The Deal
If a player is satisfied with his total, he may stand pat. If he isn't satisfied with his hand, he may want to draw one or more cards to increase the total of his points.
If a player wants to hit his hand, he need not say anything. The practice is to scrape the cards on the green felt surface of the table towards himself. He'll automatically get another card by doing this.
Scraping is used instead of words because in the casino there's a great deal of noise, and chaotic sounds and words are often misunderstood. The scraping motion is universally accepted. Should a player not care to hit his hand, he pushes his cards under his chips. And should a player have hit his hand and be satisfied with the total, he pushes his original two cards under his chips. No more cards will be dealt to him he does his card after he does this.
So now it's up to the first baseman to make his decision about playing his cards, whether to hit or stand. After he plays his hand, then the second player plays his and so on to the last player at the table, the one facing the dealer's right This last player is known as either the third baseman or anchor man.
After all the players at the table have acted upon their hand the dealer plays his. He first turns over his hole card so that all the participants at the table see both of his cards, and then plays out his hand according to the strict rules of the casino either standing on his total or hitting his hand.
Although, as we shall see, a player has many options, dealer has none. In most casinos a dealer must hit all his hand valued at 16 or below and he must still stand on all hands valued at 17 or above. The only exception is in those casinos that the require a dealer to hit a hand called a soft 17, which consist of cards adding up to 17 with the ace counting as 11. For example, a hand consisting of an ace and 6 is a soft 17.