In Blackjack all cards are counted at their face value, with the exception of the Ace. Simply put, cards whose printed numerical value is 2 through 10 are counted as having precisely that value. Therefore, if you are dealt one 2-value card, one 8-value card and one 9-value card, your total is 19. Face cards -- Jacks, Queens and Kings -- are counted as having a value of 10. Therefore if you are dealt one Queen and one 8- value card, the total value of your hand is 18. The Ace card is different. This card can have, at your discretion, either a value of 1, or a value of 11.

The best possible hand in Blackjack is a combination of an Ace with a 10-value or Face card. This is an automatic 21, when counting the Ace as an 11, and is called Blackjack, or a "Natural". It cannot be beaten, unless the dealer also has the same combination, in which case the hand is a "push", a tie.

When you first approach a table you have the choice of sitting in any available seat. If the game is already in progress with other players present, sit at any open seat of your liking. When the hand they are currently playing is over, you can ask the dealer for "change" and push your money in the bet spot in front of you. If you do this, chances are the dealer will assume you are making a cash bet, known as "money plays", and will deal you cards before you have a chance to ask for change. If this happens, you are stuck, and all the money you placed on the table will play on the hand you are dealt.

After asking for change, the dealer will then give you an assortment of gaming chips with which to play. Depending on the amount of currency you are changing, dealers will mostly anticipate the kind of bets you will make and give you gaming chips accordingly. But you can ask the dealer for any combination of gaming chips you like.

After you are given change, you select the amount you wish to bet on the next hand. This has to be at least the minimum bet amount for that table and can be up to the maximum bet amount for that table.

The maximum and minimum betting limits are displayed on a sign, usually at the dealer's left, player's right, and normally it will say something like: "Minimum $5 Maximum $500". These limits vary from table to table, and from casino to casino. Simply put, this tells you what level of game this table is set up to play. If all you want to play are small bets, say, $1 to $5 per hand, don't sit at a table whose sign indicates limits higher than that. You could get caught in a game whose stakes are higher than you can afford.

After you have received your garning chips in exchange for currency, place the chips you wish to bet on the next hand in the spot in front of you, and the dealer will deal the next hand. All cards are dealt left- to-right of the dealer, player's right-to-left. You will receive your cards in turn with the other players on the table, depending on which position at the table you are sitting in.

The first position at the Blackjack table is called "First Base", and it is the seat immediately to the dealer's left. It is so called because the player sitting in that position will always get the first card out.

The opposite side of the table, at the far end and dealer's right, is called "Third Base"; this is so called because the player sitting in this position will always get the last card dealt to players in the round of dealing, and the one just before the card that the dealer deals to himself. The Third Base position at the Blackjack table is important because the player in that position controls, to some degree, which cards the dealer will receive in the event that the dealer must draw more cards. The Third Base player's decisions in how he plays his hand can, therefore, determine if the rest of the players at the table, including himself, will win or lose. For more information on this aspect of Blackjack, and other considerably more detailed aspects of Blackjacks, If you approach a table where there are no players, you can sit at any seat. Don't be afraid of sitting at a table where there are no players. Many players make this mistake and often try to crowd into a Blackjack game already in progress. Safety in numbers may be good for other games, such as Craps, but not for Blackjack. If you can get a one-on-one game with the dealer, these are the best odds you can hope for in this game. Casual players are often intimidated by the prospect of sitting at an empty Blackjack table. Don't be.

When you approach a new game, as an empty table is called, the first thing you will probably hear the dealer say is: "Shuffle". Dealers say this to let the Pit Boss know that a player has sat down at this game and that a new shuffle is about to begin. After the cards are shuffled, the dealer will ask you to cut the cards.

For this you will be offered a colored piece of plastic the same size as the playing cards. These "cut cards" are just plain pieces of plastic cut in the same shape as the rest of the cards so they fit in the deck. Mostly they are red in color, but they can be yellow, or any other color. They are used only for three purposes: one, to cut the deck; two, to place within the freshly cut deck to indicate the next shuffle point; and three, to place at the bottom of the deck so there is no possibility of dealing cards from the bottom. To "cut" the deck means to place this colored cut card somewhere in the deck, after which the dealer moves the stack of cards above the cut card to the bottom of the deck.

He then "burns" [sets aside] the top card, places the colored cut card into the deck about one-third of the way from the bottom, places an extra colored cut card at the bottom of the deck, and begins the game. During the course of the game the dealer will eventually reach the cut card he had placed in the deck. At this point the cards now dealt will be the last hand before the next shuffle.

The point of "burning" the top card is to avoid so-called "funny shuffles", or cheating, and to take that card out of play in case some players have caught a glimpse of it. Some casinos in fact burn several cards, all dealt face down in front of the dealer for that reason, and then placed into the discard tray, where all exposed cards are placed after each hand. When Blackjack games were still being dealt first-card-to-the-l ast, card counters took advantage of knowing which cards were left, so this rule, and others like it, were introduced to combat this player advantage. But in the current way of dealing Blackjack this burn card, or cards, have little effect, especially so to the casual player.

These sections were written by Victor Royer
www.vegas.com

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