Black Jack
Game rules
Black Jack is one of the most famous card game ever, which got most of its popularity because it is quite simple, and because it is played in allmost 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 is always and definitely lost out.
Course of the game
The dealer begins by taking players' bets. Each player bet independently from eachother. Then, the dealer deals two cards to each player,and takes a card for himself afterwards. Then 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:
- stand, in which case you keep your current score and the next player goes.
- take a hit (or simply hit), in which case you draw a card. If your new score taking the card you have just drawn into account goes above 21, you have immediately lost the round. If you don't reach 21, you can again decide to take another hit or to stand to your current score. You can draw as many cards as you wish as long as you stay below 21. A player who exceeded that score is said to have busted.
Once all players have been served, the dealer plays for himself using a fixed and simple rule: he takes an hit at 16 or below, and stand at 17 or above.
When the dealer has finished to play his own turn, the and of the later is compared with the hand of each player :
- Always provided that you didn't exceed 21, if your score is greater than the dealer's, you win your bet.
- If your scores are identical, you get your bet back but don't win anything more.
- If your score is less than the dealer's, you lose your bet.
- In any case, if your score is above 21, your bet is lost.
- If you win by making a black jack, meaning a score of 21 with exactly two cards served (an ace and a figure), you win one and half your bet.
In other words and in short, if the dealer went above 21, all the players who haven't busted win, otherwise only players who made better than the dealer win.
Here are the value of the cards :
- Cards from 2 to 9 are worth their nominal value
- 10 and figures are worth 10 points
- An ace can be worth 1 or 11 points on choice of the player. In general, one choose the value which gives the best total without going above 21.
- Note that a score of 21 obtained by doing black jack always beat a score of 21 obtained with 3 cards or more.
Doubling bet
IN 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 whatever you drew. This can be interesting if you get 10 or 11 points at distribution time, with the hope to draw an ace of a figure, so that you reach exactly 21.
Split a pair
When you get a served pair, you can decide to split your hand into two ones, and then keep going with two distincts hands. The two hands are completely independant and are played one after the other like normal hands. You pay a second time your bet, 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, you finally don't win and don't lose anything. And if you lose with both hands, you have lost twice your initial bet. This possibility is especially interesting for pairs of 8, 9, 10, figure or aces.
Insurrance
If the dealer shows a figure or an ace, you can take the insurrance against a possible black jack. You must pay half your initial bet for this. If you then split or splitted before, you must pay an insurrance for each hand.
- If the dealer effectively does black jack, you will probably lose your initial bet, but you win twice your insurrence. At the end, you neither have won or lost anything.
- If the dealer didn't do black jack, the insurrance is lost. It doesn't necessarily implies that you have also lost your initial bet. IF you took the insurrance but win your base bet, you have finally win half your bet instead of once entirely. If you lose both the insurrance and your base bet, at the end you have lost one and half times your bet.
Fold or forfait
If the dealer shows an ace, a figure or any other card which you estimate as dangerous, and if your own hand is quite bad, you can decide to forfait immediately if you haven't yet drawn any card neither have done any other action. IN this case, you get back half your bet, the other half is lost.
Permanent chips
The Black Jack introduces something new which certainly wont leave you indifferent as a playroom player. The chips that you sum up 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 classement of the greatest fortunes accumulated ever in the game, just like you have 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
- Enter: stand / finish your turn
- Space: take a hit
- P: split a pair
- D: double your bet
- I: take insurrance
- F: forfait
- C: announce the cards currently in your hand
- V: announce the dealer's cards.
- S: announce your chip stock
- Shift+S: announce chips stock of other players
- T: announce who is playing