# Play Blackjack with free play chips

Blackjack on Card Lounge is played with **play chips only**. The chips have no value: you cannot buy them, cash them out or win anything with them, and there is no real-money gambling anywhere on the site. It is simply the card game, against the dealer, for fun. [Deal Blackjack now](../index.html?game=blackjack#play) and play right here, free and without an account.

You start with 1,000 play chips. If you run low, **Reset chips** fills your stack back up to 1,000 between hands, so there is never any pressure to chase losses.

## How to win

Each round, you try to finish with a hand closer to 21 than the dealer's without going over. A winning hand pays 1 to 1, and a two-card 21 (a blackjack) pays 3 to 2. Since the chips are only for play, the real goal is to make good decisions and enjoy the game.

## Rules

### Play chips and bets

- You start with 1,000 play chips. **Reset chips** refills them to 1,000 whenever you like.
- Nothing can be bought or won. The chips exist only inside the game.
- Bets are 10, 20, 50 or 100 chips per round.

### The shoe

- Six standard 52-card decks are shuffled together into a shoe of 312 cards.
- The shoe is reshuffled when fewer than 78 cards remain.

### Card values

- 2 to 10 count at face value. Jack, Queen and King count 10.
- An Ace counts 1 or 11, whichever suits the hand. A hand where an Ace counts as 11 is called soft.
- A two-card 21 is a blackjack. It pays 3 to 2 unless the dealer also has blackjack, in which case it is a push.

### The deal and your choices

- You receive two cards. The dealer gets one card face up and one face down.
- The dealer checks for blackjack when the face-up card is an Ace or a ten-value card.
- **Hit:** take another card.
- **Stand:** keep your total and let the dealer play.
- **Double:** only on your first two cards. Your bet is doubled and you receive exactly one more card.
- A hand that goes over 21 is bust and loses.
- Splitting and insurance are not offered in this edition.

### The dealer

- The dealer draws to 16 and stands on all 17s, including soft 17 (for example Ace and 6).

### Results

- A win pays 1 to 1. A push returns your bet. A loss loses the bet.
- A push is shown as "Push" and ends the round without a winner.

## Controls

- Pick your bet (10, 20, 50 or 100), then press **Deal**.
- Use **Hit**, **Stand** or **Double** to play your hand. Tap or click the buttons; they can also be reached with `Tab` and pressed with `Enter` or `Space`.
- After a round ends, **Deal again** starts the next one.
- **Reset chips** refills your play chips to 1,000.

## Tips

1. **Know the dealer's rule.** The dealer must keep drawing until reaching 17 or more, and stands on every 17, soft ones included. So if you stand on 16 or less, you can only win if the dealer busts.
2. **Ten-value cards are common.** Each deck has 16 cards worth ten (10, Jack, Queen, King), which is 4 in every 13 cards, or 96 of the 312 cards in a fresh shoe. No other value turns up as often.
3. **You cannot bust on a hard 11 or less.** Without an Ace counted as 11, the largest card you can draw adds 10, so hitting a hard total of 11 or less never takes you over 21.
4. **Soft hands are safe to hit once.** In a soft hand the Ace can drop from 11 to 1, so the next card cannot bust you. A soft 17 can be improved without risk of going over on that card.
5. **Double on strong starting totals.** Doubling gives you exactly one more card, so it suits totals such as 10 or 11, where a single ten-value card makes 20 or 21.
6. **Pairs are just totals here.** Because there is no splitting, two 8s are played as a hard 16 and two Aces as a soft 12.

If you are new to the game, the [how to play](../how-to-play.html) page explains the basics, and the [glossary](../glossary.html) covers terms such as push and soft hand.

## Related games

- [Higher or Lower](higher-or-lower.html) is a quick guessing game where the counter shows the odds for the next card.
- [Memory Pairs](memory-pairs.html) is a relaxed matching game with no losing condition.
- [Klondike Draw 1](klondike.html) is the classic solitaire, if you would rather play on your own.