Month: January 2011

Fantasy Blackjack App Closest to Online Blackjack

Finally we come to the end of the mobile blackjack app discussion. Over the course of this week I have discussed what mobile blackjack apps from brought us and how they have evolved. Recently what is likely to be the next push forward in blackjack mobile apps has been released, and it beings yet another element of online blackjack with it.

It is a single app found in the Apple app store called Fantasy Blackjack. This little app, created by the Palms Casino Resort in conjuncture with app developer Sevryn Mobile, allows players in a league to choose which blackjack game they play in. This app does not limit players to only one type of blackjack with one set of rules. Having other options is the element that the makes this latest app the closest to a real online blackjack experience.

Players can download the app and invite other friends of theirs who also have an iPhone to play in their league. The initiating player is known as the commissioner and he or she gets to set season details which include the length of the season. Anyone can be a commissioner, which is how the league grows.

But what is more is that players in a league can declare themselves a dealer. In a real game of blackjack the dealer sets the rules of the game, rules such as the circumstances for pair splitting and double downs as well as how many decks are used. In Fantasy Blackjack, anyone can be a dealer. The games they create are posted and players can browse the available and choose which ones they want to play in.

Because of the ability to create blackjack games and choose which games to play in, not to mention the ability to have a winner designated at the end of a season, brings the feeling of playing casino blackjack or online blackjack even more so to the mobile blackjack apps.

Online Blackjack, it is Not so Bad

There are a good number of people who feel that blackjack played at a table in a real brick and mortar casino is the only good way to play the game. I would have to disagree with this. True I cannot use card counting when playing online blackjack, and card counting is one of those classic, glamorous things associated with blackjack.

But on the other hand, it is winter right now and I do not have to go out in the cold to head to a casino to play blackjack. All I need to do is pull up a chair at my computer and log in to my favorite online casino.

Some other benefits to online blackjack is that I do not have the distractions that are found in a casino. No yelling from the craps table. No slot machines making dings and buzzes and their myriad other noises. Instead of trying to drown out all these other noises, I can focus on my game and on my blackjack strategy.

And speaking of blackjack strategy, they are all at my fingertips. If I need a basic strategy chart I can do a quick search for one and pull it up. I can also keep the instructions for a new blackjack strategy open in another window, rather than having to memorize them and hope I remember them to take along in my mind with me to the casino.

Then there is the free practice. The majority of online casinos offer free-play modes. Free-play modes allow players to try out a new strategy without leaving home (see above paragraph). It can also allow players to practice a strategy they already know and want to improve on; or to try out a variation of blackjack without having to wager anything. There is no such thing as playing for free in a brick and mortar casino; the best you can do is to find a low stakes table.

So I do not want to hear that blackjack in a brick and mortar casino cannot compare to online blackjack. There are plenty of ways that online blackjack surpasses blackjack in a casino

Card Counting and Insurance Together

If you recall my last post I discussed what exactly insurance is in blackjack. This was my opener to my overall explanation that insurance can in fact be used in the grand scheme to make money from blackjack. But such a trick is not for the newly green players of blackjack. And it is not for online blackjack play, but that is because card counting is necessary to turn insurance to your advantage.

Blackjack is one of those casino games that players can use strategy to turn the odds in towards them. Card counting is a blackjack strategy of skill that can actually allow the player to turn the game