Most important indices for Spanish 21

[Phoebe]

What are most important indices to compute for Spanish 21 ?
Katarina Walker's book is at home and until now I did not use playing departure.

[stopgambling]

the most frequent ones and the positive ones i assume. You need to state which version .

[ZenMaster_Flash]

Just as in ordinary BJ, (Ill 18, Fab4), the plays that are Hit / Stand
at ZERO T.C. or close to ZERO are the most important ones to know.

Insurance one can exclude, because it requires a T.C. that is enormous.

[Phoebe]

Do you use HiLo with start at TC=-4 (RC=-32) ?

[ZenMaster_Flash]

"Do you use HiLo with start at TC=-4 (RC=-32) ?"

Me? An unbalanced level one count ? I think not (understatement)

I only use advanced counts with a big load of indices

for all (rational) possible hand matchups.


In many cases this means 3,4, or more different Indices depending on various factors.


e.g. The weakest possible situation is having a hard 17 vs. a dealer ACE.


Basic Strategy directs you to surrender, (the only B.S. Surrender) but ...


A sufficiently high T.C. has me standing and a sufficiently low T.C. has me hitting.


How about doubling a soft hand with a hard 17 result, do you surrender (‘rescue’) ?


How about a multi-card hard 17 — when do you hit ?


note: a 5 or 6 card hard 17 or 18 vs Ace is (basic strategy) may in fact be a HIT.

[Freightman]

Me? An unbalanced level one count ? I think not (understatement)

I only use advanced counts with a big load of indices

for all (rational) possible hand matchups.


In many cases this means 3,4, or more different Indices depending on various factors.


e.g. The weakest possible situation is having a hard 17 vs. a dealer ACE.


Basic Strategy directs you to surrender, (the only B.S. Surrender) but ...


A sufficiently high T.C. has me standing and a sufficiently low T.C. has me hitting.


How about doubling a soft hand with a hard 17 result, do you surrender (‘rescue’) ?


How about a multi-card hard 17 — when do you hit ?


note: a 5 or 6 card hard 17 or 18 vs Ace is (basic strategy) may in fact be a HIT.

I recently returned from a sojourn to the west coast, heading for several hours down to Seattle on personal business. I played in a couple if spots in the middle of spanishland. I was really surprised at the atrocious level f play for such a popular locals type game.

[stringer]

Freightman:
Withour reveiling those details that you might think in-appropriate, would you thus say that the Pacific NorthWest is still a fertile area for SP21 play? As I try to exploit this game, I wonder if this fabled area is still worth travelling to.... can you attempt to share your take on the availability of good games, heat , other considerations and anything else that you found over there???

[stringer]

Philippe....you better re-locate your copy of Katrina's book.... because 50% of your gain comes from correct playing decision deviations in SP21. In BJ I believe it is something like 13%.

[stringer]

We all know Flash's position wrt the Kat-Count (unbalanced hi-lo) with 8 deck initial TC of minus 4. I don't want to get into a debate about the merits or non merits of this thing. However, for those of us that use this count BUT keep a seperate side count of Aces I wish to know how you handle this additional information?? S17 game I am talking about.
Lets put forth the 1ST QUESTION: for betting purposes:
Easy example: 8 decks, 4 gone ...you have a RC of -8. TC is -2 of course. HE this game is .40%. You get about .66% gain per unit TC. thus you are about .82% to the good at thiis point. Lets say only 14 Aces are gone (should be avg 16 gone at this juncture). Seems logical to lets say add that extra 2 units to the RC to get -6, for betting purposes. I have never seen this particular point addressed on these boards. What do others do? Who has some thoughts on this? Could there be someone that has actually run some simulations along these lines?

[ZenMaster_Flash]

In the H17 Span21 game the E.O.R. for the Ace is far less than it is for the S17 version.
That being said, in the H17 version, adjust the R. C. for Aces by quarter (spanish) deck
by adding / subtracting double the value for your Faces; so ... if you count Faces as -2
then each SURPLUS Ace (per quarter deck) moves the running count by +4, and if Aces
are in DEFICIT you use -4 to adjust the R.C.

Is that clear enough ?

NOTE: Failing to Side-Count Aces in Span21 is profoundly self-destructive.

[stringer]

In the H17 Span21 game the E.O.R. for the Ace is far less than it is for the S17 version.
That being said, in the H17 version, adjust the R. C. for Aces by quarter (spanish) deck
by adding / subtracting double the value for your Faces; so ... if you count Faces as -2
then each SURPLUS Ace (per quarter deck) moves the running count by +4, and if Aces
are in DEFICIT you use -4 to adjust the R.C.

Is that clear enough ?

NOTE: Failing to Side-Count Aces in Span21 is profoundly self-destructive.

Thanks Flash!!!!!

