We’ve covered in the last few months many angles of basic black jack strategy, from understanding the mathematics of the game to knowing what decisions to make when and what charts to refer to, etc… What’s equally important in the grand scheme of things here is remembering all of this when you’re live at the tables. Sure, you can keep a game chart handy at your side in most casinos, but you don’t really want to be that guy, do you?

The idea is to get these things down through so much repetition that they become second nature, that you’ll no longer have to ponder which play is correct; it’ll just be an automatic response. If you’re truly dedicated to improving as a black jack online player, then you’ll be up for the challenge, even though it might not be the most exciting of tasks ahead of you. But that’s where I come in, to break up the monotony with some tricks to getting this info into your head before you fall asleep.

First, try flashcards. You know, those things from grade school? Make up a set, use them once a day for about an hour or so at a time. Keep track of how long it’s taking you to go through them in a single cycle. At first, without errors, it’ll probably take you upwards of 5-7 minutes. This is fine, but you’ll improve your speed with practice, and a good, achievable goal should be to get through your cards cleanly in about two minutes. This is when you know they’ve been ingrained into your brain.

Remember that as a motto – speed and accuracy are the keys to absorbing and retaining what you learn.

Second, take this to the next stage and prepare a “test” for yourself. Come up with 30 black jack question or so (can be more or less) and leave the answers blank. Reorder them randomly into 5 or 6 patterns, and photo copy these dozens of times. Shuffle them up and pick one each day to answer. This way, you won’t be able to easily memorize the order of the answers, and will have to apply what you’ve learned each time you get a new test. I much prefer this method of memorization because it forces you to “do” instead of just making you read and remember. If you apply yourself to situations, even if they’re just on paper for the time being, you’ll be much more likely to retain the information for when you need it during a live gaming situation.

If you really stick to these two simple black jack tactics, it won’t take you more than a month (doing at least 1 to 1 and a half hours a day) to make this second nature behavior. And, of course, when you think you’re ready, try it out at a low limit table at a casino near you.