Spanish 21 Strategy Card

• Spanish 21 Strategy Cards
• Spanish 21 Poker
• Spanish 21 Strategy Chart Printable
• 21 Basic Strategy Chart

Good question. Yes, this house edge is definitely low enough to consider card counting. Since most card counters don't even consider Spanish 21 I think the field is ripe to exploit the game and to do so with a great deal of impunity. However counting may not be as effective in Spanish 21 as regular blackjack. A small card rich deck will benefit the player in more multiple card 21's. To the best of my knowledge nobody has developed index numbers for Spanish 21 but somebody should. Maybe I will.

• Spanish 21 is a variation of one of the most iconic casino games, Blackjack. Spanish 21 offers some new and interesting changes that shift the dynamic of the game, one of which is the removal of all number ‘10' cards from the deck. This leaves the dealer with decks of 48 cards, rather than 52.
• Spanish 21 is an exciting variation played at most major casinos now. It has some neat payouts and reduces the house edge almost in half! Spanish 21 is an exciting variation played at most major.
• The strategy for such blackjack variation as Spanish 21 was developed by many different blackjack experts, including Arnold Snyder and John Grochowski: actually, these two blackjack authors were the most successful ones who perfectly described Spanish 21 Strategy.

The Deck In Spanish 21. The biggest difference between Spanish 21 and standard blackjack is the deck. While most blackjack-style games still use a 52-card deck, Spanish 21 uses a 48-card deck (the four.

Casino Player reversed the two charts in their layout. I'm very embarrassed by this mistake. Yes, you should hit a hard 17 against an ace if you can't surrender.

Spanish 21 Strategy Cards

In a 6-deck game the probability of a super bonus is 1 in 668382, and in an 8-deck game it is 1 in 549188. The house edge without the super bonus would be 0.03% more either way.

Spanish 21! Under Atlantic City rules blackjack has a house edge of 0.43% and Spanish 21 of .40%.

The Venetian. To the best of my knowledge they are the only casino in Las Vegas which stands on a soft 17 in Spanish 21, lowering the house edge from 0.76% to 0.40%.
Update: The Venetian later switched to hitting a soft 17. As of this update (May 14, 2013) the best Spanish 21 game is at the D, which allows re-doubling.

All Unified Gaming casinos as well as Global Player offer Spanish 21. Unified Gaming stands on a soft 17 and thus has the lower house edge.
2013 Update: Unified Gaming software has since disappeared. As far as I know, nobody offers Spanish 21 online any longer.

Thanks for the compliment. The Spanish 21 rules are the same across Atlantic City. I only know of two that have the game, the Tropicana and the Claridge, but there could be others by now. If I'm not mistaken, the best craps game is at the Sands, which offers 5X odds. When I say to take the maximum odds I mean bet the maximum allowed on the odds. For example, $50 after a $10 line bet. Keep in mind that you won't win more money by taking the odds, you just get to bet more without losing more in the long run.

I always liked the name Thunder Bay for a city. I used to work at a summer camp not too far from there in Missanabie, Ontario. To answer your question 6 decks is better than 8. However the difference in the house edge is small, only about 0.03%.

Q1. For 17 v A (your reference - Rh). If the player doesn't surrender (or double down surrender), does he in fact hit? I ask this question because I'm a little unsure - Scoblete's book says to stand 17 v A, as does Norm Wattenberger's Spanish 21 strategy table in CVBJ3.

Q2. Your references to the 6-7-8 bonuses. Do all the references apply equally to the 7-7-7 bonuses? e.g. Does * mean 'Hit if any 6-7-8 [OR 7-7-7] bonus possible'?

Q3. p20 of Scoblete's Spanish 21 book says to hit 9 v 6 if player has a 3 card 9. Should I ignore this advice, along with the 'don't double down rescue' advice given in his book?

Sorry to bother you with these questions but I've got a Spanish 21 tournament coming up, and need all the help I can get. Many thanks.

1. Yes, you should hit. I believe all those who disagree to be in error.
2. No, the 7-7-7 bonus is only possible with two initial sevens. The proper strategy is indicated in that row.
3. Yes, you should ignore this advice.

I get verbally abused too when I play Spanish 21. When I lived in Baltimore I played it a lot in Atlantic City because the house edge is lower than blackjack there. These idiots doing the abusing don't understand that removing the tens from the decks makes hitting less dangerous because the probability of busting is less. Don't bother to try to explain this, the logic won't make it through their thick skulls. I used to just bite my tongue in these situations but the next time I may not be so nice.

