Blackjack's forerunner was twenty-one, a round of obscure starting point. The primary composed reference is found in a book by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, generally renowned for composing Don Quixote. Cervantes was a speculator, and the principle characters of his story "Rinconete y Cortadillo", from Novelas Ejemplares, are a few cheats working in Seville. They are capable at tricking at veintiuna (Spanish for twenty-one), and express that the object of the game is to arrive at 21 points without going over and that the ace esteems 1 or 11. The game is played with the Spanish baraja deck. This short story was composed somewhere in the range of 1601 and 1602, suggesting that ventiuna was played in Castile since the start of the seventeenth century or prior. Later references to this game are found in France and Spain.
