No Bust Blackjack Rules
- California “No Bust” Blackjack. California “No Bust” blackjack or California Blackjack, is a version of blackjack created specifically to be played in California card rooms. In 1873, the California Legislature enacted Penal Code 330 which outlawed the game of “21” or “blackjack”, throughout the state.
- Push (Tie) Rules. The hand is considered a push if the player and the dealer tie. In the case of a push, the player’s original bet is returned to him. If the first two cards that the player or dealer receive are an Ace and a 10 valued card, the hand is called a BlackJack. If the player is dealt a BlackJack, he will stand.
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In order to understand how the best strategy is computed, lets have a look at the Blackjack rules. Blackjack is played with 1 to 9 decks of 52 cards each. The values of the cards correspond to their numerical value from 2-10. All face cards (Jack, Queen, King) count 10 and the Ace either 1 or 11, as the holders desires. A score with an ace valued as 11 is named soft-hand. A soft-hand score of 17 is denoted as 7/17.
The color of the cards does not have any effect.
The goal of the game is to reach a score (=sum of the cards) as high as possible but not more than 21. A Blackjack (Ace and a card whose value is 10) beats all other combination of cards. If the final sum is higher than the sum of the dealer, the player gets a play-off of 1:1 of his initial stake. If the players combination is Blackjack, the play-off is 3:2 of the initial stake. If the sum of the dealer is higher, the player loses his bet. If the sum is equal, then nobody wins. If the player holds a score of 22 or more, he busted and thus he loses his bet immediately. If the dealer busts, the players wins independently of his final score.
Blackjack can be played from one to seven players against one dealer. The dealer shuffles the cards. Now all the players must place their bets. Then each player and the dealer receives one card. The cards all lie face up. Thereafter the player receive a second card. The player now can continue to buy further cards, one by one, until he believes that he is near enough to 21. If the player believes to have reached a score high enough he must signalize the dealer to stay, which means not to ask for any further card.
Doubling down
The player has some more possibility's other than buy and stay. If he reached a score of nine, ten or eleven with his first two cards, he can double his bet. However if he does so, he will be dealt only one more card.
Splitting
If the first two cards are of the same value, the player has the possibility to split his hand, which means that each of the cards are used to start with a separate bet. For each split hand, an additional bet equal to the first is required. There is one exception: If the player splits two Aces, he receives only one more card and in such a case a score of 21 is not considered as Blackjack.
Dealers turn
Once the last player has decided to stay with his score, the dealer starts to draw a second card. If his result is reaching a score of 17 or more, he will deal himself no further cards. If the dealer has a score of 16 or less, he must draw until he has reached 17 or more. If the dealer exceeds 21, he busts. This is the basic knowledge You have: The dealer can not split nor double; he must play according to strict rules: Dealer must stand on all 17. That's the players advantage! On the other side, if both the player and the dealer busts, these scores are not considered as equal and the player looses his stake. That's the dealers advantage!
How to compute the correct strategy
The analyst sees the shoe as black box which computes him a probability for drawing a card of a certain value. Say we have 6 decks of 52 cards, so the probability of drawing an Ace is 6*4/6*52 = 24/312 = 7.7%. The probability of drawing a second Ace without reshuffle is 23/311 = 7.4% and so on. As the game goes on without reshuffle, the probabilities to draw certain cards will raise or decline, depending on which cards have gone in the past. From our point of view the shoe behaves like a wheel of fortune with varying distances between the nails.
The first thing to do, is to calculate the probabilities of the dealers last hand. This computation is straight forward as the dealer has no way of doing any decision. So it is quit easy to find out the probabilities of his final score.
The next thing is to find out the probabilities of what would be if ... . If the players score is 16, what's the probability of achieving 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 or busting. Probabilities also have to be calculated for splitting and doubling.
Because the player knows the dealers first hand before deciding what to do, he can compare the probabilities of the dealers last hand against the probabilities of possible final scores for each intermediate score he has. With this comparison, winning expectations can be calculated, gaining information about the best playing strategy.
Knowing the best playing strategy and knowing the probabilities for each final score, the dealer and the player will reach, the total expectation can be calculated. The total expectation is the magic number playing Blackjack. If it is below zero the player has to place minimum bets as with this card distribution he will lose on the long term. If however the total expectation is above zero (unfortunately thats quite rare) the player has to place high bets.
Interpret the strategy tables
For each decision a player can do the best strategy can be computed. There are 20 possible conditions where the player has to take decisions. These are:
- Buy or stay if the score is 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 7/17 or 8/18.
