Blackjack rules X
In blackjack games, the dealer is required to play his hand according to some rules and has no way of playing his hand as he chooses. There are two widely used regulations that a dealer can follow regarding what should be the total of his hand value and how he should draw his cards. While the variation of rules for the dealer is not universal, each casino makes it a point to declare which of the rules it is following by clearly indicating it at the blackjack game table.
The most common rule, which is mostly adopted by the casino houses, is the one that states — Dealer stands on all 17s. This means that the dealer must hit the card deck, that is, continue drawing cards till his hand value reaches the aggregate of 17 or more than that. Under this rule the value of an ace card in the dealer’s hand is almost always invariably taken to be 11, although if the total turns out to be crossing 21, this condition is relaxed and ace card value can be assigned to 1. Therefore, if the dealer has his first two cards as an ace and a 9 card, his hand value stands at 20, which is over 17 and he can stand, which means that he no longer has to draw any more cards. Similarly if the dealer is holding an ace and a 6 card and his total becomes 17 even then he can stand without any more hitting. However, if he holds an ace and a 4 card, his total is now only 15 and he must draw another card till his hand value become 17 or higher. Now if he draws an 8 card his ace card value becomes 1 to prevent the total from exceeding 21 and the three cards – ace, 4, 8 – becomes 13 and so the dealer must hit again and cannot stand till 17 or more is reached.
