As you can tell from the title, UK Blackjack is the form of the well-known card game played in the United Kingdom.
Like almost all forms of Blackjack this variant has its own rules and strategies. Holland Casino offers only 1 form of Blackjack but once you start playing blackjack online, an online casino offers many variants. This variant is generally played with either four or six card decks, although individual clubs may have different rules and Single Deck Blackjack may also be an option.
UK Blackjack Rules
UK Blackjack generally follows traditional Blackjack rules, but there are a few rules that apply specifically to the UK variant. Like some, but not all, variants, in this version all used cards are put back into the deck of cards and reshuffled after a round. The dealer only gets an open card at the beginning of the round, and thus no hole card; he gets that at the end of the round. You yourself receive two closed cards.
Only if the dealer’s face-up card is an ace, and you yourself have blackjack, are you allowed to take out insurance against the dealer’s blackjack. Should he also have blackjack, it’s a draw and you get your original bet back, plus the doubled stake from your insurance. You may split a maximum of 3 hands per round, and aces may not be resplit and get a maximum of one additional card. The four, five, ten, jack, queen, and king may not split. Doubles are allowed after splitting, but only on nine, ten, or eleven points.
How to play UK Blackjack
At the beginning of the round you must place a bet. After you are dealt two cards and the dealer has an open and a closed card, you can choose what you want to do. With less than fifteen points, you must draw more cards. With a point total of sixteen or higher, you can also choose not to take any more cards, then you will be left with the cards you have in your hand for the rest of that round. You can keep asking for cards until you go over 21. Several things can happen at the end of the game. If you have a higher point total than the dealer, or the dealer has gone over 21, you win your double bet.
If you have the same number of points in your hand as the dealer, then it’s a tie, and you both get your bet back. If the dealer has higher points, or you have gone over 21, then you lose your bet. With good cards, you can choose to double down. Then you place double bets, but you may only draw one additional card after that. If your first two cards are worth the same amount of points, you can split those cards, which puts a separate bet on both cards, and you can win with both hands.
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Strategies
For all types of Blackjack, there are specific strategies, designed to use rules and knowledge of the game to win as much as possible, and thus bring in as much profit as possible. UK Blackjack is no different. While it is of course best to see for yourself what style of play and strategy suits you, there are also standard tips to help you learn to play better. One such tip is that unless you are a veteran player or very good at counting cards, you should never take insurance. It’s good to always split aces and eights, but not cards worth ten points, nor fives or fours.
A useful method of predicting whether you or the dealer have a good or bad hand is to divide the deck of cards in your mind into two. One half consists of cards that are worth ten points, namely the tens, jacks, queens, kings, and possibly the aces. The other half consists of the other cards. If you think this way, you can predict a little bit whether the dealer has a good or bad hand. If he has a card that is worth between two and six points, there is a greater chance that he will go over 21. In these situations it is better to play carefully and make sure that you yourself stay below 21 anyway, even though your cards may not be worth enough to get a high point score. If you have eleven points or less in your hand, you should always ask for more cards.
On the other hand, if you have seventeen or more points, you should stop, because the chances are too high that you will get a card with too many points and you will go over 21. If you have between twelve and sixteen points, and the dealer has a four, five, or six open, it is okay not to ask for more cards, but if the dealer has a two or a three, you should always take more cards. This also applies in the event that the dealer has a seven or higher face up. The final tip is that the ace can be worth either one, a hard ace, or eleven points, a soft ace, and you can generally play a little more aggressively with a soft ace than with a hard ace.
More about UK Blackjack
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Summary
UK Blackjack is not that different from the standard game of Blackjack that everybody knows. Also, it’s never a bad idea to know the differences per variant so there are no surprises when you sit down to one of the many variants of this great card game.