Playing blackjack on the Internet is a bit different than playing in a live casino. The main reason for this is how the shuffle is handled. In live games, the biggest thing that players can do to boost their payout rate is learn how to count cards, and this is based entirely on the limitation that exists in real life. This limitation is that a shoe has to be used to keep the game going, and this shoe cannot be shuffled continuously. After a lot of cards are dealt, a skilled card counter can have a good idea of what's left in the shoe, and if the results are good, then he or she can make bets that will be profitable.

When you're playing online, however, this option is not available to you. Some games have 256 decks that are shuffled after every single hand, so there's no way to get an advantage from counting cards, and attempting to do so is a complete waste of time. Instead, the way to get the best payout rate possible is to become exceptionally good at basic strategy and to learn how to deal with the atypical betting options like doubling, surrendering and splitting since those are the three things most players tend to ignore.

You should generally double if you have a total of 10 or 11 unless you're facing a ten or an ace yourself. You should also double in a lot of cases if you have a soft hand against a weak dealer card because your chances of winning are so high. On the other hand, you should surrender if you have a hard 16 against a ten or an ace because you're at such a disadvantage. These two types of scenarios are on the polar ends of the spectrum of having the advantage or disadvantage in Internet blackjack.

When it comes to splitting, there are some general rules that you should know and some general principles to use to play the rest. Never split tens or fives because they're too strong as hard hands. Always split eights because they're too weak as a hard 16 and make okay hands on their own, and always split aces because the payouts for blackjacks are good. On everything else, you're going to tend to want to split against weak cards and play your hand as a hard hand against strong ones.