Blackjack basics

You know the game and you are already fond of it!
Blackjack, to be frank, is mostly a game of skill. That does not mean that it excludes totally the “luck” part, after all – once in a while you just don’t get good cards! But this master card game is mostly about knowing when to hit or stand. If you apply a proper strategy, you can turn the odds in your favor, but not by chance. What you actually do is that you create a positive mathematical expectation.

Let us take a brief look over the basic blackjack rule: the object of the game is to gather a hand that is higher than the dealer’s but not higher than 21!

Strategy consists in calculating the chances for getting the required cards. Don’t get intimidated! Learning a proper strategy does not resable the mastering of nuclear physics! Let me give you a simple lesson about card values: you have the Tens and Face Cards have the value of 10, Aces have the value of 1 or 11 and the rest have the same value as their face value. The next issue covers the play itself: the dealer is you opponent, not the other players. Each of them makes a bet. The dealer will deal two cards for each player and two for himself. His second card will be placed face up on the table.

If he has „Blackjack” he will win the bets automatocally, unless one of the players has also Blackjack. This is situation is called a tie. From the starting point – the player that sits on the dealer’s left – each player chooses to satnd or deal extra cards. All continues until une of them gets a card count that has a value of more than 21. The folowing moment is when all players decide and the dealer draws extra cards to obtain a total of 17 or higher, or to bust. If his hand does not bust, all the players with a higher card total win (and of course, those with a lower total value of the cards – loose).