Glossary of Terms
Common blackjack vocabulary, in plain language.
- Blackjack (natural)
- An ace and a 10-value card as your first two cards.
- Bust
- A hand total over 21. An automatic loss, even if the dealer busts afterward.
- Push
- A tie with the dealer. Your bet is returned.
- Upcard
- The dealer's face-up card. It drives nearly every strategy decision you make.
- Hole card
- The dealer's face-down card.
- Hard hand
- A hand with no ace, or where the ace must count as 1 to avoid busting.
- Soft hand
- A hand where an ace counts as 11 without busting. Cannot bust on the next card.
- Double down
- Doubling your bet in exchange for exactly one more card.
- Split
- Turning a pair into two separate hands with two separate bets.
- Surrender
- Forfeiting the hand for half your bet back, before taking any cards.
- Insurance
- A side bet that the dealer has blackjack when showing an ace. A bad bet.
- Shoe
- The box holding the multiple decks the dealer draws from.
- House edge
- The casino's long-run statistical advantage. Roughly 0.5% with perfect basic strategy, and several percent without it.
- Basic strategy
- The chart of mathematically optimal plays for every hand and upcard.
- Card counting
- Tracking the ratio of high to low cards remaining in the shoe to adjust bets. Legal, but casinos will ask you to leave.