The following rules are beneficial to the skilled player:

1. Doubles are permitted on any two-card hand except a blackjack.
2. Doubles are permitted after splitting.
3. Early surrender; the ability to forfeit half your wager against a face or ace before the dealer checks for blackjack.
4. Normal (aka "late") surrender.
5. Resplitting Aces.
6. Drawing more than one card against a split Ace.
7. Five or more cards with the total still no more than 21 as an automatic win ("Charlies")

The following rules are detrimental to the skilled player:

1. Less than 3:2 payout on blackjacks (as is the case with Las Vegas Strip single-deck blackjack, paying out 6:5)
2. Splitting a maximum of once (to two hands)
3. Double down restricted to certain totals, such as 9-11 or 10,11
4. Aces may not be resplit
5. No-Peek (European) blackjack—player loses splits and doubles to a dealer blackjack
6. Player losing ties

Basic Strategy Tables

The above is a basic strategy table for the most common 6- to 8-deck, Las Vegas Strip rules. Specifically: dealer hits on soft 17, double after split allowed, multiple split aces, one card to split aces, blackjack pays 3:2, and (optionally) late surrender.

Key:

S = Stand

H = Hit

D = Double

SP = SPlit

R = suRrender if allowed, otherwise hit

Rs = suRrender if allowed, otherwise Stand

Rsp = suRrender if allowed, otherwise SPlit

In some LV Strip casinos you may still be able to find the older version of the multi-deck shoe game, where dealer stands on soft 17; those are usually high minimum ($50 or more) tables. This version is much more advantageous to the player, but requires a slightly modified basic strategy table.

Basic strategy for other decks and rules can be found at http://www.wizardofodds.com/blackjack.

Interactive strategy tables for each possible card-distribution in the shoe can be found at http://www.beatblackjack.org