in common: The dealers will Fresh Start only when they have 12-16, or a 17-20 that you already have beat. Dealers pull their cheating shenanigans after we've acted on our hands. This has the unfortunate side effect of leaving us no reliable way to play around the cheats. If the current dealer has the Fresh Start cheat ability and a full Cheat energy meter, and the dealer's upcard is an 8 or lower, do not Cheat, treat all DOUBLE plays below as HIT, and do not stand on hands lower than hard 17 or soft 18. This isn't foolproof, and you're still going to lose some money to Fresh Start, but following this rule will minimize your losses.
Pocket Ace isn't quite as bleak a prospect for us, as we can try to play around it. If the current dealer has the Pocket Ace cheat ability and a full Cheat energy meter, we can safely assume the dealer's downcard to be an Ace, because if it isn't one yet, it surely will be when we make a hand that beats whatever the dealer currently has. Therefore, when playing against a dealer who has Pocket Ace available and a full Cheat energy meter, treat the dealer's downcard as though it were a Cheat-confirmed ace. If this gives the dealer a presumed 17 or better, ignore all advice below and hit until you have S19, 17, or better. While we can try to play around this by hitting more aggressively than we normally would, we don't want to throw gold away by hitting 19 and 20. Remember, wasting Cheat energy is the biggest mistake you can make in this game, and Cheating against a dealer with a Pocket Ace ready to go is a complete and total waste.
I've also recently been informed that a new form of cheating called Redraw is available. The information that I've received (and haven't been able to verify) indicates that Redraw can be used to force the dealer to muck their initial hand and draw a new one. This should NEVER be used. Checking the dealer's hole card is a better play because knowing both the dealer's cards makes every decision you make 100% correct.
The Strategies for Gathering Tickets
This set of plays is designed to be optimal for those of you who want to collect tickets to spend in the Prize & Joy store. It's closely based on real-world single deck strategy and doesn't take the Marketplace average sale price for tickets into account.
(In the listings below, "T" means 10-value card, "A" means ace, and a mention of a hand instead of an upcard means a dealer's hand that you've seen by Cheating.)
The Holecard Cheating Prime Directive: If I've directed you to cheat, and the dealer shows 17 or better, ignore the advice below and HIT until you're either winning, pushing or bust. I don't care if you have 19 vs a dealer 20, a 2/13 chance of not losing is still better than standing for nothing. Remember, you should only be cheating if I'm telling you to or you're defending a pushed bet.
21: STAND (if a developer ever reads this, for the love of Mod PLEASE make the player automatically stand on 21... nobody should ever have to suffer with getting 31.)
20: STAND vs anything
19: STAND vs anything
Soft 18: If you have Cheat available, check the dealer's hole card, then STAND vs 9, 10, 11, 17+; DOUBLE vs anything else. If you can't Cheat, DOUBLE vs 5, 6; STAND vs anything else
18: STAND vs anything
Soft 17: If you have Cheat available, check the dealer's hole card, then DOUBLE vs 2-6 and 12-16; HIT vs anything else. If you can't cheat, DOUBLE vs 5, 6; HIT vs anything else
17: STAND vs anything
Soft 16: DOUBLE vs 4, 5, 6; HIT vs anything else
16: HIT vs 7, 8, 9, T, A; STAND vs anything else
Soft 15: DOUBLE vs 4, 5, 6; HIT vs anything else
15: HIT vs 7, 8, 9, T, A; STAND vs anything else
Soft 14: DOUBLE vs 4, 5, 6; HIT vs anything else
14: HIT vs 7, 8, 9, T, A; STAND vs everything else
14 (two 7s): HIT vs dealer 17+, STAND vs everything else
Soft 13: DOUBLE vs 5, 6; HIT vs everything else
13: HIT vs 7, 8, 9, T, A; STAND vs everything else
Soft 12: DOUBLE vs 6; HIT vs everything else
12: HIT vs 2, 7, 8, 9, T, A; STAND vs everything else
11: DOUBLE vs anything (21 pushes blackjack here; this isn't anywhere near as insane as it would be in a real-life European no-peek game)
10: HIT vs T, double vs anything else
9: DOUBLE vs 5-6, HIT vs anything else
Less than 9: HIT until you have a total described above, then follow those instructions, treating all DOUBLE plays as HITs.
Conclusion
Using these simple strategies, you should be able to make a consistent, long-term profit playing Gaia Blackjack.
Printable Chart
Version History
v1.0 (6/8/06): Original version
v1.1 (6/10/06): Specific strategies for counteracting dealer cheats added
v1.1a (6/10/06): Soft 18 play reworded for less ambiguity (no change to advice)
v1.1b (6/14/06): 15 v A changed to Hit (dealer stands on soft 17, therefore standing on 15 vs A is insane)
v1.2 (6/21/06): Pocket Ace as draw information added
v2.0 (12/22/06): Reposted due to untimely permaban, added exchange rate information
v3.0 (11/14/09): Reposted again due to returning to the site after a long vacation.
v3.1 (12/5/09): Redraw information added
v3.2 (5/21/09): 11 vs anything other than confirmed BJ or 20 is to be doubled; was previously unclear
v3.3 (1/10/11): Pocket Ace as draw strategy adjusted for clarity and appropriate aggro factor; soft doubles tweaked to move more money across the table and abuse the ticket-gold marketplace exchange rates
v4.0 (1/17/11): Soft 17 changed to Hit when not doubling; 17 is a bad hand and we should not keep it if we don't have to. Aggressive strategy for abusing Marketplace exchange rates and graphical reference sheets added.
v4.1 (1/28/11): Marketplace strategy officially deemed a failure and removed
v5.0 (4/4/15): NTSG crosspost, exchange rate info update.