1. Yes, you should hit. I believe all those who disagree to be in error.
2. No, the 7-7-7 bonus is only possible with two initial sevens. The proper strategy is indicated in that row.
3. Yes, you should ignore this advice.

I get verbally abused too when I play Spanish 21. When I lived in Baltimore I played it a lot in Atlantic City because the house edge is lower than blackjack there. These idiots doing the abusing don't understand that removing the tens from the decks makes hitting less dangerous because the probability of busting is less. Don't bother to try to explain this, the logic won't make it through their thick skulls. I used to just bite my tongue in these situations but the next time I may not be so nice.

There was discussion about this at www.bj21.com under the Green Chip section about a couple years ago. As I recall the consensus was that counting was not as advantageous as in blackjack but you could get away with a lot more. I know of no published material on this.

Most redoubling situations tell you to double anyway. However, with a soft 15 to 17 against a 3, when the strategy says hit, you should actually redouble.

Thanks. This game is just a rip-off of Spanish 21. Note that the bottom of the card says that all queens are removed.

Keeping all the tens in the deck is worth 1.89% to the player. The house edge under those rules is normally 0.40%. So with all the tens in the shoe, the player edge would be 1.89%-0.40% = 1.49%.

Spanish 21 Poker

I don't like it when games give worse odds to the higher bettors either. The value of these Super Bonuses is almost zero. The probability of hitting the Super Bonus is one in 549,000 with eight decks, and one in 668,000 million with six decks. Assuming six decks, the value of the envy bonus is worth 0.0015% per additional player, besides yourself. Sorry, I don't know of any casinos that sweeten the bonuses for larger bets.

Not knowing, however, where to find it, and others, I usually wind up writing to the maker of the game at their website and asking where I can find their game outside of Nevada, since I am in the Midwest. I NEVER get an answer! Besides being just bad customer service, I still have the question of finding the game to be answered. Do you know of a site, or a way, to find which specific games are at which casinos? You would think the game's manufacturer would list where to find it to assist in letting players find the game.

Thanks for the kind words. Pharaoh fortune slot machine. I think the gaming manufacturers should take this as a good suggestion. I get requested for this information by players all the time, but it is simply too much for one person to keep on top of. A noteworthy exception is Masque Publishing, the owners of Spanish 21. They keep an online list of where the liberal Spanish 21 rules can be found.

Spanish 21 Strategy Chart Printable

As one might expect, Spanish 21 uses the Spanish deck, which is simply a normal deck with all of the tens removed. There are several rule variations for this game, especially as it is a popular game played in brick-and-mortar casinos all over the U.S.A., so it is important to understand what the house rules are and how they may affect the house edge.

Spanish 21 is similar to Pontoon and is usually found under the mopniker of, ‘Spanish Blackjack,' and can sometimes be found online under the name, ‘Pirate Blackjack,' but for the most part, it can be found in brick-and-mortar casinos.

Some of the more favorable player rules to balance the house edge is that surrender, doubling after splitting and re-splitting aces are all allowed while a player Natural always wins. Players can also double on anything with any number of cards as well as hitting and doubling after splitting aces. Five-Card 21's pay 3:2, Six-Card 21's pay 2:1 and Seven (or more) Card 21's pay 3:1, but not if the player has doubled or split.

Another interesting rule change is that the player has the option to surrender even after the player has doubled down, so essentially, the player gets the double wager back and forfeits the original amount bet.

There are a plethora of other rule variations which alter the house edge and can change the strategy pretty significantly, furthermore, this is a very complicated game to begin with, so a player should definitely rely on the strategy charts on Wizard of Odds and not his or her own intuition for this one.

Ultimately, this may be a game that many people enjoy, and it comes with a house edge comparable to a decent blackjack game, just with a ton more variance due to all of the pays for different hand types as well as the ability for the player to make several decisions that result in increasing one's bet. This game, however, is not for everyone. Those seeking to play optimally may become bored given how many times they will have to turn to the strategy chart within the first few hundred to a thousand hands before getting the game down, and while the chart has been made as simple as possible, the plethora of different situations that can come up can render the chart still somewhat hard to follow. It is definitely a game upon which a player can become easily overwhelmed in the early going.

21 Basic Strategy Chart

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