Method of playing a blackjack card game

Abstract

A variation on blackjack suitable for tournament play involves at least three players buying a stack of three or more chips for a predetermined buy-in. All of the buy-ins are placed in a pool and the pool is paid out, less a house rake, to the eventual winner of the game. Hands of blackjack are played against a dealer until only one player has remaining chips or until a predetermined time limit expires. The player with the most chips left at the end of the game is the winner of the pool.

1 . A method of playing a blackjack game comprising the steps of: 
 three or more players buying a stack of three or more chips from a house for a predetermined buy-in, each player buying the same number of chips for the same buy-in, all of the buy-ins forming a pool;    playing a first hand in which    (i) each player wagers a number of the player's chips, the number of chips being one or more,    (ii) a dealer for the house deals two cards to each player and two cards to the dealer, one of the two cards face down and one of the two cards face up for each of the players and the dealer,    (iii) each player in turn elects to stand or to draw additional cards from the dealer without wagering additional chips,    (iv) a player card sum is determined for each player, each player whose player card sum is in excess of twenty-one busting,    (iv) after each player has elected to stand or has busted, the dealer turns up the dealer's face down card, the dealer drawing an additional card when the dealer's cards have a dealer card sum of sixteen or less and standing when the dealer card sum is seventeen or greater, the dealer busting if the dealer card sum exceeds twenty-one,    (v) the player card sums are compared to the dealer card sum to determine winning players and losing players of the hand, the card sums being determined with cards from 2 to 10 counted at face value, with jacks, queens and kings counted as 10 and with aces counted as 1 or 11, 
 the winning players consisting of the players who did not bust with the dealer busting, or, the players whose player card sum does not exceed twenty-one but does exceed the dealer card sum with the dealer not busting,  
 the losing players consisting of the players that busted, and, the players whose player card sums are less than the dealer card sum with the dealer not busting, and  
   (vi) the house provides each winning player a number of chips equal to the number of chips wagered by that winning player, and the house takes from each losing player the number of chips wagered by that losing player;    playing one or more other hands until a winner of the game is determined or a predetermined time limit has been reached; and,    paying the pool minus a predetermined rake to the winner of the game.    
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the three or more players is three to seven players.  
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the number of chips that each player may wager in the first hand is one, and wherein the number of chips that each player may wager in the other hands is only limited by the number of chips that the player possesses.  
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the stack of three or more chips is a stack of three chips.  
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the rake is equal to one buy-in.  
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein if the player card sum of one or more players is equal to the dealer card sum, and the one or more players and the dealer do not bust, the one or more players neither wins nor loses the wagered chips, the wagered chips being pushed to a next hand.  
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the time limit is ten minutes.  
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein each player has a wagering time window in which to make the wager on each player's respective turn, the player losing one chip for failing to make the wager within the wagering time window.  
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein each player has a drawing time window in which to stand or draw an additional card on each player's respective turn, the player losing one chip for failing to stand or draw an additional card within the drawing time window.  
   
   
       10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein players who lose all of their chips are eliminated from the game.  
   
   
       11 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the players may not be offered insurance, the players may not split or double-down, and any one player may not occupy more than two spots in the game.  
   
   
       12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the player having a remaining chip after all of the other players have been eliminated, is the winner of the game.  
   
   
       13 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the player having the largest number of chips when the time limit expires is the winner of the game.  
   
   
       14 . The method of  claim 13 , wherein more than one player have the largest number of chips and the pool minus the predetermined rake is divided equally among all of the players who have the largest number of chips.  
   
   
       15 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein before expiration of the time limit two remaining players divide the pool equally between them provided there are no other remaining players and provided that the two remaining players both agree to divide the pool.  
   
   
       16 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the game is played in a virtual setting.  
   
   
       17 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the game is played in a physical setting.  
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the game is played with four decks of cards and a marker.  
   
   
       19 . A method of playing a blackjack game comprising the steps of: 
 three to seven players buying a stack of three chips from a house for a predetermined buy-in, each player buying the same number of chips for the same buy-in, all of the buy-ins forming a pool;    playing a first hand in which    (i) each player wagers one of the player's chips,    (ii) a dealer for the house deals two cards to each player and two cards to the dealer, one of the two cards face down and one of the two cards face up for each of the players and the dealer,    (iii) each player in turn elects to stand or to draw additional cards from the dealer without wagering additional chips,    (iv) a player card sum is determined for each player, each player whose player card sum is in excess of twenty-one busting,    (iv) after each player has elected to stand or has busted, the dealer turns up the dealer's face down card, the dealer drawing an additional card when the dealer's cards have a dealer card sum of sixteen or less and standing when the dealer card sum is seventeen or greater, the dealer busting if the dealer card sum exceeds twenty-one,    (v) the player card sums are compared to the dealer card sum to determine winning players and losing players of the hand, the card sums being determined with cards from 2 to 10 counted at face value, with jacks, queens and kings counted as 10 and with aces counted as 1 or 11, 
 the winning players consisting of the players who did not bust with the dealer busting, or, the players whose player card sum does not exceed twenty-one but does exceed the dealer card sum with the dealer not busting,  
 the losing players consisting of the players that busted, and, the players whose player card sums are less than the dealer card sum with the dealer not busting, and  
   (vi) the house provides each winning player a number of chips equal to the number of chips wagered by that winning player, and the house takes from each losing player the number of chips wagered by that losing player;    playing one or more other hands in which the players may wager any number of their remaining chips until a winner of the game is determined or a predetermined time limit of 5 to 20 minutes has been reached; and,    paying the pool, minus a house rake equal to one buy-in, to the winner of the game.    
   
   
       20 . A computer program comprising computer code for executing the method defined in  claim 1.