Black Jack

Game rules

Black Jack is one of the most famous card games ever, it got most of its popularity because it is quite simple, and because it is played in almost all casinos across the world.

The objective of the game is to obtain the greatest possible score with your cards, but without ever going above 21. A hand of more than 21 points always and definitely loses.

Course of the game

The dealer begins by taking players' bets. The players bet independently from each other. Then, the dealer deals two cards to each player, and takes a card for himself afterwards. Then it is the turn of the players, and finally the dealer plays his own turn. All cards dealt are shown so that everybody can see everything.

At your turn, you have two basic options:

Once all players have been dealt cards, the dealer plays for himself using a fixed and simple rule: he takes a hit at 16 or below, and stands at 17 or above.

When the dealer finishes playing his own turn, his hand is compared with the hand of each player:

In other words and in short, if the dealer exceeded 21, all players who haven't busted win, otherwise only players who scored better than the dealer win.

Here are the values of the cards:

Doubling the bet

At any time during your turn, you can decide to double your bet. By doing that, you agree to take a final hit and then stand with whatever you drew. This can be interesting if you have 10 or 11 points at the time of the deal, with the hope to draw an ace or a face card, so that you reach exactly 21.

Split a pair

When you are dealt a pair, you can decide to split your hand into two hands, and then keep going with two distinct hands. The two hands are completely independent and are played one after the other like normal hands. You pay your bet a second time, as if you were playing twice at the same time.

If you win with both hands, you win twice your bet. If you win with one of the two hands, at the end you don't win and don't lose anything. And if you lose with both hands, you lose twice your initial bet. This possibility is especially interesting for pairs of 8s, 9s, 10s, face cards or aces.

Insurance

If the dealer shows a face card or an ace, you can take the insurance against a possible black jack. You must pay half of your initial bet for this. If you then split or have already split before, you must pay the insurance for each hand.

Fold or forfeit

If the dealer shows an ace, a face card or any other card which you consider dangerous, and if your own hand is quite bad, you can decide to forfeit immediately if you haven't yet drawn any cards nor have performed any other action. In this case, you get half of your bet back, the other half is lost.

Permanent chips

Black Jack introduces something new which certainly won't leave you indifferent as a playroom player. The chips that you accumulate game after game are permanent. In other words, if you quit a black jack table with 25000 chips, you will start your next game with those 25000 chips back. This allows us to establish a ranking of the greatest fortunes accumulated ever in the game, just like you have the best scores for yahtzee or other games.

Should you lose all your chips, you will always start again with at least 1000 fresh ones at the beginning of a new game.

Keyboard shortcuts summary