Before I pose another question or two, might I respectfully ask everyone to state clearly the variant of SP21 that they are talking about... there is the S17, H17 and DDD versions... Thanks

Anyway, the H17 version EOR's are in Katrina's book on page 52, but I did not find any EOR's for S17 which is the version that I am mostly interested in. A quick (but by no means exhaustive) look around the internet as well did not reveal that information. Flash, can I impose upon you to provide that information for the S17 game, I am really curious.

So you are obviously saying that since the EOR for the Ace is less in the H17 game you are doubling the value you assign to face cards for increasing/decreasing the RC per excess/deficit of Aces per quarter deck. Got it.

BUT, for the S17 game, Kat Count hi-lo that would be too extreme. Do you know the "multiplication Factor"? I would guess it might be more like X1.3 to X1.6.
I know your group has run analysis/software on this game. Is this one of the things you looked at, and out of curiosity how and/or from where did you get the X2 multiplier for the value of the face cards??
{and we are no-where near talking about how to adjust your playing strategy with additional Ace surplus/deficit infrormation}

Thanks for your and everyone's efforts....

[stringer]

Kat's EOR's are wrong.
EoR of the ace is about 2 times the faces for H17 and closer to 3 times the faces for S17. Traditional ace reckoned and ace neutral counts both have issues with this. This is why people use balanced ace side counts in SP21. You get a really strong playing main count and every ace reckoned at its true strength when the counts are combined. The actual EoR of the ace is really really squishy and changes a lot depending on deck composition. Extreme surplus of faces (if you have a strong playing count with lots of surrender indices and bonus draw indices) or extreme deficits of face cards compared to ace density increase advantage in S17 games but in H17 surplus of faces compared to aces has a much bigger effect than deficit of faces compared to aces. I am not sure about ddd games but the fact that you double most hands that have multi-card bonus payout potential which voids the bonus reduces the return from multi-card bonuses. Squeezing EV out of SP21 is very complicated. Interaction between your betting strategy and playing strategy are very important. Some deck compositions have a large advantage from increased multi-card bonus likelihood while others have a large advantage based on getting strong hands and using lots of large positive indices. Without the indices you lose the large gain. Most hands in SP21 are index plays. If you have a ridiculous number of indices you gain EV on all those hands whether your decision is the same or not. The added indices for all the different types of the same matchup have extra EV each time they are dealt. Gain is does not have to do with the current deck composition. EV comes from the gain from all the situations averaged to get the index play. You never know the current deck composition so EV depends on the average gain for the playing TC and the type of hand it is for the matchup. Basically the difference between the 2 decisions in graphs like these that are different for each type of total:

https://www.card-counting.com/cvcxonlineviewer3.htm

For 14v4 you would have a different index and graph for:
1) 2 card 14
2) 4 card 14
3) 5 card 14
4) 6 or more card 14
5) mixed 8,6
6) suited 8,6
7) spaded 8,6

Each of these 7 kinds of 14 has a different index and a different rate of gain after the index is exceeded as indicated by its graph. To get the most EV out of playing 14v4 you need to know all these indices. The same is true for every matchup. You need to know all the possible indices for that matchup. Surrender indices are specific top types of hands. Obviously 16 is never a bonus draw if you are considering surrender but 13 (6,7), 14 (6,8), and 15 (7,8) can be if they are the hand in parentheses. This all varies by count but strong playing counts would add extra EV every time one of the type 2-7 hands occur. By having them separate the 2 card index is stronger as well. This occurs for every matchup you play to varying degrees. The constant addition of small amounts of EV adds up fast. With a strong interaction between the bets and a strong playing count it can double your EV and that is with little change in standard deviation since most of the gain comes without risking more money so SCORE is almost quadrupled. Don't expect that type of performance with the weak counts being discussed here.

SP21 is a complex game that necessitates complex strategies if you don't want crazy variance. Huge gains can be had from advanced playing strategies as well as advanced betting strategies associated with complex counts. The game is extremely nonlinear. You need to find the ways to exploit the nonlinearity in order to tame the crazy variance associated with using a typical linear approach used in BJ. A typical linear approach will work but the variance will be extreme and you will almost always be betting wrong. Most of the time slightly over betting the actual advantage. Rarely betting appropriately and less often severely under betting the actual advantage. This cause crazy swings for your BR. Weak playing counts and insufficient indices contribute to the crazy swings.

Okay... looks like I got it backwards... thank you Tthree for your excellent post.
If indeed EoR of the ace is about 2 times the faces for H17 and closer to 3 times the faces for S17, you are thus agreeing with Flash and that seems to make sense.


I am not saying your are wrong, but you state flat out that Kats EOR'S ARE WRONG. Her detailed explanation on this subject at page 52 as it compares to BJ seem to make a lot of sense. Her exacting calculations in the rest of the book make your conclusion very surprising. And the more I think about it, the more confused I am about why exactly the EOR for the ace should be less significant in the H17 game as opposed to the S17 game.

