Playing Blackjack
The Basics
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one, Vingt-et-un (French for Twenty-one), or Pontoon, is a popular card game due to the mix of chance with elements of skill. There is much publicity that surrounds card counting (calculating the probability of advantages based on the ratio of high cards to low cards) and blackjack has become the most widely played casino banking game in the world. The casino version of the game should not be confused with the British card game Black Jack (a variant of Crazy Eights).
Each player is dealt two cards and then offered the opportunity to take more. The hand with the highest total wins as long as it doesn't exceed 21.
A hand with a higher total than 21 is said to bust.
If both the player and the dealer have the same point value, it is called a "push", and neither player nor dealer wins or loses the hand.
Cards 2 through 10 are worth their face value, and face cards (jack, queen, king) are also worth 10. An ace's value is 11 unless this would cause the player to bust, in which case it is worth 1. A hand in which an ace's value is counted as 11 is called a soft hand, because it cannot be busted if the player draws another card.
The goal of each player is to beat the dealer by having the higher, un busted hand. When a player busts he loses, even if the dealer also busts (therefore Blackjack favors the dealer).
Every player has an independent game with the dealer, so it is possible for the dealer to lose to one player, but still beat the other players in the same round.
For more details on strategy and card counting see