The game of blackjack is played at a table that, in its shape as relates to the player, is sort of like a semi-circle or half-moon, and has a felt surface. Generally there are six or seven spots for blackjack players on the outside, curved edge of the semi-circle blackjack table. The blackjack dealer deals the cards from the inside, straight edge or side of the blackjack table. The players sit on stools provided although they can stand.
The game is played with a standard deck of cards - 52 cards in a deck. Blackjack can be played with differing numbers of decks. The most common are single deck games, double deck games, four-deck games, six-deck games, and eight-deck games.
Blackjack tables typically have a circle in front of each spot from which a player may play the game in which the player must place their bet for the upcoming hand. In all blackjack games, the dealer will wait until all players have placed their wager into this circle before the begin dealing the next hand of blackjack.
All blackjack games are dealt from left to right. The players each receive two and the dealer receives two cards. This is similarities in the games ends, however.
In single deck and double deck games the dealer holds the cards in his or her hand while dealing them out to the players. These are called "hand held" games. In these games, most times, the players cards are dealt face down with the dealer receiving one card up and one card down.
Four, six or eight deck games are dealt from a plastic box or chute that is constructed in such a way that it holds all of the cards and allows the dealer to slide one card at a time from the top or front - as the cards are laying on their side - and deal them out one at a time. This plastic chute is called a "shoe". Games that make use of this "shoe" are called "shoe games". In "shoe games", the players cards are both dealt face up. The dealer still receives one up card and one down card.
In the past 10 years or so a new game has appeared in the casino that makes use of a continuous shuffling machine. Continuous shuffling machines are typically used with the larger multi-deck blackjack games. Just as it sounds, the continuous shuffling machines are always shuffling the cards. After each hand, the cards are collected and fed back into the shuffling machine before the cards are dealt for the next hand. In continuous shuffling machine games, the cards are deal just as they are for the "shoe" games. The players receive both of their cards face up and the dealer receives one up card and one down card.
Once the cards have been dealt each player has a number of options available to them. Remember the object in the game of blackjack is to be the dealers total of cards and not go over the total of 21 with their own cards. If a players card total does exceed twenty one, then the player is know to have busted.
The players options are to STAND, this maybe down at any time including on the first two cards dealt to the player. In effect the player is stating that they do not wish to be dealt any more cards. Hit, here the player asks, the dealer to deal him another card. SPLIT, when dealt two cards of the same denomiation, the player may split these cards and receive another card for each and play two hands. The last option is to double-down, here the player doubles his bet in exchange for receiving just one more card dealt to him.
After the players are done playing their hands, the dealer will turn over the card they have dealt themselves that was face down. At this point, in most cases, if the dealers total is 16 or less, the dealer draws another card, if the total is 17 or higher, the dealer must stand. It should be noted that in the game of blackjack the ace can be high or low. This means that it can count as the numerical value of one or eleven. In the the case where the dealer is dealt an ace and a six, this is called a soft 17. Generally the dealer must stand on this as well.
These are the rules of blackjack, in general terms. However, there are slight rule variations from casino to casino and sometimes within the same casino you will see several different games of blackjack being dealt. The subtle differences in the games of blackjack being dealt and the procedures followed in a game of blackjack are what we will cover next.