For example, a player who is dealt a 10-7 should always stand whereas a player who is dealt an ace-6 should never stand. For example, ace-6 is soft 17 whereas 10-7 and 7-9-ace hands are hard 17’s (notice that if your hand contains either no ace, or one or more aces that are each count as one, the hand is hard). The reason the distinction is made between soft and hard hands is that they are played quite differently. These hands are played much differently than their corresponding hard hands.

Any blackjack hand that contains an ace counted as an 11 is a soft hand. An ace-6 hand is a soft 17 and so is an ace-3-3 hand. He is also the lead Instructor for the Golden Touch Blackjack course, a feature writer for Casino Player magazine (and 6 other publications) an owner of a casino gambling publishing company (and the host of For a free three month subscription to the Henry's Blackjack Insider Newsletter with full membership privileges go to Henry's website is it is.įirst, a quick review of what we mean by a soft hand. For many blackjack players, this rather innocuous rule doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the fact of the matter Henry Tamburin is the editor and publisher of the Blackjack Insider Newsletter and author of the best-selling Blackjack: Take the Money & Run. The “soft 17 rule” is a rule that requires the dealer to hit on soft 17.

Always bet on soft 16