In blackjack only the value of your cards are important the suits of the cards have no meaning. The cards from 2 through 9 are the value indicated. If you have a 6 and an 8 then your hand is worth 6 + 8 = 14. The 10, Jack, Queen and King each have the value of 10. If you have a 10 and a King then your hand is worth 10 + 10 = 20. If you have a 5 and a Jack then your hand is worth 5 + 10 = 15. An Ace may be counted as either 1 or 11 depending on the other cards in your hand. If you have a 6 and an Ace then your hand is worth either 7 or 17. If you stop at this point then your hand will be worth 17. Let's say you draw another card and it is an 8. Your hand is now a 6, an 8 and an Ace. This hand has the value 6 + 8 + 1 = 15. In this case the Ace must be worth 1 otherwise the hand would be 6 + 8 + 11 = 25, which is over 21 and a losing hand regardless of what the dealer has. Going over 21 is called "busting" in blackjack. If you bust then you lose the hand even if the dealer also busts. In the case mentioned earlier (6 + Ace = 17) this is referred to as a "soft" 17. A soft total occurs when you have a hand with an Ace that can be either a 1 or 11 without busting. If you added a 10 to the previous hand (6 + 10 + Ace = 17) you would have a "hard" 17. In this case the Ace can only be counted as 1 in order to avoiding busting. With a soft total you can always draw another card with no risk of busting.
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