Portal:Blackjack
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
Blackjack, also known as twenty-one, is a comparing card game between usually several players and a dealer, where each player in turn competes against the dealer, but players do not play against each other. It is played with one or more decks of 52 cards, and is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. The objective of the game is to beat the dealer in one of the following ways:
- Get 21 points on the player's first two cards (called a "blackjack" or "natural"), without a dealer blackjack;
- Reach a final score higher than the dealer without exceeding 21; or
- Let the dealer draw additional cards until their hand exceeds 21.
Selected general articles
- Chinese Blackjack is also known as 21-point, or ban-luck (Hokkien) or ban-nag (Cantonese). The game is played in South East Asia which bears similarity to conventional Blackjack. In Malaysia, this variant is known as Kampung (Village) Blackjack, to differentiate from the standard Casino Blackjack, and it grew from the game played in the old days in villages.
Traditionally, most non-hardcore gamblers will play some form of gambling during the Chinese New Year as it is believed the new year brings in fresh new luck, and Chinese Blackjack is one of the most popular games to be played during the new year. Read more...
Card counting is a casino card game strategy used primarily in the blackjack family of casino games to determine whether the next hand is likely to give a probable advantage to the player or to the dealer. Card counters are a class of advantage players, who attempt to decrease the inherent casino house edge by keeping a running tally of all high and low valued cards seen by the player. Card counting allows players to bet more with less risk when the count gives an advantage as well as minimize losses during an unfavorable count. Card counting also provides the ability to alter playing decisions based on the composition of remaining cards.
Card counting, also referred to as card reading, often refers to obtaining a sufficient count on the number, distribution and high-card location of cards in trick-taking games such as contract bridge or spades to optimize the winning of tricks. Read more...
The following is a glossary of terms used in the card game blackjack. This is not intended to be a formal dictionary; precise usage details and multiple closely related senses are omitted here in favor of concise treatment of the basics. Read more...- Zeljko Ranogajec (born 22 May 1961) is a businessman and professional gambler from Australia, with an annual, global betting turnover that is claimed to be over $1 billion. He is known for horse betting, blackjack and other forms of advantage gambling. Read more...
- Edward Oakley Thorp (born August 14, 1932) is an American mathematics professor, author, hedge fund manager, and blackjack player. He pioneered the modern applications of probability theory, including the harnessing of very small correlations for reliable financial gain.
Thorp is the author of Beat the Dealer, which mathematically proved that the house advantage in blackjack could be overcome by card counting. He also developed and applied effective hedge fund techniques in the financial markets, and collaborated with Claude Shannon in creating the first wearable computer. Read more... - Hole carding refers to obtaining knowledge of cards that are supposed to be hidden from view in card games. The term is usually applied to blackjack but can apply to other games with hidden hole cards, like three card poker and Caribbean stud poker. So long as it does not involve the use of a device like a mirror or actions like touching the dealer's cards, in most jurisdictions hole carding is a legal form of advantage gambling in casino table games. In other games, like stud poker, casinos normally have rules against rubbernecking or having a confederate stand behind an opponent to signal hole cards.
Blackjack players must usually make playing decisions based on only seeing one of the dealer's cards (the upcard). But if the dealer's hole card is spotted, a player who plays correctly has a theoretical advantage of up to 13% instead of the normal player disadvantage of around 0.5%. A hole-card player will often choose not to make certain plays, such as hitting a hard 19 against a dealer 20, so as not to reveal that he can see the dealer's hole card. Read more... - Arnold Snyder is a professional gambler and gambling author. He was elected by professional blackjack players as one of the seven original inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame which is hosted at Barona Casino for his record as a blackjack player and his innovations in professional gambling techniques. He was the first blackjack authority to publish the importance of deck penetration (depth of the deal) in card counting, in his 1980 book The Blackjack Formula. He was also the first blackjack researcher to publish (in Blackjack Forum, 1981–1983) that radical simplification of blackjack card counting systems did not hurt earnings.
