Double Exposure Blackjack

Double Exposure Blackjack, also known by the German name Zweikartenspiel, meaning two card game, is a variant of the casino game blackjack in which the dealer receives two cards face up as part of the initial deal. Seeing the whole dealer hand gives the player a great deal of information, so casinos restore the house edge with other rule changes: a natural blackjack pays even money instead of three to two, and the player loses a bet whenever the hand ties the dealer, except when both hold blackjack. Because both dealer cards are exposed at the start, players cannot buy insurance or surrender, and some tables further restrict doubling down, splitting and doubling after a split. The variant was proposed by Richard A. Epstein in 1977 and first appeared at the Vegas World casino in 1979 with rule changes that favoured the house. Its basic strategy differs from ordinary blackjack, because the player can see dealer totals from 11 to 20, so two ten-value cards are split whenever the dealer shows 13 through 16.