Dealer
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You
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Card game against the dealer with one shared deck: get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over, and win as many rounds in a row as you can.
The game uses one standard 52-card deck. Number cards count their face value, J, Q and K count 10, and an Ace counts 11 — or 1 whenever 11 would take the hand over 21. Your total is shown with your cards.
You and the dealer each get two cards. The dealer's second card stays face down, and the dealer's total reads "?", until your turn ends.
Tap HIT to take another card or STAND to stop. Those are the only two choices: there is no doubling, splitting, insurance or surrender. Reaching exactly 21 ends your turn automatically, and going over 21 (a bust) loses on the spot — the dealer does not even draw. Otherwise the dealer turns over the hidden card and draws until reaching at least 17, standing on every 17, including a soft 17 such as Ace-6. The hand closer to 21 wins; equal totals are a push.
A two-card 21 is a Blackjack. If either side is dealt one, the round settles at once, before you can act. Your Blackjack beats every dealer hand except another Blackjack, which is a push, and a dealer Blackjack beats any hand of yours that is not one. It counts as one ordinary win — there is no bonus.
The same deck carries over from round to round. The 🂠 counter shows how many cards are left; when fewer than 15 remain before a deal, a fresh deck is shuffled in and "Shuffled" flashes on screen.
Your score is your winning streak. Each win adds 1, a push leaves it unchanged, and a loss ends the run. Whenever the streak is above zero, the result card offers Save score, so even the hand that ends a run can post it to the Hall of Fame (top 10). After a loss the next game starts at zero with a fresh deck, and the New button does the same at any time.
Twenty-One is free to play with points only: there is no real money, no betting and no prizes. The streak is the only thing you can win.
Before any hunch, lean on basic strategy, which is just the math of when to hit. The dealer's single visible card is your compass. When it shows 4, 5 or 6, stand on any total of 12 or more and let the dealer take the risk; against a 2 or 3, stand from 13 up but take one more card on 12. When it shows 7 through Ace the dealer is strong, so keep hitting until you reach at least 17. Always hit a soft hand (one counting an Ace as 11) that totals 17 or less, and take one more card on soft 18 when the dealer shows 9 or 10 — with the Ace in your hand, that card cannot bust you. Against a dealer Ace the two choices are almost even, but with this game's single deck standing comes out slightly ahead.
Put numbers on the risk before you tap. From a hard 12 only a ten-value card busts you — 4 ranks out of 13, about 31% — while from a hard 16 anything from 6 upward does, about 62%. The dealer busts roughly 35–42% of the time when showing 2 to 6 (5 and 6 are the weakest cards), only about a quarter of the time when showing 7 through 10, and about one hand in six behind an Ace. And because a dealer Blackjack ends the round before you can act, any hand you actually get to play against an Ace or a ten has no Blackjack hiding behind it.
The deck does carry over, so the cards already played change what is left — but with only Hit and Stand and nothing to wager, a count can only tip a few borderline hands, such as 12 against a dealer 2 or 3, or 16 against a 10. Use it as a tiebreaker: when plenty of small cards (2 to 6) have already gone, the rest of the deck is rich in tens and standing on a stiff 12–16 gains a little; when the tens have been drained, hitting becomes safer. Every loss brings a brand-new deck, so a count is only worth much deep into a winning run — start again from zero each time "Shuffled" flashes.
Know what a good run looks like. Even with flawless hit-and-stand play, a round here ends in a win about 44% of the time, a push about 8% and a loss about 48%, so your chance of adding one more win before the next loss is a little under 48%. Just over half of all runs end without a single win, about one in nine reaches three, about one in forty reaches five, and ten in a row turns up roughly once in 1,600 runs. Pushes neither add to nor break the streak, so a tie is a perfectly good result — never hit a hard 17 just to avoid one.