Since 1981, Arnold Snyder has been the editor of Blackjack Forum, a quarterly trade journal for professional gamblers. In 2004 Snyder moved the publication of Blackjack Forum from print to online due to time constraints imposed by playing more frequently and the frustration with dealing with the business side of the publication industry. Blackjack Forum has published many articles about professional gambling, discussion of strategies and approaches for various games and interviews with many professional gamblers including Al Francesco, Keith Taft and Marty Taft, Tommy Hyland, Johnny Chang, Darryl Purpose. Read more... - Shuffle tracking is an advantage gambling technique where a player tracks certain cards or sequences of cards through a series of shuffles. Shuffle tracking is typically done in blackjack games, although it can be done in other card games. Games with simple shuffles are generally easier to shuffle track than games with complicated shuffles. Thus, shuffle tracking is usually done in 6 or 8 deck shoe-dealt blackjack games, as these tend to have simpler shuffles compared to pitch games, due to the time required to accomplish a complicated shuffle on 6 or 8 decks of cards. Read more...
- MindPlay was a technology designed to monitor blackjack players' actions while playing in a casino, first released in 2003 and discontinued in 2007.
Monitoring a person's play traditionally is done visually, by the dealer, floorperson, pitboss, and the eye in the sky (video surveillance). If one of these observers notices something unusual in a person's play, they will do what they can to either- determine if the person is a cheat or a card counter, or
- change the game to turn the odds back in favor of the casino, through more frequent card-shuffling or other methods, or
- bar a player they think is a card counter, even though the practice is legal.
- Peter A. Griffin (July 19, 1937 – October 18, 1998) was a mathematician, author, and blackjack expert and is one of the original seven members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame. He authored The Theory of Blackjack, considered a classic analysis of the mathematics behind the game of casino 21. Read more...
- Ken Uston (January 12, 1935 – September 19, 1987) was a famous blackjack player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack. During the early to mid-1970s he gained widespread notoriety for perfecting techniques to do team card counting in numerous casinos worldwide, earning millions of dollars from the casinos, with some bets as high as $12,000 on a single hand.
He was banned from casinos around the world, and would adopt various costumes in order to conceal his identity and still be able to play. He filed a high-profile lawsuit against these casinos, and successfully received a ruling from the New Jersey courts that absent a valid New Jersey Casino Commission regulation excluding card counters, casinos could not ban someone simply for counting cards at blackjack. In response, many casinos changed their systems, increasing the number of decks in games, or changing rules to increase the house edge. Read more... - Power Blackjack is a variant of the card gambling game Blackjack, modified by certain doubling and splitting rules, called "Power Double" and "Power Split," that are advantageous to the player, offset by the rule that, when the dealer makes a total of twenty two, any active player hands push rather than winning. Read more...
Super Fun 21 is a variation of blackjack. The game is played using a standard 52 card deck. Aces can be counted as either a one or eleven depending on which value would best benefit the player's hand. All the face cards in the deck each count as ten. The remaining cards are taken at face value. The player must first place a bet and is then dealt two cards face up. The dealer is dealt two cards as well, but one is face up and one face down. The player then has the option to either "hit", (request another card) or "stand" (decline additional cards). The player's hand must beat the dealer's by coming closer to 21 without "busting" (exceeding 21). A winning hand with a total of 21 is called a blackjack, or natural.
The game differs from traditional blackjack because the player automatically wins if his hand has six cards or more with a total of 20. This rule applies even if the dealer has a total of 21 (blackjack). Other advantages to Super Fun 21 include being able to split a hand up to four times, a player's blackjack supersedes a dealer's blackjack, a player may "double down" at any point no matter how many cards he has been dealt, and the player automatically doubles their money with a hand consisting of five cards or more that total 21. Read more...
The Blackjack Hall of Fame honors the greatest blackjack experts, authors, and professional players in history. It was launched in 2002, and its physical premises are in San Diego, California. Read more...- Thomas Hyland is a well known card counter at the casino card game of blackjack. Since 1979, he has also been the manager of the longest-running blackjack team in history.
