Blackjack Card Game

Being the most popular casino game, it is no surprise that there many variations of the BlackJack, and increasingly more and more casinos are creating custom variants. So in this article we would review some of the different variations of BlackJack card game.

Pontoon is an English variation of blackjack with significant rule and strategy differences. However, in Australia and Malaysia, Pontoon is an unlicensed version of the American game Spanish 21 played without a hole card; despite the name, it bears no relation to English Pontoon.

Spanish 21 provides players with many liberal blackjack rules, such as doubling down any number of cards (with the option to 'rescue', or surrender only one wager to the house), payout bonuses for five or more card 21s, 6-7-8 21s, 7-7-7 21s, late surrender, and player blackjacks always winning and player 21s always winning, at the cost of having no 10 cards in the deck (though there are jacks, queens, and kings). With correct basic strategy, a Spanish 21 almost always has a higher house edge than a comparable BlackJack game.

21st Century Blackjack (also known as "Vegas Style" Blackjack) is commonly found in many California card rooms. In this form of the game, a player bust does not always result in an automatic loss; there are a handful of situations where the player can still push if the dealer busts as well, provided that the dealer busts with a higher total.

Certain rules changes are employed to create new variant games. These changes, while attracting the novice player, actually increase the house edge in these games. Double Exposure Blackjack is a variant in which the dealer's cards are both face-up. This game increases house edge by paying even money on blackjacks and players losing ties. Double Attack Blackjack has very liberal blackjack rules and the option of increasing one's wager after seeing the dealer's up card. This game is dealt from a Spanish shoe, and blackjacks only pay even money.

The French and German variant "Vingt-et-un" (Twenty-one) and "Siebzehn und Vier" (Seventeen and Four) don't include splitting. An ace can only count as eleven, but two aces count as a Blackjack. This variant is seldom found in casinos, but is more common in private circles and barracks.

Chinese Blackjack is played by many in Asia, having no splitting of cards, but with other card combination regulations.

One more variant is Blackjack Switch, a version of blackjack in which a player is dealt two hands and is allowed to switch cards. The initial wager for each hand must be the same. For example, if the player is dealt 10-6 and 10-5, then the player can switch two cards to make hands of 10-10 and 6-5. Natural blackjacks are paid 1:1 instead of the standard 3:2, and a dealer 22 is a push. As with normal Blackjack the second card dealt to the Blackjack switch dealer is dealt face up. This allows the player to use the basic Blackjack strategy, the advanced Blackjack strategy as well as shuffle counting and card counting to help make important decisions on the approach to Blackjack switch. In many casinos as well, a tie with the Blackjack switch dealer results in a push instead of a loss. This changes the probability once again to the players favor allowing less chances of a loss and more chances of either a win or tie.

Another popular form of Blackjack is Blackjack Surrender. Blackjack Surrender offers one main twist, if the player is not confident with their hand, they have the option to surrender half of their wager and forfeit their hand. This option is usually offered after the initial 2 cards are dealt, but some casinos offer late surrender, allowing the player to surrender at any point in the game. Late surrender option will allow the player to have more insight before choosing to surrender their hand or take a chance and play it out. For instance, if the player is dealt a low hand which may be surrendered in early surrender versions of Blackjack Surrender due to low probabilities, with late surrender versions of Blackjack Surrender, you have the opportunity to play the hand longer, obtain more cards and better decide if that initial low hand has potential after all or if it is wiser to surrender half your wager against what the dealer may hold.

Recently, thanks to the popularity of poker, Elimination Blackjack has begun to gain a following. Elimination Blackjack is a tournament format of blackjack.

Many casinos offer optional side bets at standard blackjack tables. For example, one common side-bet is "Royal Match", in which the player is paid if his first two cards are in the same suit, and receives a higher payout if they are a suited queen and king (and a jackpot payout if both the player and the dealer have a suited queen-king hand). Another increasingly common variant is "21+3," in which the player's two cards and the dealer's up card form a three-card poker hand; players are paid 9 to 1 on a straight, flush or three of a kind. These side bets invariably offer worse odds than well-played blackjack.