You are asking someone with many serious misconceptions about how Blackjack works.
"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
On the game of Spanish 21, I have been reading any available resources on this forum from many experts. Let me make a correct prediction now: The trick for Spanish 21 s-17 games is SMC+7SC. Here SMC is the secret monkey count and 7SC is the seven side count. For this game, the most important two cards are the ace and the seven. Both carry a huge asymmetry between the dealer and the player. However, I haven’t figured out a way to skillfully combine these two counts. That is why I am asking BJanalyst to do some calculations on this.
The reality is that I always play very conservatively in the first half of a shoe, because the variance is huge at the beginning. For the second half of the shoe, I am pretty confident about what I am going to get. It is all about the confidence or variance. I actually recently studied the variance problem myself. At high true counts, especially when there are a lot of ten cards, variance will drop a lot, if we flat bet. I use the combination of a global count and a local count to play blackjack, because I think this game is similar to the sport surfing. We need to follow the wave instantly to move ahead.
Last edited by aceside; 04-01-2021 at 03:47 PM.
Difficult. Everything aceside is saying is wrong, and dangerously so. But, the responses are of use. And, we were all beginners once. Realize that the majority of readers here are lurkers who have not created a username. Parts of the thread may be of use. But, I'll likely move it to voodoo soon.
Last edited by Norm; 04-01-2021 at 05:52 PM.
"I don't think outside the box; I think of what I can do with the box." - Henri Matisse
I tried very hard to respond to Norm because I did not quite understand his reasoning of my approach as only a 12-card penetration. That is not fair. Let me just give you an example of how I played a 8-deck shoe, to clear up some confusions. For example, one deck of a 8-deck shoe has just been dealt, and the running count jumped from zero to ten in the very last round. I immediately bet two times of my base unit; I got a hard hand of 16 but the dealer had an ace up card. I alway took insurance decisively in this situation even when the true count was only 10/7=1.4, because locally in the nearby of the group of cards, ten valued cards were more likely to come out in the next round. I hope this makes sense.
Last edited by aceside; 04-01-2021 at 06:33 PM.
This is what I get for 52 cards remaining of a 6 deck shoe before up card is dealt for a player hand of T-3. In the initial example of T-3 (half shoe) you would need to divide by around 3 to get a true count value but with 52 cards remaining you'd divide by around 1.
-difference in TC for ES: ~+4 for 52 cards remaining, ~3.3 for half shoe
TC can vary some by pen but how much of a handle one could expect on this is probably a function of common sense.
If anyone is interested I could post some simple data on exactly how cards remaining, RC, and TC vary for insurance indexes for all penetrations listed at once. Insurance is simpler because all that needs to be determined is the probability of drawing a T.
Other differences:
-There is a LS value versus T for 52 cards, no value for half shoe
-There is a LS value versus A for 52 cards, no value for half shoe
-ES versus A at >=-9 for 52 cards, always ES for half shoe
-There are values for surrender versus 8 or 9 for 52 cards, no value for half shoe (LS=ES for non A or T)
-There is a value for stand versus A for 52 cards, no value for half shoe
k_cCode:Count tags {1,-1,-1,-1,-1,-1,0,0,0,1} Composition dependent indices for hand, rules, number of decks, and pen Player hand composition: 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1: Hard 13, 2 cards Decks: 6 (possible input for cards remaining: 1 to 312) Cards remaining before up card = 52 No subgroups are defined i>=2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 T A Stand >=1 >=-1 >=-3 >=-4 >=-4 h h h h >=17 Double - - - - - - - - - - Pair - - - - - - - - - - LS - - - - - - >=16 >=14 >=9 >=13 ES - - - - - - >=16 >=14 >=4 >=-9 Press any key to continue
Ace - there are legitimate methods of attacking the game that i wont go into on a public forum. While using some of these methods a player may make insurance decisions that differ from the decisions that would be made by a card counter. For example lets say the dealer makes a mistake and flips his hole card up before asking for the insurance bet decision. In that case you dont rely on the count to figure out how to play the hand.
The method you described briefly does not in any way shape or form sound like an advantage play - I have no idea (as an aside I dont want or need to know) how you define or what you mean by local count but it doesnt matter. If you are strictly counting then stick to the index plays to the best of your ability. Based on the information you provided you have no basis to know in advance of making a play the distribution of high cards to low cards in the next hand to be played. All you know is the ratio of hi to low cards remaining in the entire population of the unplayed cards and that information (and only that information) should drive your betting and playing decisions.
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