Learning How to Adjust to Pontoon Rules

It’s hard to learn to play pontoon if you’re a blackjack regular because the rules and strategies are often anti-intuitive. In blackjack, you’re paying attention to the dealer’s up card, for example. In pontoon, however, there is no dealer up card. This means that everything you do has to be based off of your total, whether your total is soft or hard, and the number of cards you have. This last point is pretty important because it’s a good example of blackjack players not really understanding the rules (since there are a lot of them) and how that affects strategy.

In pontoon, there are four classes of hands. You have normal totals that haven’t busted yet, totals that have busted yet, pontoons (analogous to blackjack), and five-card hands. If a player makes a five-card hand, it beats everything except a dealer pontoon. Note that all five-card hands tie against each other regardless of their total. Because having five cards gives you such a strong holding, this means that having three cards is better than two, and having four cards can mean that you have an exceptionally strong hand. It also creates an interesting situation where you’ll always double (if you can) if you have a soft hand with four cards. You’ll also always double (or at least hit) when you have four cards with a total of 21 which is extremely anti-intuitive.

Let’s talk about doubling. You get a chance to double once in a hand. With soft hands, you’re never going to double with two cards, and that seems really strange. What you have to realize is that there’s an opportunity cost in doubling. If you hit and get a really good card, then you can put yourself in an excellent position to double with a stronger three-card hand. It also puts you one step closer to a perfect four-card situation with a soft hand which is an automatic double and a great chance of winning a double bet.

Aside from the obvious four-card scenarios, you should only double with soft hands when you have three cards and a total of 19 and up. With hard hands, you double with two cards when you have a total of 10 or 11. Add in doubling with nines if you have three cards. With four cards, you’ll double a 16 or lower to take advantage of the strength of the five-card hand.