Introduction to Blackjack Variations

It’s natural for card games to evolve through time.  Casinos and gamblers create a new spin to their favorite games.  This provides diversity and a new challenge for the veterans.  Blackjack is currently the card game with the most variations.  Casinos continue to make more by altering the rules of the game.  This, in turn, affects the odds of the game which can be favorable or not to the player.  Blackjack variations can be found all over land-based and online casinos.  Players must be aware of the different rules and regulations first before trying out any of them.  Some of these variations are made to have a higher house edge percentage.

Background

Card counting is the infamous techniques which has garnered much publicity.  This is because a player who perfects this strategy has the ability to lower the house edge and raise the player’s advantage.  Card counters assign a point to each of the cards and keep track of the score.  The score is termed as the count.  This enables players to spread their bets appropriately.  They can place large bets if they see that they are at an advantage.  They can also use the information from the remaining to improve their basic strategy.  There are different card counting systems, but the simplest one is the plus-minus system.  It can raise the player’s advantage to one percent up to as high as 2.5%.  In an effort to thwart these card counters, casinos altered the rules of the game which gave birth to different variations.  Some of these rules are favorable, but some are made to maintain the house edge over the player.

Variations

Casinos have come up with different rules which gave them a custom variant.  Due to this, casinos have their own version.  Different variants are still being created as casinos come up with more ways to alter the rules.  These variations include blackjack switch, multi-hand blackjack, European blackjack, and double exposure blackjack.  Each blackjack variation has its own unique set of rules, such as dealer stands on soft seventeen, resplit to three hands, surrender, double after split, one card split aces, and double 9 and 11 only.  These rules, in turn, affect the house edge.  Some variations have higher house edge than the rest.  Players will find many variations both online and in land-based casinos.  They can also look for strategies that they can use in each one from blackjack forums.