If you are interested in playing blackjack to win money then you need to follow a systematic, proven winning strategy. You need to follow it religiously, and you need to practice using that strategy until you are sure it is fixed within your mind, before you start using it "professionally".

What will the strategy do? If you follow it faultlessly over a long period, you will beat the house and walk away from the casino with more money than you walked in with, as simple as that.

Remember this is like going to work. You are a professional. Just as you try to make sure you go to your workplace well rested and calm, you should do the same when you go to a casino to win money.

Self-discipline is crucial, never let your emotions get the better of you. Always use your head and not your heart. You must not let a string of losses or a sudden hunch disturb you.

Just remember how a professional boxer in the ring ignores the crowd and accepts that he is going to take some punches.

Be confident. Remember that this strategy is a mathematical fact, that it was developed by the use of the highest computer technology and has been proven to work if used properly.

Practice on a computer, you can download free blackjack simulation software over the internet that shows you what to do and when to do it.

When you make a mistake playing the simulation, these programs point it out to you and explain how to get it right next time, as well as giving you full spectrum coaching. I recommend printing out the strategy formula below and putting it next to your computer, then follow it when you play.

For most people this is the quickest way to memorize the strategy (obviously you cannot bring a chart into the casino) – it just seeps into your unconscious mind. However you do need to do some hard work of pure memorization first before this way of learning will be effective, in order to make the brain receptive.

The way to do this is as follows: copy the chart out a few times whilst making sure that your mind does not wander. Then take a break for ten minutes. When you return, copy the chart out from memory.

You almost certainly will not be able to do it successfully upon the first attempt but keep going and you will get there. Once you are able to copy the whole chart out, then cut it into segments by situation, mix them up, and learn to copy these out by memory.

Test yourself by selecting the situations at random and making sure that you can immediately give the right response.

When you start using the system in a casino, begin with small bets. It is better to spend hours making a profit of two dollars to prove to yourself that you have got it right, than it is to blow a few thousand and shatter your confidence after all the hard work you have put in practicing at home.

So, let us move on to the nuts and bolts of the strategy and see how it guarantees a win. First the bad news: the strategy can only be used successfully at a blackjack table where the cards are not shuffled until the card shoe is empty.

However, the good news is that it is not too hard to find casinos that run tables like this, and the strategy works whether there is one deck of cards placed in the shoe or multiple decks as the principles are the same in both cases.

When an unskilled player faces the house over a blackjack table, the house has an advantage over the player in excess of four percent. In other words for every hundred dollars bet, the player will win back only ninety-six on average.

By using this system properly the skilled player will reduce this advantage to the point where he or she will lose only fifty cents for every hundred dollars bet. To tip the advantage a couple of percent in favor of the player, a card counting system (not dealt with here) needs to be used in conjunction with this strategy.

Now we are ready to look at the strategy table. The numerical values represent the numbers on the cards, all picture cards are worth ten except and ace is represented as an "A".