A gambling game played in South East Asia that bears similarity to conventional blackjack. Is it Better or Worse? You decide.
Chinese Blackjack is also known as 21-point, ban-nag (Cantonese) or ban-luck (Hokkien).
The game uses one or two 52-card deck(s) and is playable by any number of players. One of them is to be a dealer, or they may take turn to be the dealer, e.g. each person deals 3 rounds or 3 winning rounds. In this article, players beside the dealer shall be denoted “players”.
Although Chinese Blackjack has some standard rules, unusual house rules are common. It will be stated in the rules below if it is a house rule. House rules mean that they are not played in standard Chinese Blackjack games.
Dealing
Players place their bets. The dealer shuffles the cards thoroughly and ask the players to “cut the hand” by which a player take a number of cards off from the shuffled deck, and the dealer deals the cards clockwise or anti-clockwise starting from himself. All cards face down. He deals two cards per person and put back the extra cards to the “cut hand”.
Point counting rules
- K, Q, J = 10
- 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 = respective face value
- If your total number of cards is 2, then Ace = 11 or 10
- If your total number of cards is 3, then Ace = 1 or 10
- If your total number of cards is 4 and above, then Ace = 1
Checking for Blackjack. Each player including the dealer checks his hand for the following special combinations
- Ace + Ace = ban-ban
- Ace + (10/J/Q/K) = ban-nag
- 15 points = free hand
Ban-Ban. If a player receives a ban-ban, he is deemed to have won his bet tripled from the dealer immediately, unless the dealer receives a ban-ban (a tie) or a free hand (an escape).
If the dealer receives a ban-ban, he is deemed to have won all player bets tripled immediately, unless the player receives a ban-ban (a tie) or a free hand (an escape).
Ban-Nag.If a player receives a ban-nag, he wins his bet doubled from the dealer immediately, unless the dealer has a ban-ban (player loses), or a ban-nag (a tie), or a free hand (an escape).
If the dealer receives a ban-nag, he wins all player bets doubled immediately, unless the player has a ban-ban (dealer loses), or a ban-nag (a tie), or a free hand (an escape).
15 Points (House Rule)
If the player has a free hand, he may decide to continue or not to continue with the game.
If the dealer has a free hand, he may decide to continue or not to continue with the game.
If he chooses not to, then the cards shall be collected back, reshuffled and dealt again.
After checking for Blackjack, each player takes turn to make the following decisions, depending on the conditions. The player may add more than one card.
- total < 16, hit (add one card).
- total >= 16 and < 21, hit or stand.
- total = 21, stand.
- total > 21, busts.
- number of cards = 5 (5-Dragon), collect win from dealer immediately, double the bet.
- number of cards = 5 and total = 21, collect win from dealer immediately, triple the bet. (House Rule)
The dealer’s turn. After all players are done, the dealer has to make the following decisions, depending on the conditions. The dealer may hit more than one card.
- total < 16, hit (add one card).
- total >= 16 and < 21, hit or reveal some players’ hands then hit.
- total = 21, reveal all players’ cards.
- total > 21, dealer busts.
- number of cards = 5 (5-Dragon), collect win from players immediately, double all bets.
- number of cards = 5 and total = 21, collect win from players immediately, triple all bets. (House Rule)
If the dealer chooses to reveal a player’s hand:
- player busts or total of dealer > total of player, dealer wins the bet (double if dealer has 21 points (House Rule) )
- total of dealer = total of player, tie.
- total of dealer < total of player, player wins, (double if player has 21 points (House Rule) )
If the dealer busts, the dealer pays all players their bets (double if player has 21 points (House Rule) ) unless the player also busts.
After the dealer has settled with all players, the cards are collected back and a new round begins.