Blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack is one of the most popular casino games in the world, its other names are Twenty-one, Pontoon, Vingt-et-un, et cetera. But don’t confuse the casino gamble with the British card game Black Jack. The incredible popularity of this game can be explained, Blackjack is the mixture of luck and experience.
Let’s speak a little about the history of the gamble. It was first mentioned in the book of Miguel de Cervantes Novelas Ejemplares. Its main characters were two swindlers from Seville, they earned their living cheating at “Veintiuna” (twenty-one in Spanish). This story was written approximately in
1601; therefore we could assert that this game was played in Castilia since the 17 century. We also found later references of such kind of game in France.
At the first time Blackjack was not very popular in USA and casinos decided to offer bonuses for the players to attract their attention to the game. One of such offers was a 10-to-1 payout in a case the gamer had the ace of spades and a black Jack. So this hand called Blackjack, this name stuck to the game in spite of the payout was soon canceled. It’s interesting that in a present-day a game of Blackjack does not necessarily contain a jack or any black cards.
The Blackjack rules
The player with the highest total wins if the scores are not more then 21; the player with the higher total than 21 looses the game. The cards have different values, all the cards from 2 to 10 worth their face value and jack, queen and king worth 10. The ace is equal to 11, except the cases when it will cause the player to bust, in such situation the ace’s value is 1. The hand with the ace equal to 11 is called the unbusted hand; it cannot be busted in a case of the gamer draws another card.
The aim of the players is to beat the dealer, the player loses when busts even if the dealer busts too. Each player has own game with the dealer and the dealer may lose some gamers and beat the others in one round. The min/max bet is varies in different casinos and tables. When the first bets are made, the dealer deals the cards, from one or two hand-held decks of cards (so-called “pitch” game) or from a shoe containing four or more decks, which is more widely spread. The dealer gives two cards to every player including himself, one of the dealer’s cards is face down and one is face up (the face-down card is a “hole card”). In European version of the game the hole card is not dealt until the moment gamblers all play their hands.
In American Blackjack in a case when the face -up card of the dealer is an ace or some ten-value card, the dealer checks all the cards to know if it is a blackjack. It happens before the gamers start playing, but after the moment they have been offered insurance (only in the situation, when the face-up card is the ace). All players lose the bets if the dealer has the blackjack, only if the player also has the blackjack he doesn’t lose anything. In some casinos in USA the dealer checks the cards only at the end of the round, but the result is almost the same. The automatic winner is a two card hand of 21 which is called blackjack of “natural”, it is usually paid 3:2 on his bet.
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