The Chinese Blackjack Variant
The Chinese Blackjack variant is widely known as 21-point, ban-luck in the Hokkien language and ban-nag in Cantonese. It is a blackjack gambling game played mostly in South East Asian countries. It carries many similarities to the traditional blackjack known in the west.
The game utilizes one to two decks composed of 52 cards and can be played by three or more players. One of them has to be the dealer, or they may also take turns being the dealer, like having each person deal three rounds or winning three rounds.
Even though the Chinese variation of Blackjack has its own standard rules, there are also unusual house rules commonly used. This article will describe the rules below if the rule is a house rule. The House rules mean that they aren't followed in playing a standard Chinese blackjack game.
Dealing
In dealing the players first place their stakes or their bets. The dealer will then thoroughly shuffle the cards and ask the players to cut a hand in which a players takes a certain number of cards off from the deck that was shuffled. The dealer then deals the cards in a clockwise or counter clockwise rotation starting from his position with all of the cards in face down position. He deals each player two cards first and puts back all the remaining cards to the hand that was cut.
The Point counting rules for the cards:
•The cards 2, 1, 10, 9, 8, 6, 7, 5, 4, 3, will have their respective number value.
•The cards K, Q, J = 10
•when the total number of cards is 4 and above, then Ace equals 1
•when the total number of cards is two, then Ace equals 11 or 10
•When the total number of cards is three, then Ace = 1 or 10
When Checking for Blackjack
All of the blackjack players, which includes the dealer, check the hand they are holding for the special combinations which are the following:
1. The Ace card plus 10/J/Q/K = ban-nag
2. Ace plus Ace card = ban-ban
3. 15 points of the cards equals a free hand
The 15 Points - House Rule
If a player is holding a free hand, he or she could decide to go on playing or not to continue the game and if the dealer has the free hand, he may also make the decision whether to go on or stop the game. If the dealer chooses not to continue the game, then all of the cards shall be collected and shuffled again and dealt for the second time.
