Blackjack is a card game that pits a player against the dealer. The goal is to acquire as close to 21 points as possible, while avoiding being out of chips.
There are a variety of ways to play blackjack, but the basic strategy is the same in all variants. The dealer starts with two cards face up, and each player either chooses to stand (stay) or hit (put money into the pot). If the player chooses to hit, the dealer flips over one of the cards and plays it face up (this is now the player’s card).
If the player decides to stand, the next card is flipped and play continues as usual. The goal is to either get as close to 21 points as possible (called “busting”), or avoid being busted by playing better than the dealer’s hand.
The amount of money that a player starts with in blackjack depends on what variant they are playing. In regular blackjack, a player starts with anywhere from 2-10 chips.
In Spanish Blackjack, players start with 1-5 cards and must add any face card (2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7) to their hand before playing any other cards. In Double Exposure Blackjack, each hand features two decks of 52 cards – one for the player and one for the dealer – and each player starts with twice their normal number of chips.