In a 2002 Blackjack Forum interview, Tommy Hyland reported that he started his playing career in 1979 after having been inspired by Lawrence Revere's book Playing Blackjack as a Business. His original blackjack team had four players who each put $4000 into the team bankroll. The team was launched when Atlantic City casinos offered blackjack with a rule called Early Surrender, which gave knowledgeable players an edge off the top. Within a few months, the Hyland team had built their bankroll to roughly $50,000. Read more... - Double Exposure Blackjack (also known as Zweikartenspiel German: "Two card game") is a variant of the casino game blackjack in which the dealer receives two cards face-up in part of the initial deal. Knowing the dealer's hand provides significant information to the player. To maintain the house edge, the payout when the player receives a natural blackjack is reduced to even money from 3:2, and players lose their bets when their hand is tied with the dealer. In addition, with both dealers' cards exposed at the outset, players cannot buy insurance or surrender their hand.
Other rules changes also exist to the detriment of players. Certain tables restrict doubling down and splitting, and do not allow doubles after splits. Read more... - Spanish 21 is a blackjack variant owned by Masque Publishing Inc., a gaming publishing company based in Colorado. Unlicensed, but equivalent, versions may be called Spanish blackjack. In Australia and Malaysia, an unlicensed version of the game, with no dealer hole card and significant rule differences, is played in casinos under the name "Pontoon". It was first introduced about 1995. Read more...
Pontoon is a name shared by two distinct card games, both blackjack variants. For those in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, pontoon is a card game similar to match play 21 or Spanish 21, while in the UK, a game of pontoon holds closer to the traditional blackjack rules, but can be quickly distinguished by the verbal usage of the terms "twist" and "stick".
The Malaysian version of pontoon is played in Australian, Malaysian, British, and Singaporean casinos. using multiple customized decks of cards. In the Treasury Casino, Brisbane, it is known as Treasury 21. In Jupiters Casino, Gold Coast, it is known as Jupiters 21, in the Reef Casino, Cairns, it is known as Paradise Pontoon, and in Tasmania, it is known as Federal Pontoon. Read more...- Edge sorting is a technique used in advantage gambling where a player determines whether a face-down playing card is likely to be low or high at casino table games by observing, learning, and exploiting subtle unintentional differences on the backs of the cards being dealt.
Applied by world-famous poker pro Phil Ivey and subsequently challenged in court by the casino in which he did so, the UK High Court ruled that the technique, which requires the player to trick the dealer into rotating specific, high-value cards, is cheating in civil law, and that a casino was justified in refusing payment of winnings. This ruling would not be applicable if the player simply took advantage of an observed error or anomaly in the deck for which he was not responsible. Read more... - John Ferguson (born 1943) known by his pen name, Stanford Wong, is a gambling author best known for his book Professional Blackjack, first published in 1975. Wong's computer program "Blackjack Analyzer", initially created for personal use, was one of the first pieces of commercially available blackjack odds analyzing software. Wong has appeared on TV multiple times as a blackjack tournament contestant or as a gambling expert. He owns a publishing house, Pi Yee Press, which has published books by other gambling authors including King Yao. Read more...
- Elimination Blackjack is a tournament format of blackjack invented by Russ Hamilton, that was played on the Ultimate Blackjack Tour and in various casinos. It combines the game of blackjack with elements of No Limit Texas Hold'Em. Unlike Texas Hold'Em tournaments, players are still competing against the same dealer that is why the results of most players at the table are likely to be the same. UltimateBet, a sponsor of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour, offered online elimination blackjack tournaments prior to bankruptcy. Read more...
- Double Attack Blackjack is dealt primarily in Atlantic City casinos. The game is a variation of Spanish 21 that pays even money on a blackjack and gives the player the opportunity to double their initial wager after seeing the dealer's upcard. The game also offers a bonus side bet (called Bust It!, Bust out or Buster) on whether or not the dealer will bust on the third card. This side bet must be made before the dealer's upcard is dealt, and pays out based on the rank of the card dealt. The bet only pays off if the dealer busts on the third card, and the payoffs are as follows:
- Third card is a ten. Pays off 3 to 1.
- Third card is a nine. Pays off 6 to 1.
- Third card is an eight. Pays off 8 to 1.
- Third card is a seven. Pays off 10 to 1.
- Third card is a six. Pays off 15 to 1.
Did you know...
- ... that after sponsoring a bill requiring Atlantic City casinos to have table games with a $2 minimum bet, Dennis L. Riley was kicked out of two that claimed he was card counting in blackjack?
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