You've found a game that offers the dealer bust side bet? Awesome! But do they cap the bet?
I only play the Player's Edge version.
Spanish21 is a game that can be bastardized into a nearlyOriginally Posted by Meistro123
unbeatable game by reducing or eliminating bonus bets,
forbidding ReSplit Aces, (and the doubling / hitting actions
to follow) Hard Doubles on 9 or 8 ~ less common in Span21,
as are many of the Soft Doubles that we are used to in BJ.
As such, having restricted doubles (d10-11) is costly but the
effect is not crippling.
The H17 rule is costly. With the H17 rule in effect,
I Side-Count Aces as 1.5 Face Cards as opposed to
2.5 Face Cards in a S17 game. Partial compensation
for the H17 rule comes from reducing the game from
8 decks to 6 (or 5) decks AND by a rule that permits
the [ddd] "redouble" rule. WITHOUT this rule the H17
version of Spanish21 carries a crushing House Edge of
0.76%. With the [ddd] rule in place, the House Edge is
the same for S17 or H17 0.42% is the accepted
figure.
Some years ago, on the South Strip in Las Vegas, I found one table of H17 where all three (3) of the regular (free) bonuses
were not paid off at the standardized 3-2, 2-1, 3-1.
The payoffs were inflated to 2-1, 3-1, 4-1 (sic) I was certain that this game provided a Basic Strategist with a meaningful
edge "off the top." I had no luck over about 2 very lengthy sessions. (sigh) Years later I am wondering what the House (dis)advantage was. Any guesses?
Changing the rules and procedures for this game are violations of the Patent Holder's rights and/or Copyright Infringements.
Obviously, Native American Enterprises are on "Sovereign Land"
so they are immune from ordinary civil law.
Mohegan Sun in CT does not follow the rule permitting re-splitting of Aces to 4 hands - with full stand/hit/double privileges. The cost of this is unknown to the ploppies. It is taken as taken to be 0.29%, raising the House Edge from 0.42% to 0.71%
Last edited by ZenMaster_Flash; 03-02-2018 at 03:47 PM.
Thanks ZenMaster_Flash, I figured you would be the guy in the know about SP21. I've never actually played for real money although I did practice my basic strategy on the hitorsplit game for a while.
So would it be fair to say that the house edge for both H17 and D10-11 would be around .9%? No redoubling obviously.
Most soft doubles are either never advantageous or have very little gain. A casino that thought it was helping itself by eliminating soft doubling would be mistaken. It would hurt them tremendously. Poppies sift double so many hands that there is hardly a deck composition that would make it a marginal double. Then the don't double the few good doubles that exist. Apparently you found a casino that is even dumber than average. Now as an AP soft doubles are a tool to add some to EV but the gain after the index is exceeded is slow. Giving up soft doubles would have some effect but nothing like it does in BJ. The dealer just doesn't bust enough in SP21 even with a high density of face cards for SP21. To a lesser extent not doubling hard 9 wouldn't be giving up much from a frequency point of view but the gain in EV is fast once the index is exceeded. The dealer busts more in H17 so maybe there is a bit more to lose than my hand matchup graphs show for soft doubles.
21W = Player 21 pays immediately. Does not have to be a natural. A VERY good rule in a country that universally uses NHC (not to be confused with ENHC).
LSXA = Late Surrender except no surrender against ace. Has its uses, but is mostly a situational play that has relevant indices (and is one of the main reasons why I'm working on my ASCing game).
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