Spanish 21 Edge

Can anyone tell me the edge for Spanish 21 with the following rules:

• H17,
  
• One card only to split aces, no doubles or resplits,
  
• When doubling a hand with an ace as the first or second card, the ace may count as 1 only.

As an example of the last rule, doubling A-2-4 and catching a 2 is only 9, whereas doubling 2-4-A and catching a 2 is 19).

Would appreciate the answer for 8, 6 and 4 (yes, 4) decks.

I wrote:
> Can anyone tell me the edge for Spanish 21 with the following rules:
>
> H17,
> One card only to split aces, no doubles or resplits,
> When doubling a hand with an ace as the first or second card, the ace may count as 1 only.
>
> As an example of the last rule, doubling A-2-4 and catching a 2 is only 9, whereas doubling 2-4-A and catching a 2 is 19).
>
> Would appreciate the answer for 8, 6 and 4 (yes, 4) decks.

No takers?

Put it this way then: All other things being equal, would you rather play 4 deck Spanish 21 (H17, DOA, DAS, LSR) or 8 deck blackjack (S17, D9, DAS, No surrender) as a Basic Strategy player? As a counter?

http://www.thewizardofodds.com/

This should answer your questions regarding house edge. Beware however, that the House Edge for Spanish 21 assumes that you play the correct BS for THAT GAME. The Spanish 21 BS is quite different from Blackjack BS.

Personally, as a basic strategy player I would play the one with the lower house edge (based on the Wiz site). Then again, as a BS player, I am planning to lose money either way, so I would probably play the 8D game. That way, I would not have to learn a completely different Basic Strategy.

I cannot answer your question as a counter because you did not specify the single most important variable - Penetration. I would not play either of the games you mentioned unless the penetration was exceptional. I would tend to avoid the Spanish 21 game as a counter because I don't know the correct BS for that game, and I also do not know the correct counting method (lack of tens changes the counting method quite a bit). However, if the pen was sufficiently good at the Spanish 21 game, I might be tempted to learn.

The Wiz quotes a house edge for Spanish 21 H17 of 0.76%, but does not say how many decks (I presume six). I was hoping someone could run a sim to determine the answer for different numbers of decks, and also for the rule variations I described in my original post, if possible.

As for counting, I did forget to include penetration - let's assume 75% as a benchmark. I have already learned Spanish 21 BS, and I'm prepared to learn the correct counting method if it would be worthwhile. Let's say at least 75% of the win rate for the blackjack game. For now, making money on this game is not a top priority.

Thanks again for your input Coug Fan.

Try posting your question on Advantageplayer.com That web site gets more high quality posters than this one and I know that some people have looked into this question. Be advised that that site is semi-moderated, which means that your post will need to be reviewed before it is posted. This keeps the Trolls away.

With 75% pen, I would stay away from the 8 deck game with the crappy rules that you mentioned. The Spanish 21 game might be playable, but I do not know for sure.

For what its worth (not much), I would assume that you could count Spanish 21 by using Hi-Lo, starting with a TC of -4, and then go from there. With a BHE of 0.76%, you would need a TC of +2 to get an edge, which would be a change in TC of +6, so I think that this game would not be too advantageous. This is just my common sense answer which might be wrong. Others can no doubt give you a more mathematically sound answer.