This article first appeared in the Mar/Apr 2010 issue of World Gaming magazine.
A question a blackjack player often faces is: does the decision of the player who plays the last box on the table affect the result? The correct answer is: no. But it can often seem as though the ‘anchorman’ (the player playing the last ‘spot’ or ‘box’) plays a pivotal role in the fortune of his fellow players.
Those who play blackjack often will probably have had experiences like this before: the anchorman has 15, and dealer has 8; the anchorman (quite correctly) takes the risk of drawing one more card, and he gets a 5, for a total of 20. It’s the dealer’s turn now. The dealer has to draw, because his hand is less than 17. He takes an 8, which makes his hand 16. He draws again, and a K comes along. The dealer busts and the whole table high-fives. The anchorman is obviously the hero, because he took that crucial 5 card, risking busting himself. If he hadn’t taken that risk, the dealer would have got 21, and the whole table would feel sick.
There are hundreds of these kinds of examples where the decision of the anchorman affects the immediate result of the table. You see these little dramas every time you play blackjack.
Blackjack!
However, the importance of the anchorman is an illusion. For every time the anchorman plays in the so-called ‘incorrect’ manner and kills the table, there’s another time his bad play in fact saves the table. Imagine an anchorman making the truly shocking play of standing a 12 against the dealer’s 10, only to see the dealer draw a 6 then a 10! The anchorman has no idea what card is coming out of the shoe next, he is not God, and in the long run your result on the game will not be affected by the skill of the anchorman. Your win or loss is affected by the skill of just one person – you!
So why does the last box player have to take the pressure of being the all-important anchorman? It’s because there’s a common misconception amongst blackjack players, caused by most people judging plays simply by the result of that play on that occasion. This misconception doesn’t only exist in blackjack, it is in every gambling game. When you play baccarat, you decide to bet on the banker after you see the pattern. If the banker wins, ‘you are good at telling the pattern’; if the banker loses, then there is something wrong with your pattern. In the history of the world, there have been some incredible ‘kings of gambling’ with amazing gaming skills, but none of them won every single hand they played! You see this same phenomenon in poker – the player makes a crazy bluff, and gets away with it – he’s a genius! No, he just seems like a genius this time, because he won. If he keeps making those crazy moves he’ll eventually lose.
Our players may ask, is there a right way to play blackjack? Yes! There are many things you can do right and many things you can do wrong in blackjack. There are far too many for a single article, so we’ll slowly reveal and discuss them over our future issues.
Our players may also ask: how do I choose which box I play at the table? This depends on how devoted or serious you are about this game. If you play for fun, don’t choose the last box. You don’t want to have an unhappy experience because of a certain hand where your anchorman status put unnecessary pressure on you. If you are an experienced player, there is almost no difference where you sit. Just play your cards, and realise this game is a battle between just you and the dealer.
