Adjust to the Spanish Deck in 21 and Blackjack Games

The typical deck of cards used in 21 and blackjack games has 52 cards with ranks from two through ace with tens, jacks, queens and kings all counting as ten points. With a Spanish deck, however, you’ll only have 48 cards. The tens are removed in a Spanish deck, and this has some strong influences on the nature of the game. If you don’t adjust correctly in games that use a Spanish deck, even if there are multiple decks used in a shoe, then you will have a very hard time obtaining a respectable payout rate.

The first effect of the Spanish deck is very direct and drastic: Because you’re taking high cards out of the deck, you’re going to increase the house advantage a sizable amount. High cards in the deck help the player by increasing the chances of blackjack and by increasing the chances that the dealer goes bust after the player stands. When you take one-fourth of the 10-value cards out of the deck, the chances of both of those things drop in a major way. To help compensate for this, the house will often give you more favorable rules regarding other things in the game.

For example, in the most popular game that uses this type of deck Spanish 21, you’ll get the option for a late surrender, doubling after splitting, re-splitting aces, and the ability to double no matter how many cards you have. On top of that, a player 21 will always beat a dealer 21, and this includes when you both have blackjack. You can often have the option to re-double as well, and this means that you could double twice in the same hand. All of these options help to make up the slack that’s given by dropping the tens from the deck.

With that having been said, there are some new issues that come up with these options. Instead of playing a standard blackjack strategy, you have to learn how to play very well with these extra options. On top of that, the lack of 10s in the deck makes a number of the “standard” plays different than what they normally are. The overall affect is that you have to really have your strategies down pat, or you’re going to end up in a situation where you aren’t able to take full advantage of the extra rules that are going in your favor.