Anyway, as a starting point, do you have the EOR's for the three SP21 variants so we can compare them and get a handle on this as a very first step? if for whatever reason you do not wish to disclose them, I will understand. I do not believe I have ever seen EOR numbers for the 3 variants anywhere.

I am still chewing over the rest of your post, but it seems to make sense. As a starting point, I just wanted to [ using Kat-count hi-lo, S17, 50 of her most important indices, IRC 8 deck of -32] use the seperate side-count of aces information to the best effect. In other words add to the RC a number 2 to 3 times the value of the tens in the count |[in this case -1]| times the number of Aces in excess at any point in the shoe to determine the new running count for the purposes of betting.. and ramping accordingly....

I can fully appreciate that more powerful counts exist and other more powerful tools can be used, but for the moment I would like to get maximum traction out of the Kat count....
thanks again

[stringer]

I didn't do the calculations for the EoR's. A trusted friend did so they are not mine to give up. Kat did sight S17 EoR's and they are wrong. It has been poinThted out in the forum and confirmed by Don that they don't add up within a reasonable error rate. I am not sure about her H17 EoR's but if she messed up the S17 EoR's , it is at least likely that she did the same with the H17. These are the EoR's passed around and said to be Kat's for H17 BJ, H17 SP21, and S17 SP21. The former 2 can be found in table 5.1. I have not found the S17 SP21 EoR's in kat's book yet:


E. O. R. FOR BJ and H17 Span21 and S17 Span21 (supposedly from Kat's book)


BJH17;SP21H17;SP21S17
--------------------
2 +.42 +.29 +.40
3 +.51 +.40 +.56
4 +.69 +.56 +.80
5 +.84 +.65 +.96
6 +.49 +.40 +.56
7 +.24 +.04 +.08
8 -0.04 -0.21 -.24
9 -0.25 -0.17 -.16
X -0.60 -0.44 -.48
A -0.52 -0.73 -1.28


When you sum the EoR's for H17 BJ you get -0.02 which is reasonable. But for S17 SP21 +0.24 which is totally unacceptable. And for H17 SP21 you get -0.09 which is out of the desired range by a little. Table 5.1 in Kat's book has the H17 EoR's for BJ and SP21. I also couldn't find S17 EoR's in Kat's book in chart form. I am not sure where or if they are in there. There are so many different versions of H17 SP21 with rules and number of decks when you consider all the pontoon games H17 SP21 that it is difficult to compare EoR's as apples to apples but the EoR's I have for H17 SP21 are quite different but they are for different splitting rules and don't specify the number of decks. Plus there may be a no hole card issue. I can't say it is an apples to apples comparison. The issue of the EoR's attributed to Kat is they add to a sum that is to far from 0. If memory serves the sum should be within 0.02 to 0.03 of 0. The ones I have add to -0.0164 for S17 SP21 and +0.0013 for H17 SP21 if I entered everything right into the calculator. This acceptable error rate around the 0 sum for EoR's would be a good thing for Don or someone else that has experience generating EoR to chime in on. An interesting but almost no effect fact about SP21 EoR's is that the spade rank is strategically favored over other ranks so to get a true EOR for the ranks affected (6, 7 and 8) you need to calculate a spade adjustment to the calculated EoR's for these ranks. The biggest adjustment is for the 6. The 7 has a smaller adjustment and the 8 is unaffected by the rank disparity. All the effects are small but explain a little of a positive error in the sum of the EoR's.

Okay.... more interesting infomation to chew over....thanks for that...
"Kat did sight S17 EOR'S and they are wrong...." ... this is a surprise for me as I have tried to follow all Sp21 chatter on all of the boards... I find it surprising that these numbers are attributed to her. This has to be wrong. You are right, they do sum to +.24.

It doesn't even make sense... seems the number for a six is too high as the six combines for the 6-7-8 bonus and is important in that respect. And it seems crazy that the number for five should be so much higher than its five counterpart in the H17 game. So the number for the Ace must be far too high (negatively) as well. As you said also, these numbers are not in the book, so if they were dead wrong in print I could appreciate assigning the error to her....

There are so many different versions of H17 SP21 with rules and number of decks when you consider all the pontoon games H17 SP21 that it is difficult to compare EoR's as apples to apples but the EoR's I have for H17 SP21 are quite different but they are for different splitting rules and don't specify the number of decks.

I have never seen any SP21 game that is not SP4 and not 6 or 8 decks... as I think we are all worried about the North American game and not kooky Pontoon variants...

In any event, consensus of opinion seems to have the Ace EOR as a higher value in the S17 game. Withour revealing your friend's "propietary" ace EOR that he has calculated, I am going to take a guess that it might be about -.90 for the S17 game. Am I close?? In any event, it is still not clear to me why this number should be higher (negatively) for the S17 game.

thanks....