If I saw the dealer draw a six onto sixteen, my first instinct would be to expect a payout on any hand I still had in play. That’s the moment where Blackjack Switch would catch me out. The Ethereum blackjack guide on web3bet mentions that a dealer total of 22 can end in a draw. I think it’s easier to see why that matters if you follow both player hands from the deal, especially when one of them ends up looking exactly like a blackjack. Say I’ve put the same stake on each of my two hands. I get an ace and a seven on the left, and a nine and a king on the right. When the guide talks about swapping the top cards, it means the second card dealt to each hand. In this case, the seven and king trade places. The ace and nine stay where they are. I now have an ace and king for 21 on the left and a nine and seven for 16 on the right. For this example, say I stand on 21 and draw a three on the other hand, bringing it to 19. Now the dealer turns over a ten next to a six, draws another six, and finishes on 22. Under the rules I checked, both of my bets push. I get my two original stakes back. The 19 is still in play, so it gets the push. The ace and king also push because I put them together by switching. Had the ace and king been dealt together as an untouched natural blackjack, that hand would win against the dealer’s 22 under those rules. And if I’d drawn an eight on my 16, that hand would already have busted at 24 and lost its stake. I can see the appeal of being able to rearrange a pair of awkward starting hands. In the example, I turned a soft 18 into 21, although the other hand dropped from 19 to 16 in the process. The drawback shows up when the dealer lands on exactly 22. That one total can turn two hands I’d expect to be paid on in ordinary blackjack into two returned stakes. A dealer total of 23 would be a bust that pays both surviving hands in this example. One point makes quite a difference.