- Double or buy, if the sum of the first two cards is 9, 10 or 11.
- Split, buy or stay, if the first two cards have the same value.
All these decisions depend upon the dealers first card, making a total of 200. There are some fundamental rules, which never change and must always be obeyed:
- Alway buy if the score is below 12.
- Always buy if the score is below or equal to 7/17. With a soft hand You can't bust, so there is no reason to stay if the score is 17 or less.
- Never buy if the score is 17 or higher.
- Never split 5-5. A score of 10 is a good point to start with, so use it.
- Never split X-X. A score of 20 is too good, to take any further risks.
- Never ever double a Blackjack.
For other decisions consult the expectation and probability tables computed on the Blackjack strategy pages.
Stakes height
The stake has to be placed before the player can see the dealers first card. So during that decision, very little information is available. The only information the player here, is the total expectation for the current card distribution in the shoe. If this is above zero, he shall place high bets.
How to play blackjack?
Blackjack rules are not as simple as they may look and it is a game which is played with 4 or 6 decks depending on the rules in the casino where the blackjack table is located. Most of the casinos offer the 6 deck game because it makes it harder for the players who try to count the cards during the game. The goal of the player is to have a better hand than the dealer. The hand needs to be 21 or as close to 21 as possible without exceeding it which is called busting. All face cards (jack, queen, king) are valued 10 points, the Ace is 1 or 11 points, and all the other cards are valued according to their rank (6 of spades is 6 points, 9 of hearts is 9 points and etc.). In order to have the game started, one or more of the players must have placed a bet on the blackjack table. After that the dealer passes his hand through the boxes that have bets placed on them and accepts the bets. When the bets are accepted, the dealer deals one card to each of the players and one to himself (all cards face-up). If the dealer’s card is an Ace, he offers the players to make an insurance bet (learn more about the insurance bet here) that is equal to half of the initial bet. After the blackjack players decide whether to place an insurance bet, the dealer deals one more card to each of the players and to himself.
When a player has Blackjack, this means that his first two cards’ value is equal to 21. If the dealer has less than 21, then the player wins. In case the player has a blackjack hand then the casino pays out 3:2 compared to a win without a blackjack when it is 1:1. If the player has got blackjack and the face up card of the dealer is an Ace, then the dealer offers Even Money to the player (to pay him half of the bet). After the dealer has dealt the cards, he points to the boxes and announces the values of the hands (if the player has an Ace, the dealer needs to announce both values, 1 and 11).
If one of the players on the blackjack table has got value of his cards equal to 9, 10 or 11 the dealer offers him to double – to double his bet. In this case the player may hit one more card only and hopes to get face card (jack, queen or king) and if he beats the dealer, he will win double.
When a player has 2 one of a kind cards (2 jacks, for example), the dealer offers a Split. If the player chooses to do a split, his cards are divided into two, the bet is doubled and the player gets two cards more (one per each split). After that the blackjack game continues as usual but the player plays with two hands (the two splits). Some casinos’ blackjack rules allow split of Aces, but then you are not allowed to have additional cards.
When the player hits, exceeds 21 and gets busted, the dealer announces Too Many and the player loses. The dealer is obliged to hit until he reaches 17. If his hand exceeds 21, he pays to all the blackjack players on the table.
Blackjack odds
A very important thing for every player is to know what the blackjack odds for certain situations to happen are and the odds for their outcome. For example, the chance for you to get blackjack, or to hit a 10 and etc. In this section you may see the odds for the outcome of different situation.
House edge
The percentage advantage of the casino over the players was first calculated by John Scarne – 5.9% . The advantage that the blackjack dealer has over the players is given by the simultaneous busts. It is important to know that the dealer busts 28% of the time, while the chance for both the dealer and the player to bust in the same time is 7.84%.
Bust after a hit
In the chart below you can see the chance for you to bust if you hit depending on your hand value before you hit.
Card removal impact
The removal of certain cards has different impact on the players’ odds. If you take a look at the chart below you will notice that the removal of a 5 or an Ace from the blackjack deck has the biggest impact on the odds of the dealer and the player. The removal of a 5 from the deck improves the odds of the player, while the removal of an Ace improves the odds of the dealer (casino).
Dealer bust
Here you will see the chance for the dealer to bust depending on his up card. This is important to know because it will help you make the right decisions and will improve your chances to win during the game of blackjack.
Hand value chances
No Bust Blackjack Rules
In the chart below, you can see different hand values and the chance for you to get such total value of your first two cards.
No Bust Blackjack Rules Printable
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No Bust Blackjack Rules For Beginners
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