Blackjack is a casino banking game. The most widely played casino banking game in the world, it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as Twenty-One. This family of card games also includes the British game of Pontoon and the European game, Vingt-et-Un. Blackjack players do not compete against each other. The game is a comparing card game where each player competes against the dealer.
Shuffling is a procedure used to randomize a deck of playing cards to provide an element of chance in card games. Shuffling is often followed by a cut, to help ensure that the shuffler has not manipulated the outcome.
Blackjack is a popular casino-gambling card game.
Card counting is a blackjack strategy used to determine whether the player or the dealer has an advantage on the next hand. Card counters are advantage players who try to overcome the casino house edge by keeping a running count of high and low valued cards dealt. They generally bet more when they have an advantage and less when the dealer has an advantage. They also change playing decisions based on the composition of the deck.
Spanish 21 is a blackjack variant owned by Masque Publishing Inc., a gaming publishing company based in Colorado. Unlicensed, but equivalent, versions may be called Spanish blackjack. In Australia and Malaysia, an unlicensed version of the game, with no dealer hole card and significant rule differences, is played in casinos under the name "Pontoon". It was first introduced about 1995.
Michael Polchlopek is an American retired professional wrestler and former mixed martial artist. He is best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) from 1993 to 1999 under the ring names Bart Gunn and Bodacious Bart, as well as his appearances with All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) from 1998 to 2002 and with New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) from 2002 to 2004 as Mike Barton.
Robert Deroy Windham, better known by his ring name Blackjack Mulligan, was an American professional wrestler, author, and American football player. He was the father of wrestlers Barry and Kendall Windham, father-in-law of Mike Rotunda, and the maternal grandfather of Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas.
Double Attack Blackjack is dealt primarily in Atlantic City casinos. The game is a variation of Spanish 21 that pays even money on a blackjack and gives the player the opportunity to double their initial wager after seeing the dealer's upcard. The game also offers a bonus side bet on whether or not the dealer will bust on the third card. This side bet must be made before the dealer's upcard is dealt, and pays out based on the rank of the card dealt. The bet only pays off if the dealer busts on the third card, and the payoffs are as follows:
Chinese Blackjack is also known as 21-point, ban-luck (Hokkien), ban-nag (Cantonese), and xì dách (Vietnamese). The game is played in South East Asia and resembles conventional Blackjack. In Malaysia, this variant is known as Kampung (Village) Blackjack to differentiate it from the standard Casino Blackjack, and it grew from the game played in the old days in villages.
Elimination Blackjack is a tournament format of blackjack invented by Russ Hamilton, that was played on the Ultimate Blackjack Tour and in various casinos. It combines the game of blackjack with elements of No Limit Texas Hold'Em. Unlike Texas Hold'Em tournaments, players are still competing against the same dealer that is why the results of most players at the table are likely to be the same. UltimateBet, a sponsor of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour, offered online elimination blackjack tournaments prior to bankruptcy.
Blackjack Switch is a casino gambling game invented by Geoff Hall and patented in 2009. It is based on blackjack, but differs in that two hands, rather than one, are dealt to each playing position, and the player is initially allowed to exchange ("switch") the top two cards between hands. Natural blackjacks are paid 1:1 instead of the standard 3:2, and a dealer hard 22 pushes all player hands except a natural.
Malaysian Pontoon is a card game related to Pontoon and blackjack and, like those games, a descendant of Vingt-Un or Twenty-One. It is played by those in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore, where it is usually just called pontoon. This game is similar to match play 21 or Spanish 21, while original pontoon, played in Britain, holds closer to the traditional Twenty-One rules, but can be quickly distinguished by the use of the terms "twist" and "stick".
Shuffle tracking is an advantage gambling technique where a player tracks certain cards or sequences of cards through a series of shuffles. Shuffle tracking is typically done in blackjack games, although it can be done in other card games. Games with simple shuffles are generally easier to shuffle track than games with complicated shuffles. Thus, shuffle tracking is usually done in 6 or 8 deck shoe-dealt blackjack games, as these tend to have simpler shuffles compared to pitch games, due to the time required to accomplish a complicated shuffle on 6 or 8 decks of cards.
Blackjack Brawl was the first and only major live television supercard event produced by Herb Abrams' Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF). The event took place on September 23, 1994 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada and aired live on SportsChannel America. The event was a successor to UWF's only pay-per-view event, Beach Brawl.
Splitting aces and eights is part of blackjack basic strategy. Rules vary across gambling establishments regarding resplitting, doubling, multiple card draws, and the payout for blackjack, and there are conditional strategic responses that depend upon the number of decks used, the frequency of shuffling and dealer's cards. However, regardless of the various situations, the common strategic wisdom in the blackjack community is to "Always split aces and eights" when dealt either pair as initial cards. This is generally the first rule of any splitting strategy.
The following is a glossary of terms used in the card game blackjack. This is not intended to be a formal dictionary; precise usage details and multiple closely related senses are omitted here in favor of concise treatment of the basics.
The fictional universe of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett features a number of invented games, some of which have gone on to spawn real-world variants.
Aces & Eights was a villainous American stable in the promotion Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), initially consisting of a group of masked wrestlers before their identities were revealed. It had the gimmick of an outlaw motorcycle club; members of the stable rode motorcycles, wore kutte, and were referred to as either "prospects" or "patched in". The name of the stable is a reference to the two pair poker hand known as the "dead man's hand".
The dead man's hand, a legendary "cursed" poker hand usually depicted as consisting of the ace of spades, ace of clubs, eight of spades and eight of clubs with an undefined fifth card, has appeared or been referenced in numerous works of popular culture. It is thought to have been the hand which Old West folk hero, lawman, and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok was holding when he was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall on Wednesday, August 2, 1876, in Nuttal & Mann's Saloon at Deadwood, Dakota Territory. It entered into popular poker parlance after the 1926 publication of Frank Wilstach's book Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of Pistoleers—50 years after Hickok's death.
Don Johnson is a professional blackjack hustler and former corporate executive who beat Atlantic City casinos for over $15 million during a six-month period in 2011.
