Fortune Blackjack is a variation of blackjack that involves playing against the dealer, rather than against other players. The game is played with a standard 52-card deck, and the object is to score as many points as possible by making cards of equal or higher value than the dealer.
The player wins if the total of their hand exceeds the dealer’s score.
The game is played with two decks – an initial (starting) deck and a replacement (bonus) deck. The starting deck consists of 26 cards, including 2 jacks, 2 queens, and 2 kings.
The replacement deck consists of additional cards that are added as the game progresses, up to a maximum of 48 cards. The bonus card is always a Jack or better.
In Fortune Blackjack, the dealer stands in front of the player, and each player gets five cards. The first card dealt is face down and remains so until it is turned over to show its value. Cards that are higher in value than any other card on the table are turned over one at a time and added to the player’s hand.
If two or more cards are equal in value, they are turned over simultaneously and added to the player’s hand without counting toward their total score. If a player has no cards of equal or higher value, their hand is void and they lose the round.
The object of the game is to make as many hands as possible where each card equals or exceeds the dealer’s score. A hand consists of any combination of five cards that totals 21 or more. For example, if the first card dealt was an 8 and all subsequent cards were 5s or 6s, that would make a 5-8-5-9-J hand (a straight).
A hand totaling 13 would be made by adding together all five cards – 2-5-8-10-J (a flush). In both cases, the 10 would be turned over face up as part of the hand and added to your total score.
A player’s goal is to make as many hands as possible where each card equals or exceeds their original starting hand value – in other words, to make hands where all five cards are worth at least 1 point each (or more). For example, if you started with an 8-4-3-2 hand (two pairs), your goal would be to make hands like 3-2-8 (three tens), 5-4-10 (five fives), and so on up to Aces high (1s). If you can build up a stack of points like this while keeping track of what hands have been played so far and what hands still remain in play, you’ll eventually win!
As long as you’re not losing too badly, it doesn’t really matter which hands you make – either all high values or all low values will work fine. However, there are some hands that are easier to make when they’re combined with other hands – for example, making three tens with another three tens will give you a total of 15 points instead of 21 points, but making four fives with another four fives won’t give you enough points for a winning hand since they add up to 10 instead of 15 (ten being less than 21). It’s important to pay attention to what’s happening on the table so that you can make winning plays when they occur!
The game ends once either one player has won 9 rounds (40 total points), or one player has lost all their chips. In either case, congratulations! You’ve become one step closer to becoming a Fortune Blackjack champion!.
