21-related games strategies

Casinos offer more or less related games under different names such as: 21, blackjack, Spanish 21, pontoon, no peek 21. And they offer each of them with different rules. When I find them I would like to know how good these 21-like games are.

But so far I have found information about only a few of them (other than blackjack or 21). That information usually tells the house advantage off the top under one or a few rules combinations; it often tells basic strategy too. Although that is useful information, it is not as helpful as would be strategies for advantageously playing the games under one or all sets of rules.

Will you please tell me where to find: Information to use to evaluate any 21-related game. And information to use to decide how to play it advantageously.

If the answer involves using a computer, know that I presently have access to: classic computers, a Macintosh computer, and brief access to a variety of computers in cafes.

Slot

Wizardofodds.com has useful information about a wide variety of games. Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all way to evaluate the optimal strategy for attacking every game that is "similar" to Blackjack. Every single rule variation has an impact, and some of these are significant.

Blackjack has one of the lowest house edges of any casino game, so it is generally true that any variation would be worse for the player. However, theoretically, any game that involves dependent trials can be beaten.

Would the person who answers this please provide a general strategy for playing any casino game advantageously. Thanks in advance. :-)

Seriously, each of these variations is very different from an analytical point of view. A seemingly small rule change (e.g. blackjack pays 6:5) can turn a beatable game into an unbeatable one. If it was that easy to beat these games we wouldn't be playing blackjack anymore.

You could start by reading Griffin's Theory of Blackjack and learning how to program a computer.

Thanks Coug Fan and Magician.

I appreciate the humor.

I too have found Wizardofodds.com's and Griffin's information interesting and helpful. And I can program computers, although not with the most powerful languages, and not the latest models.

On initial appraisal most of the particularly different games are not worth playing. And it seems that spending much of any time programing in order to develop a strategy is wasteful.

But I had hoped that there was something that I did not know of, perhaps one of the blackjack software offerings, which would be useful for identifying good variant games and wining some variant games. *Robbing the One Armed Bandits* was such a thing for slot machine play. (Of course it's having been provided to the masses probably contributed to the deterioration of slot machine work.)

This site and Wong's writings have provided me with quite a few helps over the years; I posted here. Perhaps someone will come up with something later.

Slot

I appreciate the humor.

Well it was possible someone, somewhere had come up with the Grand Unified Theory of 21-Related Games and was willing to post it here, right?

I too have found Wizardofodds.com's and Griffin's information interesting and helpful. And I can program computers, although not with the most powerful languages, and not the latest models.

That should suffice for most computations.

On initial appraisal most of the particularly different games are not worth playing. And it seems that spending much of any time programing in order to develop a strategy is wasteful.

You may learn a lot even if the end result isn't immediately useful.

But I had hoped that there was something that I did not know of, perhaps one of the blackjack software offerings, which would be useful for identifying good variant games and wining some variant games.

Different packages can be configured for these rule variations to varying extents. Of course, new variations pop up all the time.

This site and Wong's writings have provided me with quite a few helps over the years; I posted here. Perhaps someone will come up with something later.

You may find some useful information on Green Chip.