How to play Blackjack

There is a lot of bad advice to be found at casinos and online about blackjack, one of them is ‘The object of the game Blackjack is to reach as close as possible, without going over’. that is far from the truth, the real object of blackjack is to beat the dealer, you need to understand what that means. In order to beat the dealer the player must not go over 21 (that means not to go bust). The second object of the game is to have the dealer go bust. In order to understand how Blackjack works its a good idea to look at the rules of the game to gain a better understanding of the game:

Blackjack can be be played with between one to eight of 52-card decks
Aces can be counted as either as 1 or 11 points, 2 to 9 wil be counted according to their pip value, and the tens and face cards all count as ten points
The hand’s value is the amount of the point values of each individual cards. A "blackjack" is the highest hand one an get and it consists of an Ace and any one of the 10-point cards, A blackjack hand outranks any other 21-point hand.
When the players have completed their bets, the dealer will deal two cards to each player and two will be dealt to the dealer as well. The dealer will place one card face up. The card that is face-down is called the "hole card."
If the dealers face up card shows an ace, he will make an offer of a side bet which is called "insurance." The side wager will pay 2 to 1 should the dealer's hole card show when turned to be any of the 10-point card. The insurance wagers are optional and they cannot exceed half of the original wager.
If the dealer’s card is a ten or an ace showing (after the dealers offer of insurance if an is ace showing), then the dealer will peek at the face-down card to check if there is a blackjack. If the two cards show blackjack then the dealer will reveal the face-down card immediately and declare blackjack.
Should the dealer reveal a Blackshirt, then all the wagers (except insurance) will have lost lose, the exception is if a player has a Blackjack as well, this will result in a ‘push’. Insurance wagers will be resolved at this time.

Play starts with the player who is to the left of the dealer. The following choices are available to the player:

Stand

Player will stand pat with his cards, and not draw any other cards

Hit

This is when a player draws another card or more if the player wishes. If the last card drawn causes the player's total points exceeds 21 this is called "breaking" or "busting", should this happen the the player loses

Double

This is when the player doubles the bet and gets only one, more card

Split

This is when a player sees the hand is a pair or any two 10-point cards, then he has a choice of doubling the bet by separating the cards into two individual hands. The dealer will then automatically give each hand a second card, the player could then for each hand stand, hit, or double. When splitting aces, each ace will only get only one card. At some poker games doubling after splitting is not allowed. Should a player get a ten and ace after they split, then it will count as 21 points, not a blackjack. In most cases the player can keep re-splitting for up to a total of four hands. At some poker games re-splitting of aces is not allowed.

Surrender

This is when the player forfeits half of his wager, and keeping the other half, and doesn’t play out his hand. This option is available only on the initial two cards, however, depending on the rules at the casino, sometimes this is not allowed at all. When all the players have had their turn, the dealer will then turn over the hole card. If the cards reveal 16 or less, then the dealer will draw another card. In a situation when the dealer has an ace and a number of cards that totals six points, this is known as a "soft 17". depending on the house rules some tables, the dealer will hit a soft 17. Should the dealer go over 21 points, then player who haven’t gone bust will win. If the dealer doesn’t go bust, then the hand with the higher points total between the players hand and dealers hand will win. A winning wager will pay even money, except the Blackjack which usually payd 3 to 2. some casino’s short-pay blackjacks - a rule strongly in the casino’s favor.