blackjack-and-poker.com
Hello and welcome to www.blackjack-and-poker.com, we aim to offer an insight to these two card games like now other site has ever done. Talking about the origins of Blackjack and Poker, how to play the games, tips for making money and links to other Blackjack and Poker sites & tournaments.
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one, Vingt-et-un (French for Twenty-one), or Pontoon, is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. The standard game is played with one or more Anglo-American decks containing 52 cards. The basic rules of the game involve adding the value of an initial two card hand in hopes of being dealt a value of twenty-one. The player may choose to be dealt single cards until the total value of the hand reaches twenty-one (the best hand) or exceeds 21 (a ‘bust’, immediately losing), or until they are satisfied and do not wish to draw any more cards. Kings, queens and jacks and tens all contribute a value of ten towards hand totals, and any of these cards may be referred to as a ‘ten’ or a ‘picture’ in a blackjack context. Aces count as 1 or 11 at the player’s discretion. The game is played against a dealer, who follows the player in drawing cards. The winner holds a hand with a value of, or nearest to, twenty-one without exceeding it. The game is played in many variations at casinos with different table rules. Much of blackjack’s popularity is due to the mix of chance, skill, and the publicity that surrounds card counting (varying one’s wager and playing strategy to take advantage of knowledge of the cards yet to be dealt).
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually (but not always) hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown (in some games, the pot is split between the high and low hands), limits on bets and how many rounds of betting are allowed. In most modern poker games, the first round of betting begins with some form of forced bet. The action then proceeds to the left. Each player in turn must either match the maximum previous bet or fold, losing the amount bet so far and all further interest in the hand. A player who matches a bet may also raise, increasing the bet. The betting round ends when all players have either matched the last bet or folded. If all but one player folds on any round, the remaining player collects the pot without showing his hand. If more than one player remains in contention after the final betting round, the hands are shown and the winning hand takes the pot.
With the exception of initial forced bets, money is only placed into the pot voluntarily by a player who, at least in theory, rationally believes the bet has positive expected value. Thus while the outcome of any particular hand is determined mostly by chance, the long-run expectations of the players are determined by their actions chosen based on probability and psychology
