As one might expect, Spanish 21 uses the Spanish deck, which is simply a normal deck with all of the tens removed. There are several rule variations for this game, especially as it is a popular game played in brick-and-mortar casinos all over the U.S.A., so it is important to understand what the house rules are and how they may affect the house edge.

1. Blackjack Spanish 21

Spanish 21 is a Hispanic blackjack variation without 10s in which the player’s 21 always wins. The seemingly simplified Spanish 21 rules required a modified Spanish 21 strategy. In this blog post, Casinos Online discusses the difference between standard blackjack and Spanish blackjack. The main difference between Spanish 21 and most other forms of Blackjack is that it is played with a Spanish deck of cards that has 48 cards instead of the usual 52 – the deck is the same with all 10’s removed. As a 10 is an important card in all forms of Blackjack, you would have thought that this gives a huge advantage to the House.

Spanish 21 is similar to Pontoon and is usually found under the mopniker of, ‘Spanish Blackjack,’ and can sometimes be found online under the name, ‘Pirate Blackjack,’ but for the most part, it can be found in brick-and-mortar casinos.

Some of the more favorable player rules to balance the house edge is that surrender, doubling after splitting and re-splitting aces are all allowed while a player Natural always wins. Players can also double on anything with any number of cards as well as hitting and doubling after splitting aces. Five-Card 21’s pay 3:2, Six-Card 21’s pay 2:1 and Seven (or more) Card 21’s pay 3:1, but not if the player has doubled or split.

Another interesting rule change is that the player has the option to surrender even after the player has doubled down, so essentially, the player gets the double wager back and forfeits the original amount bet.

There are a plethora of other rule variations which alter the house edge and can change the strategy pretty significantly, furthermore, this is a very complicated game to begin with, so a player should definitely rely on the strategy charts on Wizard of Odds and not his or her own intuition for this one.

Ultimately, this may be a game that many people enjoy, and it comes with a house edge comparable to a decent blackjack game, just with a ton more variance due to all of the pays for different hand types as well as the ability for the player to make several decisions that result in increasing one’s bet. This game, however, is not for everyone. Those seeking to play optimally may become bored given how many times they will have to turn to the strategy chart within the first few hundred to a thousand hands before getting the game down, and while the chart has been made as simple as possible, the plethora of different situations that can come up can render the chart still somewhat hard to follow. It is definitely a game upon which a player can become easily overwhelmed in the early going.

Other Online Blackjack Variations

The strategy for such blackjack variation as Spanish 21 was developed by many different blackjack experts, including Arnold Snyder and John Grochowski: actually, these two blackjack authors were the most successful ones who perfectly described Spanish 21 Strategy in a way understandable for average players.

These two authors - Arnold Snyder and John Grochowski are considered to be the masters of the game, so follow their recommendation to succeed at the game. The strategy for Spanish 21 has the same principles with other blackjack strategies: it means that all options to do were organized and introduced with the help of special strategy charts which described the steps to follow. Due to the fact Spanish 21 is played with a deck of cards where 10's are absent, the strategy to win this game has some extra features of course; frankly speaking, this strategy is rather complicated and difficult to understand if you are just a newcomer to this game.

Anyway, here you will find 2 strategies for Spanish 21; they were facilitated by gambling specialists for you to understand and remember them properly.

Arnold Snyder's Strategy

The basic Spanish 21 strategy was described by Mr. Snyder in his book (The Big Book of Blackjack); he had made an attempt to explain its main aspects for average players to understand it and introduced 15 basic steps to do during the game.

• Do not take insurance.
• Double down if you have a hand of 11.
• Double down if you have a hand of Ace + 5,6,7.
• Double down if you have a hand of 20 and a dealer has 2-8.
• Hit if you have a hard hand of 12-13.
• Hit if you have a soft hand except of the following soft hands: Ace + 5,6,7.
• Hit if you have a hard hand of 14-15 and it consists of 5 or more cards.
• Hit if you have a soft hand of 17-18 and it consists of 5 or more cards.
• Stand if you have a hard of soft hand of 18.
• Stand if you have a hand of 14-16 and a dealer has 2-6. Hit this hand if a dealer has 7-Ace.
• Split if you have a hand of Aces or 8's.
• Split every hand of pairs, except 4's, 5's and 10's.
• Surrender if you have a hard hand of 16-17.
• Surrender if you have a hand of 12-16 after doubling when a dealer has 8-Ace.
• Never split 4's, 5's and 10's.

John Grochowski's Strategy

Mr. Grochowski is the gambling specialist who described the strategies of various casino games in his books; as for Spanish 21, his strategy introduces 3 main rules for gamblers to follow: a rule for hard hands, a rule for soft hands and a rule for splitting pairs. As far as we know, all blackjack strategies created in this way. So:

Blackjack Spanish 21

• Hard hands: stand if you have 18 or more; hit if you have 8 or less.
• Soft hands: always stand on 19-21.
• Splitting pairs: split Aces; never split 4's, 5's and 10's.