Understanding The Online Blackjack Charlie Rule

Added: June 30, 2016

Charlie rule is employed in some online blackjack variants to add zing to the rather staid game play of the regular games like European Blackjack and Vegas Strip Blackjack. A Charlie is a hand of a specified number of cards that has not bust. Such a hand is treated as a natural blackjack and wins immediately on being dealt, without the dealer’s hands being played. It also pays out at 3 to 2.

Different online blackjack variants specify different number of cards in the Charlie rule. A seven-card Charlie is almost impossible to get. Therefore blackjack games that include seven-card Charlie rule offer only a notional advantage. Expert blackjack players ignore this completely. A five-card Charlie rule is more common. It increases by average return to the player by about 1.5% and therefore has to be compensated for. The most common way of doing this is to reduce the blackjack payout to even money. Pontoon is a unique blackjack variant in which the compensation is done by dealing both the dealer’s cards face down.

A six-card Charlie rule is most often employed. This rule increases the average return to the player by 0.16%. At first this does not seem to be a big amount. But if you play for long hours or high stakes then the advantage will show. Usually, this benefit is not compensated for by tweaking any other rule in favour of the online casino. Most online blackjack variants with six-card Charlie rule give an average return to the player of around 99.7%. The catch is that you have to play using the optimum strategy.

The optimum blackjack strategy for the six-card Charlie rule requires more aggressive game play. At times you have to greater risks in order to get the six-card Charlie hand and land the 3 to 2 payout. In the normal online blackjack games it would be prudent to stand on hand values of 14 and 15 rather than hitting and risk going bust. But with the six-card Charlie rule when you have a hand value of 15 with five cards dealt you have to hit and go for the six-hand Charlie. It is difficult to memorise the nuances of the six-card Charlie optimum strategy. Therefore the leading Australian online casinos powered by Microgaming incorporate strategy cards for six-card Charlie blackjack variants. These strategy cards are different from the regular ones because they have to factor in the number of cards dealt to the player along with the other parameters.