How to play blackjack

In blackjack you play against the dealer, not against the other people at the table. You want a total closer to 21 than the dealer’s without going over. Go over 21 — bust — and you lose at once, whatever the dealer does later. If the dealer busts and you haven’t, you win. An ace and a ten-value card as your first two cards is a blackjack, paid 3 to 2.

That is the whole game. Everything else — when to take a card, when to double, when to split — is strategy, and it has its own page.

Suits don’t matter. A hand with an ace that can count as 11 without going over is called soft: A♠ 6♦ is soft 17, and our table shows it as “7 / 17”. Take another card and the ace may have to drop to 1 — A♠ 6♦ 9♣ is hard 16. The difference matters more than it looks; see soft and hard hands.

The Hall of Thoth has three kinds of tables, and each has five boxes — one seat, one box per player:

Bets are open for 15 seconds. Put chips on your box and press “Deal” when you are ready; once everyone at the table is ready, the cards come out without waiting for the timer. Keep some debens beside the bet: doubling, splitting and insurance each cost extra, and the game won’t let you double with an empty purse.

The dealer deals from a shoe of six decks, 312 cards. Each box gets one card face up, then the dealer takes one face up. Each box gets a second card, and the dealer’s second card goes face down. That hidden card is the hole card.

The shoe is never played to the end. When fewer than 78 cards are left before a deal, the dealer shuffles a fresh shoe, so about three quarters of every shoe gets dealt. The counter by the table’s name shows how many cards remain.

If the dealer’s up card is an ace, you are first offered insurance: a side bet of half your stake that pays 2 to 1 if the dealer has blackjack. If you hold a blackjack yourself, the offer is “1 to 1 right now” — even money at once instead of 3 to 2 later. You have 8 seconds to decide.

With an ace or a ten-value card showing, the dealer then peeks at the hole card. A dealer blackjack ends the round on the spot. You lose your bet — only the original bet, because nobody has had a chance to double or split — unless you have a blackjack too, which is a push. With a 2–9 showing, the dealer can’t have blackjack and doesn’t look.

• Hit — take another card. You can hit as many times as you like, until you stand or go over 21.
• Stand — keep your total and end your turn.
• Double — on your first two cards only: add a second bet equal to the first and take exactly one more card. Allowed on any two cards, and after a split. See when to double.
• Split — if your first two cards have the same value, turn them into two hands with a bet each. Any two ten-value cards are a pair, so K♥ 10♣ can be split. Up to four hands; aces are split only once and get one card each. See when to split.

Players act in turn, starting from the box on the dealer’s left. Each move has 15 seconds; when time runs out, the hand stands. On a computer, H hits, S stands, D doubles and P splits. There is no surrender at our table — you can’t give up half your bet and fold the hand.

The dealer has no choices. When the players are done, the hole card is turned over and the dealer draws until the total reaches 17 or more, then stops — on every 17, soft 17 such as A♦ 6♠ included. If every player hand has already busted or is a blackjack, the dealer just turns the card over and draws nothing.

Most of the strategy grows out of this one rule. With a 2–6 showing, the dealer often has to draw to a stiff total and busts: with a 6 up, 42% of the time. With a 7 or higher, the dealer usually finishes on 17–21; with a ten up, the bust rate is only 23%.

A doubled hand is paid on the doubled stake. Split hands are settled one by one, and 21 made after a split counts as 21, not blackjack, so it pays 1 to 1. All winnings reach your purse in one go at the end of the round.

You sit at the Scribes’ Table and bet 500. In the first box, to the dealer’s left, sits a resident marked AI with a bet of 200. The cards come out: the AI gets 8♠ 8♥, you get 9♣ 2♦ — 11, and the dealer shows 6♥.

1. The AI acts first and splits the eights, putting in another 200. The first 8 gets 3♣ — 11, and the AI doubles it, drawing 9♥ for 20. The second 8 gets 10♦ — 18, and it stands.
2. Your turn. 11 against a 6 is one of the best hands to double: you add 500 and get one card, K♠. That is 21, and your hand is done.
3. The dealer turns the hole card: 10♣. 16 — under 17, so the dealer must draw. The next card is 7♦: 23, bust.
4. Every hand still in play wins. Your 1,000 at stake comes back as 2,000. The AI’s 400 on the doubled hand and 200 on the other come back doubled too.

Had that last card been a 5, the dealer would have made 21: your 21 would push and the AI would lose both hands. Same decisions, opposite result — which is why strategy is judged over thousands of hands, not one.

• No surrender.
• No resplitting aces and no hitting split aces.
• No 6 to 5 for blackjack — always 3 to 2.
• No dealer hitting soft 17.
• No side bets apart from insurance.

Each of these rules nudges the house edge one way or the other; the house edge page has the numbers. The strategy pages in this section are calculated for exactly this set of rules.