Five card Charlie: the rule and what it is worth

How the Charlie rule works

• Five cards, 21 or less: the hand wins at once and is paid 1:1. You do not wait for the dealer.
• The dealer checks for blackjack first. If she has one, the round ends before you draw, so a Charlie never meets a dealer blackjack.
• A doubled hand cannot get there: a double takes exactly one card, so it ends with three.
• A hand still stops at 21. Our numbers do not hit a soft 21 to reach five cards.
• The dealer has no Charlie: five dealer cards are just a total.

Five cards, hard 16. Without the rule this hand would lose to the dealer's 20. With five card Charlie it has already won.

What five, six and seven card Charlie are worth

The fewer cards the rule needs, the more often it pays. Five card Charlie is worth about 10 times as much as six card Charlie.

House edge as a share of the first bet; a minus sign means the average is in the player's favour. “Chart for the rule” plays the chart below, “normal chart” plays the usual basic strategy chart and simply collects the Charlies. Worth = how much the rule lowers the house edge, in percentage points, with the chart for the rule. How often: our simulation, playing the chart for the rule. 6 decks, dealer hits soft 17, double after split, up to 4 hands, aces split once, no surrender, blackjack pays 3:2, a Charlie pays 1:1.

If you keep playing the normal chart, five card Charlie still lowers the house edge by 1.11 points. Playing the chart for the rule adds another 0.40 points, and a Charlie then comes almost twice as often: about 1 round in 44 instead of about 1 round in 81.

Where the rule helps most

The rule is worth most against a 10 (+2.30 points) and least against a 6 (+0.40). Against strong dealer cards you hit more, so more hands reach five cards; against a 4, 5 or 6 the chart stands early and waits for the dealer to bust.

Change in your average result per bet, in percentage points, against each dealer up card (chart for the rule against the normal game).

How the strategy changes with five card Charlie

With the rule, a hand of four cards is one card away from a win, so the chart hits more. The change depends on how many cards you hold, so there are three charts below. Pick the one for the number of cards in your hand.

• Four cards: hit every soft hand. A fifth card cannot bust it, so it always makes a Charlie.
• Four cards: hit hard 17 against a 9, a 10 and an ace, and hard 12 against a 4, 5 or 6, hard 13 to 15 against a 2 to 6 and hard 16 against a 2, where the normal chart stands.
• First two cards: fewer doubles and splits. Hard 11 against an ace is a hit, and some soft doubles become hits: hitting keeps the hand open for more cards. Some pairs are hit instead of split: 2s against a 2 or 3, 3s against a 2 and aces against a 9, 10 or ace.

H hit, S stand, D double (otherwise hit), Ds double (otherwise stand), P split. Outlined cells differ from the normal chart for the same table without the Charlie rule; on three or more cards the normal chart hits where it says D and stands where it says Ds. 6 decks, dealer hits soft 17, double after split, no surrender.

All other two-card plays stay as in the normal basic strategy chart. Hands of five cards never need a decision: they have already won.

Six and seven card Charlie

Six card Charlie lowers the house edge by 0.14 points (0.62% to 0.47%), seven card Charlie by 0.01. The chart changes the same way, one card later: with six card Charlie, hit every soft hand of five cards and the outlined hard totals.

With seven card Charlie the same happens with six cards. A Charlie of six cards comes about 1 round in 440, of seven cards about 1 round in 5,967, so the rule barely changes the game.

Five card Charlie with other rules

The other rules of the table decide the final number. A 6:5 blackjack payout more than cancels five card Charlie: 0.47% with both rules. See 6 to 5 blackjack.

House edge with the chart for each rule set; a minus sign favours the player. All rows: double after split, no surrender, dealer peeks for blackjack. The 6:5 row: the same game with blackjack paid 6:5.

On paper, five card Charlie with otherwise standard rules puts the average in the player's favour. Before you trust it, read every rule on the table's rules screen: the payout, the soft 17 rule and the number of decks. Any single session can still lose. How to read the rules: blackjack rules.

Where you meet the rule

Five, six or seven card Charlie is an extra rule that some blackjack games add; when a game has it, the rules screen says so. Pontoon, a British relative of blackjack, has a similar rule called the five card trick. In a game without the rule, five cards are simply a total.

Victoria's tip

If a table offers a Charlie rule, check how many cards it needs and what it pays before the first hand.

Questions people ask