A soft hand in blackjack is a card combination that contains an ace. These hands have more flexibility in terms of their total value than hard ones since the ace can be counted as either one or eleven. Knowing how to play these types of hands correctly is a crucial part of the game and can make a significant difference in your results.

There are many different strategies that can be used in blackjack, and some of them involve using both soft and hard hands. Generally speaking, the basic strategy recommends that players should hit their hard hands when the dealer has a weak up-card and stand on their soft hands when the dealer has a strong up-card. There are some exceptions to this rule, however, as some hands may be better off splitting. The best way to determine whether a hand is soft or not is by looking at the total of the cards and counting them.

As mentioned above, the main advantage of a soft hand is its ability to count as either 11 or 1 depending on the other cards in your hand. This gives you more control over your hand’s total, which is why many gamblers hope for these types of hands. It also means that you cannot bust your hand by taking a single hit, which is something that can happen to hard hands.

In addition, soft hands will usually convert into hard hands if you draw a third card that is higher than the original hand’s total. For example, if you have a soft 15 consisting of an ace and four and then draw a seven, your soft 15 will turn into a hard 15 because the ace is now no longer counted as 11.

Another important aspect of soft hands is that they do not affect the dealer in the same way as hard hands do. This is because the dealer must follow a set of rules and must always hit on any score of 16 or lower and stand on all scores of 17 or higher. However, the player can still benefit from having a soft hand by choosing to double down when the dealer has a low up-card and is likely to bust.

While many of the moves from the basic strategy chart are logical and intuitive to novice blackjack players, there are some that are not, leading novices to frequently misplay certain hands. In particular, there are several common mistakes that blackjack players make when playing soft 13 through soft 17 hands against a dealer with a 5, 6, or 7 up-card. This article will discuss these mistakes and how to avoid making them. In addition, we will examine a few general strategies that can be used to maximize the potential of a soft hand in blackjack.