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Cards Values
“8 Even and 5 Odd” 

Something Not Everyone Knows 

Even if you’ve played Blackjack for years, many people still answer this question wrong if they don’t think it through; How many of the 13 cards are Even in the game Blackjack?  Immediately you are thinking, is it 6 or 7?  In Blackjack, cards do have different values, but what makes this interesting, along with what happens because of this, is that there are only 5 odd cards and 8 even cards.

The only card that may cause confusion is the Ace.  It is relatively simple once you play any amount of Blackjack, but can confuse a novice player.  The Ace is the most powerful card.  Having it in your hand is usually a really good thing, especially if all the other cards you have add up to 10.  In this case, you may use the Ace as an 11, and adding it to hand totals like 10 (21), 9 (20), 8 (19) resulting in a good hand.  This is called a Soft hand.  One way to look at a soft hand is that even if you receive the highest valued card, the 10, you can never Bust (go over 21) with this soft hand, because now the Ace’s value is one.  When playing Blackjack, you do not have to state what value you want to assign the Ace, it is automatically determined, and assumes its most beneficial value, automatically giving you your best hand.  For example, a 4,4 and an Ace can total 9 or 19.  You do not need to state that you want 9, and you want to hit again, or 19 because you want to stay.  You would just stay.  If the dealer gets 20 or better, you lose, 18 or less, you win and 19 would be a push. 

A hard hand is another type of hand you will often hear in the game.  A hard hand is a hand that does not include an Ace or includes an Ace(s) that cannot be counted as 11, because the hand would bust. 

A Deeper Look 

Our Playing 21 Program keeps track of everything you will ever need to play the game Blackjack, in a very clear and easy to read way.  One thing McB Duplin developed before the program was something we called the “Odd Card Theory”.  We knew there was a correlation between how often the player and the dealer make certain hands when starting with certain cards.  Since the deck had more even cards than odd, one could see some interesting total combinations develop more than others.  This was factored in with the fact that the dealer must always hit 16, another even number, and busts at 22, yet another even number. Thus, the Odd Card Theory was born. 

Hands that were mostly affected were hands where the dealer had 2-6, and the player had soft hands through 2-6.  The Playing 21 Program has taken the game Blackjack to places the world has never seen.  It is responsible for proving and disproving many Blackjack beliefs.  It is the program which exposed the fact that casinos have been misleading their own customers, people who play the game like you and I.  For more on the program, and the Odd Card Theory, please bookmark us, and spend some time reading and enjoying the site.