There are a variety of ways to play blackjack, each with its own rules. However, the most common way to play is with two cards, one in your hand and one face down on the table. You then decide whether to hit or stand.
If you hit, you replace the card you hit with another from your hand and take your original bet. If you stand, you keep the original bet and nothing else changes.
When playing blackjack with a deck of 52 cards, there are theoretically 21 possible hands. However, in practice there are only 18 hands that are useful because three of them (Ace high, two pair, three of a kind) always pay off even if the initial bet is not enough to cover them.
The other three hands (two pairs, straight, flush) require a different amount of initial bet depending on how many cards are in your hand. For example, if you have two cards and an Ace, you would bet one unit; if you have two cards and a 2 or 3, you would bet two units; and if you have three cards including an Ace, you would bet three units.
There are four basic strategies for playing blackjack: hold (no cards), hit (one card), stand (no cards), and push (one or more cards). It is important to learn which strategy is best for you so that you can make the most informed bets.
