How to play Blackjack

A card from two to ten counts its number. A jack, a queen or a king counts ten. An ace counts eleven, or one when eleven would take the hand over 21. A hand counts the sum of its cards.

A hand with an ace counted as eleven is soft: it cannot go bust on the next card, because the ace can drop to one. Without one it is hard.

1. A fresh pack is shuffled. Seat by seat, everybody puts out a bet from the table's sizes.
2. Two cards go to every seat face up, and two to the dealer: the first face up, the second face down. That one is the hole card.
3. If the dealer's up card is an ace or worth ten, the dealer looks under it. A dealer with blackjack turns it over at once, and the round is settled there.
4. Otherwise each seat plays its hand in turn: hit, stand, double or split.
5. Last the dealer turns the hole card over, draws by the rule, and every hand still standing is paid or taken.

Hit: take another card. Take as many as you like, one at a time. At 21 you stop by yourself, because another card could only lose.

Stand: keep what you have, and the turn passes.

Double: put out as much again as your bet, and take exactly one more card. Allowed on any first two cards. It is the move for a hand that one good card will make.

Split: two cards of the same value can be split into two hands, with a bet on each, and each is dealt a second card. A king splits with a queen. Each hand is then played on its own, and either may double. Split aces take one card each and stop, and 21 on a split hand counts as 21, not blackjack. A seat splits once.

The dealer decides nothing. After every seat has played, the dealer turns the hole card over and takes cards until the hand counts 17 or more.

On a soft 17 the dealer stands, unless the table has agreed the dealer takes a card, which is the rule at many casinos and slightly worse for the players.

If every hand is bust or a blackjack, there is nothing to beat, and the dealer only turns the hole card over.

Closer to 21 than the dealer, or still standing when the dealer goes bust: you win as much as you bet.

The same count as the dealer: a push, and your bet comes back.

Blackjack, an ace and a ten-card as your first two: you win three for every two you bet, rounded down to a whole chip. It ties a dealer's blackjack, which beats every other hand.

Over 21: bust, and the bet is lost straight away, even if the dealer goes bust after you.

The dealer's up card is half the decision. Against a two to six the dealer is likely to go bust, so stand on 12 or more against a four, five or six, and on 13 or more against a two or three. Against a seven or more, hit until you have 17.

Double on 11 against anything but an ace, on 10 against a nine or less, and on 9 against a three to six. Always split aces and eights. Never split tens or fives: twenty is a good hand, and two fives are a ten to double on.

That chart is called basic strategy, and played exactly it leaves the house less than a chip in every hundred. The computer's best players use all of it, and size their bets by where they stand in the match.

A match is a set number of rounds, the first seat to bet moving on one each round. Or it has no number at all, and whoever made the table ends it between rounds. It ends early when fewer than two seats have chips left.

The biggest pile at the end wins. A shared top pile is a draw. The house pays from a bank with no bottom, so a whole table can finish up. The chips belong to this table and are not your coins.

The dealer's cards lie across the middle, beside the house's heap of gold. Every seat's cards lie in front of it face up, with its count in its label and its bet as a stack of chips. On your turn the status line says what you have against the dealer's up card. While the table bets, the buttons below are the table's sizes. While it plays, they are Hit, Stand, Double and Split, and only what you may do can be pressed. Several people can share one phone: everybody's cards are face up anyway, so there is nothing to hide.

Every table here plays the rules above. These are what a table agrees before the first bet.

Blackjack

The game, and the hand that names it: an ace and a ten-card as the first two. Also twenty-one.

Hit

Take another card.

Stand

Take no more cards.

Bust

Over 21, which loses.

Soft

A hand with an ace counted as eleven.

Push

A tie with the dealer. The bet comes back.

Hole card

The dealer's face-down card, turned over when the seats have played.