Blackjack Card Counting Spanish 21 with AceMT

Among the 60 or so card counting systems listed in the Encyclopedia of Blackjack, it appears only two systems, Hi-Lo and AceMT, can be used to count Spanish 21 as well.

If you Google "Spanish 21 card counting books", you may see the images of Katrina Walker's "The Pro's Guide to Spanish 21 and Australian Pontoon" and Moraine Mono's "AceMT for Blackjack and Spanish 21". Katrina Walker's book is on Hi-Lo, while Moraine Mono's book is on AceMT.

What does "AceMT" stand for? In short, it is an abbreviation of Ace, Monarchy (the face card or Monkey as frequently heard in casinos) and Ten. Since a Spanish deck has no 10s, AceMT signifies that the counting system will count 16 high cards (4 aces and 12 face cards) per deck of a Spanish 21 shoe and ignore the rest.

Simple enough? We shall see.

 

AceMT sure sounds simple enough, but how does AceMT stacks up against Hi-Lo in performance?

Good question. For Blackjack, these are the exact BC+PE+IC figures provided by the Encyclopedia of Blackjack: AceMT's BC+PE+IC is 2.22 while Hi-Lo's BC+PE+IC is 2.24. The difference is less than 1%.

If you are amazed by the above numerical comparison for blackjack, and are also interested in the BC+PE+IC numbers for Spanish 21, too bad there are no published numbers in existence today -- neither for AceMT, nor for Hi-Lo, but there are indications that Hi-Lo's performance in Spanish 21 could be much worse than Hi-Lo's own performance in blackjack.

 

Why Count both the Highs and the Lows?

When the remaining shoe, be it a blackjack shoe or a Spanish 21 shoe, has one extra high card, a non-high card must be missing, isn’t it true? If yes, why still count both the highs and the lows? Please pick or add to the reasons/wild-guesses noted below:

1. It takes two to tango; yin and yang are both needed.
2. Hi-Lo is simple enough, no need to cut corners.
3. Don’t know if there is a simpler system, yet still deliver.
4. Change is too difficult, even if Hi-Lo is bad for today’s games.
5. Hi-Lo must be good, or online casinos won’t offer free instructions.
6. Hi-Lo’s deviation indices are more available.
7. My team mates know nothing but Hi-Lo.
8. I’m a teacher at a Hi-Lo academy/boot-camp. No Hi-Lo, no job.
9. Other

 

Card counting Spanish 21 with AceMT sure is simpler than card counting with Hi-Lo. How much simpler?

I would say at least (9-4)/9 = 5/9 or 56% simpler since instead of counting 9 cards per suit with Hi-Lo, you only count 4 cards per suit if you use AceMT. Also, high cards -- Ace, K, Q and J -- are easy to recognize, and hard to miss. Additionally, with AceMT, there's also no need to constantly on the watch to adjust the running counts up and down. While card counting, you can even relax and lay back just like an ordinary Spanish 21 player. The chance for errors is also much reduced.

AceMT indeed is a hassle free card counting method as some Spanish 21 card counters have called it.