> Personally, I would not be willing to wager such
> stakes on a one-round advantage that is at the
> discretion of the pit boss, unless I had an
> off-the-top advantage anyway. Your mileage may vary.
> I'm not saying your approach is wrong, CF - I'm only
> saying it's risky. In other words, the advantage might
> be high but so is the variance.

Personally. I never play Spanish 21 unless I have a match play coupon and the BJ tables are all full. In other words, I would probably never be in this situation. This is the first approach that came to mind. In retrospect, it would probably bring more heat than it is worth. Also, as you correctly point out, it relies on a PC to make a common sense call that costs the house money. Always an iffy proposition.

As long as I am betting an appropriate amount for my BR, then the variance of a play does not concern me. The table max where I usually play is relatively low and is less than 1% of my bankroll. I would hazard a rough guess that the ability to back out of a hand after seeing two cards should be worth at least 5-10% EV, so the appropriate bet quickly exceeds table max for me in this situation, even considering a high variance. As an aside, it would be interesting to see the exact edge in this situation, although it would have very limited practical application.