The Body Journal-BlackJack

No not these cards

Card Game

                                               

In this reading journal, I am going to talk about the rules of the playing card game that are introduced in the story "The Body". Now, there were two games in the story, blackjack and cribbage. However, since cribbage is really a game that no one else than the submariners play, I decided to write more about blackjack.

Blackjack: 

Rules: It is a game played between players and a dealer. A player is handed out two cards at first and chooses whether to have another card(to hit) or stop having cards(to stand). The player can also surrender and get half of their initial bet. They can 'double' and double their bet and receive another card. If the card that the player has are the same, than they could split and have two hands. The person closest to 21 yet less than 22 wins. If over 21, the player is busted and losses all the money. Each card are counted as: Ace(1or11) 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, jack(10) Queen(10) and King(10)

Reaching 21 is called blackjack, and wins 1.5times the bet.

However, the name blackjack originally came from a casino's policy that a player with a spade ace and a black jack(a jack of spades or a jack of clover) gets ten times their bet.

Although the policy was quickly removed, the name blackjack sticked.

Now blackjack is quite probably the most popular and well known card game in the world. There are so many movies and books on this game, most significantly because it is to some degrees beatable. The reason this game is beatable is because cards have memory. If I hold an spade ace in my hands, it is probable that another spade ace won't be in the deck. Therefore, a person who can keep track of the cards that have been on the table would be able to foresee what will be on next. Increasing and decreasing the bets accordingly, the players can beat the game.Well, supposing that you can remember all those cards. That's the reason that only two types of people have done it before,
MIT students and a Rainman. 

This book, Bringing down the House, was made into a film called 21. It is about how MIT students professionally counted the cards and made millions out of it. It is based on true story, and amazed many people that such thing is possible. 

Now,the second person who managed to count cards, actually much before the MIT students,was the Rainman. This person is disabled, but still has a great ability in counting things at such a fast speed. His brother saw that as a chance of great money and takes him to the casino to count cards.