Blackjack has always rivaled poker for popularity. In fact, many land-based casinos featured Blackjack over poker. Some casinos in the not so distant past even closed their poker rooms for lack of activity.
Since the advent of televised poker tournaments, like the World Poker Tour, and the World Series of Poker, in particular, replete with celebrity players and fabulous amounts of prize money awarded the tournament champions, poker has taken the world by storm.
Although Blackjack remained highly popular, the game was surely being overshadowed by the multitude of high-profile poker tournaments. Not any more. The Ultimate Blackjack Tour for example, may be hot on the heels of the WSOP tours popularity, since the UBT will feature not only the best Blackjack players, but championship-level poker players as well.
Although the basic principle of Blackjack is simple; card values are added in an attempt to reach twenty-one without going over, the game is not purely one of luck, as there are numerous strategies that can be employed to increase ones chances of winning.
Although various card games similar to what we now know as Blackjack had been played in...