It’s typically known as a Five-Card Trick in the UK, with Americans often referring to the same hand as ‘Five-Card Charlie’.
Whatever you call it, there’s no doubt that landing five low-scoring cards in your hand can have significant advantages in a number of different card games.
Pontoon, which is effectively an early incarnation of blackjack popularised in mainland Europe in the 17th Century, has a very similar scoring system to the casino classic. Indeed, landing a ‘pontoon’ (an ace plus a face card or 10) is the best hand in the game, as it is in blackjack.
The next best hand in Pontoon is a Five-Card Trick, a combination that also serves up rewards in many different versions of blackjack too.
What is a Five-Card Trick?
Although scoring 21, or as close as possible to it, is the order of the day in blackjack, there is an alternative route to success in some variants of the game.
A Five-Card Trick is, as the name suggests, is a hand made up of five cards that when combined don’t bust a score of 21. For example, if you were dealt 2-3-4-5-6, your total hand score would be 20 – a Five-Card Trick.
You can, numerically speaking, get a Six-Card or even Seven-Card Trick, although as you can imagine these are incredibly rare.
What’s interesting about this hand is that it beats all others in blackjack apart from the perfect 21 (where the dealer has an ace and a 10 or a face card). So, even if your Five-Card Trick totals 18 and the dealer has 19 from two cards, you would still win.
Well, that’s the idea at least. The reality is that not all casinos pay out on Five-Card Tricks….
Can I Get a Five-Card Trick in Blackjack?
One of the reasons that casinos remain profitable ventures is the house edge that all of their games deploys.
Every day in a casino, there will be winners and losers passing through the gaming floor. But the idea of the house edge – which is around 4% in blackjack against ‘average’ players and about 1% against those using perfect strategy – is that, in the long run, the house always wins.
One of the reasons that Five-Card Tricks aren’t always allowed in casino-based blackjack is that they distort the house edge in favour of the player – as much as 1.5%, in fact, which is considerable when significant sums are wagered day in, day out. Yes, there will be plenty who hit with four cards in hand and bust 21, but there will be others that gain a win even with a relatively low score of 16 or 17 where five cards are held.
Savvy players that draw two low cards early, say an ace and a 2, will also double down and increase their investment – again, that’s not a fool-proof strategy, but it can help Five-Card Tricksters to maximise their return.
On the off-chance that you do find a casino willing to accept Five-Card Tricks as part of its blackjack games, be mindful that payouts for other hands may be decreased accordingly. It wouldn’t be uncommon for the prize of a ‘natural’ blackjack to be squeezed from 3:2 to something like 6:5.
Five-Card Tricks in Online Blackjack
You’re more likely to find Five-Card Tricks allowed in some variants of online blackjack.
However, there may be a change in some of the game’s other rules to counteract the player’s edge in this case. So, a dealer may be able to hit on soft 17 – in some variants, they are forced to stand. These variations can tweak the house edge back towards the casino again.
The probability of landing five cards that don’t bust 21 is around 50/1, so while not something you are likely to encounter that often, it’s still relevant enough to ensure even online blackjack developers have put protection in place to limit their losses.
Five-Card Blackjack Strategy
Even if you find a blackjack game that allows Five-Card Tricks to stand, this is not a strategy you should be pinning your hopes on for success.
Around one in every 50 hands will result in a Five-Card Trick and that’s on average – you might have to wait even longer to be on the receiving end of one.
So, if you are dealt two low-valued cards at the start of the game, don’t have a Five-Card Trick on your mind. Instead, play the percentages – deciding whether to hit or double down based on the value of your cards and the dealer’s own upturned card.
It’s incredibly rare to have four cards in hand that offer you enough room to hit another without busting 21, and if your tally is in the high teens it may be best standing anyway – use the dealer’s upturned card as your guide as to what to do next.
If you are keen on improving your blackjack play, you’d be well served reading up on basic blackjack or even perfect blackjack strategy. This is a great way to improve your knowledge so that you know what to do in any given situation on the felt – in the long run, this will prove far more productive for you than scoring the odd Five-Card Trick.