How to play
Card Swap 21 is blackjack with a twist: you play two hands at once and can swap their second cards before you play them.
- Choose your bet per hand and press Deal. Both hands carry the same bet, so a bet of 50 puts 100 on the table.
- You get two cards in each hand; the dealer shows one card. If the dealer shows an Ace or a 10-value card, they check for blackjack first. A dealer blackjack ends the round: each of your hands loses unless it’s a blackjack too, which pushes.
- Swap or keep. You can exchange the second card of hand 1 with the second card of hand 2 (the highlighted cards), or keep the hands as dealt. For example, K-5 and 9-A become K-A and 9-5.
- Play each hand as in blackjack: hit, stand, double on your first two cards, or split pairs (up to four hands in total, doubling allowed after a split).
- The dealer draws to 17 and hits soft 17.
The price of the swap:
- Blackjack pays 1 to 1, not 3 to 2. An Ace and a 10-value card made by swapping counts as a blackjack too.
- A dealer 22 is a push. If the dealer busts with exactly 22, every hand that’s still in play is returned, unless it’s a blackjack, which still wins. A dealer 23 or more is a normal bust.
There’s no insurance and no surrender. The game uses 6 decks, reshuffled when a quarter of the shoe is left.
Strategy
The swap is worth far more than the two rules that pay for it, and the Hint button shows the best choice every time:
- Swap to build the two best hands, not one great hand. The hint compares both options by the value of each pair of hands with best play: K-5 and 9-A against a 6 swap to a blackjack and a 14, because the blackjack is worth a sure win.
- You’ll swap about one round in three when you follow the hint.
- The dealer 22 rule changes play. Dealer busts pay less often, so standing on a stiff hand is worth less. 13 against a dealer 2 and 12 against a dealer 4 stand in normal blackjack but are hits here. The hint for each hand takes the rule into account.
Following the hints, the house edge is about 0.1% of each hand’s bet (our simulation of 2.4 million rounds with a 6-deck shoe: 0.12%, give or take 0.11%). Without swapping, the same rules would cost you about 10% of every bet.
For one-hand games, try Blackjack or Pontoon.
If you enjoy Card Swap 21, try Casino War or Charlie 21 next.
