Blackjack

Posted by umerblackeagle on September 27th, 2010

Buying Chips

You'll need to purchase some chips from the dealer for your bets once you are seated at a table. Wait for a break in the action, and place your cash out in front of you on the table. An appropriate buy-in amount is anywhere from 10 to 20 times your average bet. If you are a $5 bettor, this means a buy-in of $50-$100 is typical. Don't try to hand your cash to the dealer. He can't take anything from your hands for some security reasons. Simply lay the cash on the table; he'll pick it up and change it for an equal value of playing chips. You won't be getting any change back either. He'll change the entire amount, push the chips across the table to you, and then drop the cash into a slot in the table top. Red chips representing $5, green chips representing $25, and black chips representing $100 in the casino industry and it?s fairly standardized. You'll also see $1 value chips (usually white) or $1 tokens (silver) on the table as well. Pink color is also used in some casinos for $2.50 chip. Chip colors above the $100 denomination vary widely, with purple a common choice for $500 chips. Take a quick look at the chips to make sure that you know the values, and that you were given the correct amount for your cash.  Just ask the dealer if you have any questions. Part of his job is to help the players to learn the game.

Cashing In

You'll want to take your chips to the cashier to exchange them for cash when you're finished playing. The dealer will probably want to "color up" your chips if you have groups of smaller denomination chips in front of you. This simply means exchanging groups of smaller denomination chips for larger valued chips. Wait until the end of a hand, and then simply push your chips out in front of you between the betting boxes, so it can't be confused for a bet. The dealer will return to you a smaller stack of chips of equal value by counting down the chips. You can take these to the cashier for cash, or to another table for more play.

Premise of the Game

The basic premise of the game is that you want to have a hand value that is closer to 21 than that of the dealer, without going over 21. Your hand is strictly played out against the hand of the dealer. The rules of play for the dealer are strictly dictated, leaving no decisions up to the dealer. Therefore, there is not a problem with the dealer or any of the other players at the table seeing the cards in your hand. Indeed, if you're playing at a shoe game, the player cards are all dealt face up. Don't hesitate to show the dealer or other players your cards and ask questions in any event when you're just learning to play.

Now here are some terminologies or rules about blackjack and signals how they should pass on with which you should be familiar so that you can play the game easily.

• Hit: Take another card from the dealer.

Signal: (handheld) Scrape cards against table. (face up) Touch finger to table or wave hand toward him or herself.

• Stand: Take no more cards; also known as "stand pat", "stick", or "stay".

Signal: (handheld) Slide cards under chips. (face up) wave hand horizontally.

Now the following two rules are just for first decision of a hand.

• Double down: The player is allowed to increase the initial bet by up to 100% in exchange for committing to stand after receiving exactly one more card. The additional bet is placed in the betting box next to the original bet. Some games do not permit the player to increase the bet by amounts other than 100%. Non-controlling players may double their wager or decline to do so, but they are bound by the controlling player's decision to take only one card.

Signal: Place additional chips next to (not on top of) the original bet. Point with one finger.

• Split a pair: If the first two cards are a "pair" (of the same denomination), the player can split them into two hands, by moving a second bet equal to the first into an area outside the betting box of the original bet. The dealer separates the two cards and draws a further card on each, placing one bet with each hand.

Signal: Place additional chips next to the original bet outside the betting box. Point with two fingers spread into a V formation.

• Surrender: Some games offer the option to "surrender." After the dealer has checked for blackjack, the player may "surrender", whereupon the house will take half the player's bet and return the other half to the player; this terminates the player's interest in the hand. There being no commonly accepted hand signal. The request to surrender is made verbally,

 Values of the Cards

In blackjack, the cards are valued as follows:

• An Ace can count as either 1 or 11.
• The cards from 2 through 9 are valued at their face value.
• The 10, Jack, Queen, and King are all valued at 10.

The value of a hand is simply the sum of the point counts of each card in the hand. For example, a hand containing (5, 7, 9) has the value of 21. The Ace can be counted as either 1 or 11 and you need not specify which value the Ace has. It's assumed to always have the value that makes the best hand. An example will illustrate this further more: Suppose that you have the beginning hand (Ace, 6). This hand can be either 7 or 17. If you stop there, it will be 17. Let's assume that you draw another card to the hand and now have (Ace, 6, 3). Your total hand is now 20, counting the Ace as 11. Let's backtrack and assume that you had instead drawn a third card which was an 8. The hand is now (Ace, 6, 8) which totals 15. Notice that now the Ace must be counted as only 1 to avoid going over 21.

A hand that contains an Ace is called a "soft" total if the Ace can be counted as either 1 or 11 without the total going over 21. For example (Ace, 6) is a soft 17. The description stems from the fact that the player can always draw another card to a soft total with no danger of going over 21. The hand (Ace, 6, 10) on the other hand is a "hard" 17 and the reason is obvious that you should not move over 21.

Surrender

It is appropriate to begin with surrender because this decision must be made before any other choice about playing your hand. Not every game offers surrender, and those that do fall into two categories: Early vs. Late.

At the cost of half of the original bet surrender offers you as a player the choice to fold your hand. You must make that decision before making any other decision to take any other action on the hand. For example, surrender is no longer an option once you draw a third card, or split, or double down.

The two varieties of surrender, early and late, differ only in the way a dealer blackjack is handled. A player may choose to surrender before the dealer checks his cards for a blackjack, in an early surrender game, offering a cheap way out even if the dealer turns out to have a blackjack. This version is rarely offered because this offers a healthy advantage to the player, The much more common variation is late surrender, where the dealer checks for blackjack first, and then only if he does not have blackjack will he allow players to surrender their hands.

For players who use it wisely surrender is an excellent rule. Unfortunately, many players surrender far too many hands. To understand how bad a hand must be to properly be surrendered, consider the following example: To lose less with surrender, you must be only 25% likely to win the hand. That is, if you lose 75% of the time, and win only 25% of the time, your net loss is about 50% of your bets, equal to the amount you'll lose guaranteed by surrendering. So, learn to use the surrender option but when it is appropriate.

Player decisions

After receiving his initial two cards, the player has four standard options: he can "hit," "stand," "double down," or "split a pair." Each option requires the use of a hand signal .The player may have a fifth option, called?surrender" at some casinos or tables.