Cassell's Book of In-door Amusements, Card Games, and Fireside Fun

by Various

Of all round card games, there is not one more deservedly popular than the one so well known as Vingt-Un (i.e., Twenty-one). Although much of the success attending it depends upon chance, the exercise of no small amount of care and judgment is required by the players, in consequence of which the real interest of the game is greatly intensified.

Six, eight, or, indeed, as many persons as like may join in it. A whole pack of cards is required, and the value attached to them is the same as in Cribbage.

Tens and court cards count as ten each. The ace may either be valued as one or as eleven, to suit the convenience of the holder, and the rest of the cards as usual. The cards are shuffled and cut as in Whist, and to each player a certain number of counters is given. The dealer then gives one card, face downwards, all round, including himself. The players, looking at the cards, each place in front of them a stake, consisting of one or more counters, the amount of each depending entirely upon the choice of the players.

Beginning at the elder hand a second card is then distributed to each. Before proceeding further the dealer may, if so inclined, "challenge the board," receiving or paying from all whose hands are less or more than his own, up to twenty. Should he not feel justified in taking such a step, he puts the question, "Do you stand?" to each player in turn, the winners in the game being the players who simply make twenty-one, neither more nor less. The answers to this question should not be given without due consideration.

The players who feel that they may with safety take one card, or even two or three cards, to enable them to make up the necessary number, receive any number they ask for from the dealer, while those whose number already is so close upon twenty-one that they think it safer to stand, say so.

It sometimes happens that one of the two cards given in the first instance to a player is an ace, and the other a ten, or a court card. This being the case, the owner of them has reason to congratulate himself on his good fortune, because the two cards combined make what is called a natural, and unless the dealer also has exactly twenty-one, he must pay double stakes to the possessor of the natural, who, by reason of its having fallen to him, becomes the next dealer. When the dealer himself, however, is equally fortunate in having a natural he receives double stakes from all the players and single from the ties. All players having either declined the offer of additional cards, or having received as many as they wish, the dealer turns up his two cards, and either stands with them as they are, or takes what cards he likes from the stock on the table. If he should take too many he pays all the standing players the amount of the stakes they made, and to those who have naturals, or cards amounting to twenty-one, whatever they may be, he pays double stakes.

Supposing any player's first and second cards should be alike, he may divide them and place a stake on both, regarding each as a separate hand, and draw cards accordingly, to make two twenty-ones instead of one.

At the beginning of a game a player is at liberty to sell his deal if he should please to do so.

When it happens that the dealer on taking his second card supplies himself with a natural, the round is considered at an end, and he is entitled at once to double stakes from all the players, before supplying them with any additional cards.

On looking at the second card dealt, a player should announce the fact directly when he has a natural, and be paid for it at once, before the dealer has taken his own second card.