Rules, numbers and hosts
Rules. The rules published by Lotería de Córdoba for Córdoba casinos: at least eight decks (the figures take exactly eight), the dealer stands on every 17, blackjack pays 3 to 2, a double only on 11, an ace among your first two cards declared 1 or 11 for the whole hand, and a dealer’s second card turned over after the players, whose blackjack takes every bet on the hand. It is a preset for learning, not a statement about any one casino: the room settles anything its rulebook leaves open.
Numbers. Every figure on this page is worked out when the page is built, by our blackjack engine. The chart gives, for each hard total, the play with the higher average result over all two-card hands of that total, pairs aside. A mistake’s cost is the average result of the chart’s play minus that of the mistake, per hand, for an example bet of 10 units, with each average rounded to the hundredth first, so a cost is always the difference of the two amounts shown. Against a 10 or an ace the averages include the hands where the dealer turns up a blackjack, because at these tables it takes a double too. The house edge assumes the full chart, soft hands and pairs included, with every ace among the first two cards declared the better way, and cards shuffled after every hand; with a cut card it is a little higher, and every move off the chart raises it.
The dealer’s table. The dealer’s second card is dealt face down and turned over after the players, as at Córdoba tables, so blackjack is an outcome of its own. Your own two cards stay in the shoe; with them taken out the figures shift a little. A row may not add up to exactly 100 because of rounding.
Hosts. Leo and Maya are illustrated characters. Their backstories, a former dealer and a former floor supervisor, are written for the course: neither is a real person, and neither speaks for any casino. The rules and numbers on this page come from the sources it cites, not from their experience.
No promise. Blackjack is played against the house. The chart lowers the price of playing; nothing on this page makes it free or tells you how an evening will end.