Because the ace can be worth either 1 or 11 depending on which is more favorable, special terminology is used to describe a hand that distinguishes how it is being used. Hands in which an ace is counted as n are known as “soft hands,” while those hands without an ace or where any number of aces are counted as one are known as “hard hands.” For example, a 17 comprising an ace and a 6 is referred to as a “Soft 17.” Likewise, an ace and a 4 comprise a Soft 15. But what happens if we add a queen to a Soft 15, as might happen in play? With the presence of a queen, the value of the ace must now be counted as 1 - otherwise our total would exceed 21. Counting the ace as 1, our total, now made up of an ace, a 4, and a queen, went from a Soft 15 to a hard hand of the same total.
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