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The Game

Rules, cards and the objective

Before any strategy makes sense you need the mechanics cold. Blackjack is a comparing game: you play only against the dealer, and the dealer has no choices — they must draw to 17 by fixed rule. This chapter covers how cards are valued, why an ace makes a hand 'soft', and what push and bust mean. Once you see that the dealer is an algorithm, not an opponent, basic strategy stops looking like guesswork and starts looking like arithmetic.