"You use the Answer table that has the answer", is the simple answer! Check the tables in this order:   Doubling table --> Splitting table --> Standing table.

Let’s say you want to know if you should hit or double down.

Here’s a rather obvious scenario: Suppose I’m dealt a 7 and a 5 for a total of 12. The Dealer has a 6. Should I hit or double down? Here’s what to do: First look in the Hard Doubling table to find the row labeled 12. But there is no row "12", so I deduce this table does not apply. I don’t have a pair, so the Pair Splitting

table doesn’t apply. Therefore the Hard Standing Number table remains to be interrogated. It will tell me the answer, because it has the square which I am "on" -- at the intersection of row 12 and column 6. The value shown there is [0]. More about how to use this answer later.

Imagine you have a pair of 9’s and the dealer shows a 10.

You want to know if you should hit or split the pair you hold, or if you should double down. Follow the rule: Doubling --> Splitting --> Standing (DSS).

Hard Doubling table doesn’t apply, because there is no row labeled 18 (9+9).

The Pair Splitting table advises to do nothing in regard to splitting—there is nothing at the square at the intersection of the 9,9 row and the 10 column.

A hand total of 18 tells us we must stand because it is above the shaded STAND demarcation of row seventeen in the Hard Standing table.

Let’s say you have a pair of 4’s and the dealer shows a 9.

You want to know if you should hit, split, or double down. Follow the same DSS rule.

The Hard Doubling table has no answer in the square at row 8 and column 9. So we go to the next table, the Splitting table.

The Pair Splitting table does not advise us the square at row 4,4 and the 10 column is blank, so we must continue.

Again, a hand total of 8 is below the beginning of the Hard Standing table and we should HIT.

We have purposely and laboriously stepped through the procedure of asking the Answer Tables. In Most cases the order in which you interrogate the tables is intuitively obvious. But we see that the DSS sequence always is the correct choice. The underlying principle is easy. Next we will learn how to ‘count’ and how to combine the count with our square in the answer table.

  It’s called ‘card counting’ because you are counting how many of each kind of card you see during play. Many people believe that card counters remember or count every card played. Not so! Most Black Jack Strategies only keep track of certain kinds of cards—categories. The categories of cards with which the +Plus Perfect^™ Black Jack Strategy concerns itself are few: TENs, Non-TENs and EIGHTs. Aces are not Tens -— they count as non-Tens!

That’s it!

This strategy was designed for multiple deck games as well as for single deck games. For now, assume that we are playing against one deck. Very little changes when you play against a shoe  of more than one deck, and we’ll see that later.