Blackjack Rules - basic exposition

Blackjack is a counting game, with each of the cards having a numeric value indicated by the number on that card (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Face cards (jack, queen, and king) as well as 10's have a numeric value of ten (10). Aces (A) can be used as either one (1) or eleven (11), whichever is best for the hand. The goal of the game is to accumulate cards with a total value as close as possible to twenty-one (21) without going over (busting). A player wins if his hand is closer to twenty-one (21) than the dealer's hand or if the dealer's hand busts but the player's hand does not. It makes no difference what the other players have, because a player is only competing with the dealer.

A player may take as many cards as he wishes until he stands or busts (i.e. his hand is forced over twenty-one). If a player busts, he automatically loses the hand - even if the dealer subsequently busts. This is the biggest house advantage in the game. A player also loses if the dealer's hand is closer to twenty-one (21) than the player's hand (with neither one busting). If the player's hand has exactly the same value as the dealer's hand (and both are 21 or less), that is called a "push" and no money is won or lost on that hand. Any time the initial two cards of a player's hand or the dealer's hand add up to exactly twenty-one (i.e. an ace and a 10-card) that is called blackjack. However, it does not count as blackjack if the player already split the hand (see the definition of splitting below). A blackjack beats any other hand, including any other form of twenty-one, and it pushes with another blackjack. If a player is dealt a blackjack and the dealer is not, then the dealer has to pay the player 1.5 times his original bet. In other words, if the player bet $100 and got blackjack, the dealer would have to pay him $150.

The dealer starts each hand of blackjack by dealing two cards to each player and to himself. Of the dealer's first two cards, one of them is always dealt face up (so the players can see it) and the other one face down. The players' cards are either dealt all face up or all face down. It doesn't really matter if the players can see each other's cards, because they are only playing against the dealer's hand.