Most important indices for Spanish 21

[ZenMaster_Flash]

This question, [especially for uncommon hand matchups], I would approach

by employing a COMBINATORIAL ANALYSIS. Fast, as you (re)iterate ONE hand

matchup at a time. As T3 pointed out, working for results on the infrequently

appearing hand matchups, via SIMULATION consumes a lot of computing time.

[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....

[ZenMaster_Flash]

"-.90 for the S17 game. Am I close?"

No, not close at all.

The difference [in the E.O.R. of Aces]

between the two versions of Span21

is seen in T3's post #35:

SP21H17;SP21S17
--------------------
2 +.29 +.40
3 +.40 +.56
4 +.56 +.80
5 +.65 +.96
6 +.40 +.56
7 +.04 +.08
8 -0.21 -.24
9 -0.17 -.16
X -0.44 -.48
A -0.73 -1.28

[davethebuilder]

Originally, the book was only going to cover Pontoon but her husband convinced her to include Spanish 21 so it appealed to an international audience.

The purpose of table 5.1 is to highlight the difference in the EOR's between BJ and SP21. The rules for SP21 used in this table were 6D, H17, DOA, DAS, RSA, LS and Insurance. The figures have been rounded to two decimal places and should not be used for calculations and as SP21 is not available in Australia, there is no hole card issue. The EOR's for SP21(S17) were not published in her book so please explain where the error is.

[stringer]

No, not close at all.

The difference [in the E.O.R. of Aces]

between the two versions of Span21

is seen in T3's post #35:

SP21H17;SP21S17
--------------------
2 +.29 +.40
3 +.40 +.56
4 +.56 +.80
5 +.65 +.96
6 +.40 +.56
7 +.04 +.08
8 -0.21 -.24
9 -0.17 -.16
X -0.44 -.48
A -0.73 -1.28

Unless I am missing something there is a problem with these S17 numbers. See Tthree's post number 35. In his explanation he attributes them to Katrina. I have never seen them before. They are certainly not in Katrina's book. If you sum them, the total is off by .24, which Tthree admits is way off and some kind of error. I am not trying to be difficult about this, but they just don't add up.

[davethebuilder]

The sum of EOR's should be close to zero. I have not seen these figures either so I suggest you wait for T3 to explain himself.

[davethebuilder]

To resolve this issue I suggest you program your rule sets into a Combinatorial Analyser in order to generate the correct EOR's. MGP's is free online and covers both SP21 and Pontoon rules. Just be very careful setting it up otherwise the data will be incorrect. If necessary, you can then modify your count.

[ZenMaster_Flash]

These E.O.R. figures for Span21 were derived by "Automatic Monkey".

[Freightman]

Played my first game of Spanish in some time a couple of weeks ago. Non chalantly hit 87 v dealer stiff of some sort looking for the 678 bonus. Unfortunately, hit the 5 for 20

It was pretty negative.

[Phoebe]

My attachment say "Hilo As" which is how I named my count before discovering that it's SMC.

Fun 21 has 8 decks.

[Zach Black]

You're not the first to call it hi-lo.

Wild Bill posted "How to Beat Spanish 21" on bj21.com in Feb 2000. His original post included a "hi-lo" system with the Ace as -2, which others are calling ABC or "alto-bajo count" on Bj21, and SMC here. Katrina Walker in her book credits "Wild Bill" for the H17 EOR's which are presented in this post.

[All Clear]

Your attachment says Hilo but you are comparing the indices to SMC. Not only are they for a different game but also they are for a different count. Just because one count has an index for a play doesn't mean another count will have one. You may have noticed that your attachment has soft double indices that doesn't exist for SMC, A9v6 and A7v2. To have indices not exist for your count and exist for SMC seems just as reasonable.

SMC S17 soft double indices for full deck resolution and flooring:
A2v5: +9
A2v6: +12
A3v5: +8
A3v6: +9
A4v5: +8
A4v6: -3
A5v5: -1
A5v6: -8
A6v4: -1
A6v5: -6
A6v6: -10
A7v3: +7
A7v4: -1
A7v5: -5
A7v6: -6
A8v4: +11
A8v5: +8
A8v6: +9
A9v5: +11

Hi Tthree,

I don't use as many index numbers as you do, but the A4 v 6 one (-3 above) doesn't seem right, even though I don't use SMC (I use a more complicated count...). Wizard of Odds has this as a hit, no matter how many cards you have, and my index numbers are far away from -3 (which means you would be doubling the vast majority of the time). I would examine this index number, and am almost certain it is wrong. You have my contact info offline, so let me know if you would like more info.

[Fire Walker]

Two cents:

1) If one is a recreational player from the I-don't-want-to-get-too-complex camp, then one should not touch S21 with a 10-foot pole. It is Blackjack on horse steroids.
2) If one uses CVData for a linear counting approach for S21, one will be missing enough valuable information to fill up a text book.