Can someone recommend books or other info out there for using HiLo for Sp21? I saw in another thread that 21forme uses HiLo for BJ and Sp21. I have been using HiLo vs 6D blackjack for about 3 years with good results, but want to expand my options for when acceptable games are hard to find or crowded (I don't live near LV).
Thanks
You should say which version of SP21 you are going to target. The S17 and H17 redouble versions are two completely different animals and need totally different approaches. Without redouble the H17 version probably isn't worth playing. p21 is totally different than BJ.
Literally everything they tell you about counting BJ doesn't apply to SP21. Sp21 is extremely non-linear while BJ is pretty linear so simple works well enough in BJ but is a recipe for a high variance disaster in SP21. If you are really going to get into SP21 you should be able to side count. Playing accuracy is extremely important in SP21. A huge portion of your EV is generated there if you make sure your play is strong. The ace is very important card for betting but messes up most playing decisions so an ace neutral count is well worth the effort. In H17 the ace is worth around twice as much as the faces for betting and in S17 version it is closer to 3 times the value of faces. EoR's are really squishy in SP21. Meaning that when the deck composition gets out of balance EoRs can be extremely different than the full deck EoRs you reference.
But for a beginner you just need to get your feet wet with something you can handle. The first thing to do when learning SP21 is realize it is a totally different game than BJ and you need to forget everything about BJ because it will not apply indwell in fact mess you up. They remove the 10 rank and give you lots of bonus payouts and beneficial rules to make up for that. To be effective your strategy needs to maximize the benefit from these differences from BJ. Developing a strategy based on squeezing every little bit you can get from the beneficial differences from BJ is the key to consistently beating this game. The game isn't watched much because the variance is so brutal most people fail due to trying to stick to the BJ mantas of keep it simple, and there isn't much benefit from complexity, and this and that isn't worth doing. All that is 100% bad advice for SP21. Get your feet wet with something you can handle but learn all the skills that you think aren't worth it in BJ because they are the key not being a variance casualty in SP21.
There are very few books out there on SP21 but Katrina Walker's book is very good. Her count is not as good as most counts for the games offered in North America. Pontoon is a third animal with lot more rule changes. Her count may be well suited to that. All the info in her book is very important info whether you use her count or not.
The need for an ace neutral count and only having 3 ten value ranks makes adding the 9 to the high cards and/or using a multi-level count of value if for no other reason to get more ranks than 3 face card ranks and 3 low card ranks involved in the main count. At least the 5 should be counted as double the T tag magnitude for betting. Using a balanced ace side count and the main count you can use more than 1 playing count by adding different multiples of the balanced ace side count to the main count or vise versa allowing you to get much better correlation of playing EoRs to the best playing count for the matchup being considered. This allows you to really squeeze all the playing EV out of the rule and deck composition differences from BJ. In SP21 you will be constantly deviating from basic strategy if you are using a very effective approach. There are 11 different indices for a 14 total for matchups with indices. There is a 2-card, 3-card, 4-card, 5-card, 6+ card, 68 mixed, 68 suited, 68 spaded, 77 mixed, 77 suited, and 77 spaded so you can imagine how many indices there are for all matchups. You would be amazed how much extra you get from thorough indices and how much more of an advantage you get for each deck composition which allows you to make larger bets.
Last edited by Three; 11-13-2018 at 06:03 PM. Reason: Rethought posting info that was too sensitive
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HI Monty,
Like Gronbog said, the book to get is:
The Pro’s Guide to Spanish 21 and Australian Pontoon, by Katarina Walker; Maven Press, NY, 2008.
I've seen it available through Barnes & Noble, and Lulu.com. Very reasonable.
The tag values are straight on Hi-Lo, no side count, but she treats it as a True Count corrected unbalanced method with a strong negative Initial Running Count. That works great because the improvement in player advantage and EV is about 0.65% for each improvement in TC count. That's significantly better than in Blackjack.* Play indices are much more extremely critical in Spanks 21, so learn not just the play indices but also the bonus composition index effects. Fully documented in Katarina's book.
I've used Walker's method for years and it does fantastic!
Later on I developed my own better forecast count that coincidentally includes much of what Three said. But starting with Walker's is a must for you if you are good at High-Low.
Cheers,
Ole
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Originally Posted by Midwest Player
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