When you're dealt with a 16 and the dealer shows a seven it may seem that staying pat and not busting is the smarter play.

However, the smart play is to always hit your 16 against a dealer showing a seven, and here's why.

When dealt a 16 against an upcard of a seven, you have two logical plays: hit or stand. Simulating these playing conditions with millions of hands on a computer will illustrate that you will win approximately 34% when you hit and only 27% of the time if you stand.

Nevertheless, though hitting gains you roughly 7%, the dealer is still most likely going to beat you. All we are recommending is minimizing your losses by hitting versus standing.

Another tricky hand in blackjack is whether to double down, or not, when you have an 11 against an Ace.

To double or hit an 11 against an Ace can cause disagreement even amongst many pros. I recommend playing this hand differently depending on the number of decks in play. With a multiple-deck game, you would just hit your 11 against an ace, whereas when playing single deck, you would double down. Reason being, you are more likely to get a decent card on a single deck game than one using multiple decks.

For instance, say you have a two-card 11, an eight and a three. In a single deck game, without considering depletion, there are 50 remaining cards, and 16 of them, or 32 percent, are 10-value cards that will give you a 21 on your double down. With an 8-deck game, there are 414 remaining cards, and 128 of them, or 30.9 percent, are the favorable 10-cards.

Of course, sometimes my logic fills the mailbag with disagreement, so if you have a differing opinion, please let me know what your take is on this hand and why.