At first glance, this rule may seem strange. One might even think I have lost my mind or my ability to form coherent sentences. You doubters obviously have not played Blackjack. This is an absolute, hard and fast rule that should never be broken when playing Blackjack. It also provides significant guidance for potentially difficult and perhaps even life changing events.
To understand this life instruction, you must first understand a little something about the game of Blackjack. For the complete novice, the object of the game is to get a combination of two or more cards that comes as close as possible to 21 without going over 21. If you get closer than the dealer or if you stay under 21 and the dealer goes over 21 you win. If the dealer gets closer to 21 or you go over 21, the dealer wins. Tens and face cards count as 10. Lower cards count for their face value. Aces can count as 1 or 11 at the player’s option. All of that is pretty simple. Computers could do that and do it very quickly.
The tricky part of Blackjack comes when the player has to decide whether he wants more cards. The player and the dealer each get two cards to start the game. The player gets to see both of his cards but only one of the dealer’s cards. The player has complete freedom of choice. He can take a card or not. There are other more complicated options as well. If the player has two cards that count as the same number (two nines, two threes, two face cards, a face card and a 10, for example) he can choose to “split” them. He puts up an additional bet equal to his first bet and plays two hands with the first card in each hand being one member of the pair that he split. Splitting is a really good idea if you get a pair of eights because two eights are sixteen. There is little chance that a sixteen will win and a very high chance that taking another card will put the player over 21 because the high majority of the cards in the deck yield that result. An eight as the first card in a hand, however, is not so bad. A 9, a 10, a face card, or an ace gives the player a playable 17, 18 or 19. A two or three gives the player a 10 or 11 and a strong chance to get 20 or 21 on the next card. A four, five, six, or seven, leaves the player with a difficult hand but one that is not as bad as the original 16. If the player gets another 8, he gets to split again. Splitting eights is a good play. The same is true of a pair of aces but the probabilities are not important.
After his first two cards, a player also has the option to “double down”. To do that, he doubles his bet and gets exactly one more card. This is a good idea when the player has a 10 or 11 because the next card cannot put him over 21 and has a high probability of making a very strong 20 or 21. It can also be very powerful if the player believes that the dealer has a weak hand. Like splitting, however, it is risky because it requires the player to double his wager.
In Blackjack, a 21 wins the vast majority of the time and ties the rest of the time. That is a very good hand. Totals from 12 through 16 do not win unless the dealer busts. That certainly does not happen often enough to make those very good hands. Because those are not very good hands, in most cases players should take another card and hope to improve. Seventeen is a very difficult hand because it is only a winner if the dealer busts but the odds are very high that another card will bust the player. An 18 is a little better because it wins if the dealer has 17 or busts. A 19 is better still and will win more often than not. A 20 is a very good hand. It beats or ties every hand except 21. Getting a 20 is not perfect and does not assure victory but it is very good and is definitely cause for celebration.
How can a person mess up a 20? Suppose that your first two cards are an ace and a nine. You will recall that the ace counts for 1 or 11. The player could decide to count the ace as 1 and double down which would require him to double his bet and receive exactly one more (at this point unidentified) card. The other choice is to count the ace as 11 and stay with 20. Our life rule says we should stay with the 20 even though we might have an opportunity to make more money by doubling down. The reason is simple. The 20 will win the vast majority of the time and will lose to only a few extraordinary hands that allow the dealer to draw to 21. Never mess up a 20.
There is another way to mess up a 20 in Blackjack. If you have two face cards, say a Jack and a King, you have 20. Even though you have a good hand, you have a decision to make. You can double your bet and split the two face cards into two hands in which the starting card is a face card in each of the hands. You might think this is a good idea because you believe the dealer has some more face cards he is about to deal or he might even have an ace in there for you. You might think this is an especially good idea if you are convinced the dealer has a weak hand and will probably bust. If you think that sounds like a good idea, you are wrong. Splitting face cards means that you are trading a very good hand that is very likely to win for two hands, the fate of which is entirely up to the cards. Never mess up a 20.
How does this rule apply outside of a casino? We are faced with situations in which we have the functional equivalent of a 20 all the time. In life, as in Blackjack, never mess up that hand.
Take the example of the very solid marriage. The husband and wife truly love each other. They enjoy spending time together and have common interests and goals. The children are healthy and happy. The in-laws are no problem. Both spouses have good jobs in which their futures are reasonably safe. They make enough money to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads, and have a little left over for retirement savings, entertainment, vacations, and other discretionary spending. They could use more money so they could get a newer car, some nicer furniture and have enough to send the kids to private school. This is a classic 20. The spouses should not mess with the 20 by arguing over finances to the extent that they destroy the good relationship. They should not double down and take an extraordinarily risky job with a big payout and the risk of significant losses. They should not split their face cards by canceling their health insurance in the hope that they will raise enough money to send the kids to private school. Their 20 is a very good hand. They should stay with the hand and strive to make their lives better by avoiding huge risks.
This rule says a lot about how one should view the world. The idea of not messing up a 20 in Blackjack is all based on the probabilities associated with the other options. If you split face cards, you have to double your bet for two hands that have about a 50/50 chance of becoming losers. If you stay with the 20, you do not have to increase your bet and you have about an 80% chance of winning the hand. If you do the math, it becomes very clear that the expected value of staying greatly exceeds the expected value of splitting the cards. The decision will not be right every time but, at the time you make the decision, it has a greater likelihood of being the right decision. If we face every decision in life the same way, we will definitely come out better over the long haul.
Rule Six: Never mess up a 20.
Rule for Life Number 6
Never Mess Up a 20.
