Blackjack Use Spanish 21 indices to Expand Your Blackjack Indices, and Vice Versa

Few blackjack players know how to play Spanish 21, fewer still also know how to card count Spanish 21. Those who know both Spanish 21 and blackjack will say that you can easily expand the range of your blackjack deviations by applying the important deviation indices for Spanish 21 to blackjack, and vice versa. Sound strange?

A 48-card Spanish deck is a 52-card blackjack deck with four ten-valued cards removed. A Spanish deck in fact starts out with a -4.33 true count if seen as a regular blackjack deck. Thus, by knowing a valid Spanish 21 card counting strategy, one may still find a winning path even in the deep negative count territory.

Take the hand of 10 vs. 8 for example. An ordinary blackjack card counter who only knows 18 or so primary blackjack indices may say: "Double, no doubt!" But a masterful blackjack card counter who knows the 100 or so FULL blackjack deviation indices may say: "Wait! Hit only, when the true count is deeply negative." (-3 is the AceMT index, and -5 is the Hi-Lo index for 10 vs. 8 in blackjack.)

If remembering 100 or so full blackjack deviation indices is too challenging, there an easy way to expand the indices you could grasp with no difficulties, provided you have already known a valid Spanish 21 card counting strategy.

Any knowledgeable Spanish 21 card counter would say the index for 10 vs. 8 is ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DEVIATION INDEX TO BE REMEMBERED in Spanish 21. With AceMT, the index for 10 vs. 8 in Spanish 21 happens to be ZERO. Just by learning a few more important AceMT Spanish 21 like that, and applying them also to blackjack, you can cover a lot of lost ground totally given up by most blackjack counters and gurus.

 

Another Spanish 21 deviation index which is also worthy of any card counter's remembering is the hand of 11 vs. dealer's 10. The AceMT Spanish 21 deviation index is also ZERO meaning DON'T DOUBLE DOWN at 11 vs. 10 for any NEGATIVE AceMT count.

 

Deviation index at ZERO true count has a special meaning. A shoe starts out with zero true count and ends up in zero true count. In between, the true counts hovering around zero most of the time.
When you must deviate from basic strategy at zero true count, it often signifies many more similar deviations immediately afterward.
Here I will give one example that many BLACKJACK card counters may have known: If you examine the Hi-Lo true counts for deviating from blackjack basic strategy at 12 vs. 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, they are +3. +2, 0, -2 and -1, respectively. So, the ZERO true count deviation index for 12 vs. 4 stands out as an inflection point. Once you remember the inflection point, it becomes much easier to remember -- or to guess correctly - the right count for deviating at similar hands.
Now back to Spanish 21, if you count with AceMT for counting Spanish 21, there are many ZERO true count deviations. They are the must-learn deviations for card counting Spanish 21:
9 vs. 6 from Double to Hit
10 vs. 8 from Double to Hit
11 vs. 10 from Double to Hit
14 vs. 4 from Hit to Stand
15 vs. 2 from Hit to Stand
2-2 vs. 2 from Split to Hit

 

A CORRECTION OF SORT
In the above listed six hands for deviating at zero true count, it were noted that the deviations were from "Double to Hit", "Hit to Stand" or "Split to Hit", technically they are all correct since the true count is zero, but it may cause some confusions for the hands of 14 vs. 4 and 15 vs. 2, since the Spanish 21 basic strategy indicates that players should stand at 14 vs. 4 and 15. vs. 2. In light of that, at ZERO AceMT True Count, uses these deviations instead:
9 vs. 6 from Double to Hit
10 vs. 8 from Double to Hit
11 vs. 10 from Double to Hit
14 vs. 4 from Stand to Hit
15 vs. 2 from Stand to Hit
2-2 vs. 2 from Split to Hit