Black Jack rules

Are you Interested in learning Black Jack rules?

Black Jack is my probably my favourite game, it is a card game that is played at a semicircular table. To play the game you need at least one regular deck of 52 cards. In casinos they can use anything from 1 deck to infinite decks (machines shuffling the cards all the time). The objective is to beat the dealers hand with your own, both the dealer and player will try to get their hands as close to 21 as possible without exceeding 21; exceeding 21 is an immediate loss.

The cards from 2-10 are ranked by the face value. The Jack, Queen and King are counted as 10, and the Ace is counted as either 1 or 11 whichever the player decides is best for that hand.The dealer will give all the players and himself two cards.

One of the dealers cards will be facing up. The players will look at their hands and then decide depending on the dealers up card how to play their hand.

The Player options are:

Hit - This is when the player asks for additional cards to improve his hand. The player can keep telling the dealer to give the hand additional cards until either the hand goes over 21 or the player decides to stand.

Stand - The player can choose to stand at any time, this is when player decides that this is as good as his hand will get and lets the next person play their hand. Or if there are no other players the dealer will finish his hand.

Double Down - This rule option is limited by the individual casino rules, some rules permits the player to double down on any first two cards, others only let the player double down on the first two cards if they total 11, 10 or 9. When a player doubles down he needs to raise his initial wager by the same amount, so you double your bet. When you do that the dealer will give that hand one additional card and then it automatically stands.

Split - If you get two of the same cards, like two sixes you may split them, thus getting two hands. This will require making another wager of the same amount as the original hand. Sometimes you may resplit up to 2 or 3 times if another splitting opportunity arises. Double Down after splitting is sometimes offered.

Surrender (very rare rule) - Some casinos let´s you give the hand up. If you do this you forfeit half the bet and the hand is discarded. This option is generally only offered after the dealer checks for blackjack, known as "late surrender."

After all players have finished playing their hands, it is the dealers turn. The dealer must hit until either reaching a total of 17 to 21 or busting. If he busts all the players that did not bust wins. If dealer does not bust all player hand totals are compared to the dealer hand total. If players hand total is greater than dealer player wins. If dealers total is higher the dealer wins. If totals are equal the hand is a push.

Whenever the ace is counted as 11 instead of 1; this is called a soft hand. On the canvas of the Blackjack table it usually says "stand on all 17" that means the dealer stands on soft 17 as well. If it does not say "stand on all 17" on the Black jack canvas then the dealer will hit soft 17.

Do you feel ready to test your new skills? My favourite online casino for playing Black Jack on the Internet is below.