Three card 21 "n" done

Just got my mailer from the Tropicana in AC and they are promoting a new table game called Three card 21 "n" done. I don't see a strategy or analysis here on the sight, and I'm wondering what the house edge might be. It seems to be claiming it is lower than other carnival games.

Here is a link to the NJ documentation on the game. Three card 21 "n" done

Any help on strategy or house edge would be appreciated. I'll report on back on the game after my next trip in a couple of weeks.

That's a interesting game. This YouTube video helps make the rules understandable.

http://scoregamingnv.com/3-card-21-n-done.html

Seems like a game that the players will like.

Yes, I agree this game looking interesting and it could be a game players like. I'm quite excited to at least watch and perhaps play (given a reasonable HE and strategy that is easy enough). I like the aspect of being able to split to 3 hands, very interesting.

This game was at Fantasy Springs in Palm Springs, CA when I stopped in last May. Table was closed but I picked up a rack card. No idea if it is still there, but Palm Springs is Score Gaming's backyard and you tend to see a lot of their games in that area.

I don't particularly like forced bonus bets with pay tables as the compensating rule for "game features" in blackjack variants which seemd to be a frequently used concept in Score Games. See also "Throw One Back BJ".

I don't see the "three way split" as a great feature as oftentimes one of those starting hands is going to be a crappy hand (e.g. 4-7). So you lose the crappy hand, missed on the bonus pay table...if you win the other two hands of the "three way", guess what, your even!

Free Bet & Zappit are better BJ Variants in my opinion.

I give the game points for creativity. That will be a tough analysis. My compliments to whoever did it for Score.

Quote: Paradigm

Free Bet & Zappit are better BJ Variants in my opinion.

I agree with Paradigm. This "21 and done" game is slightly cumbersome: splitting three cards to three poor hands when you may wish to split 2-1 to keep a good two-carder is now lost. The splits here require new money at risk and new strategy, whereas in Freebet, they are not only free, but are the normal splits we know, and are not so new that it's a little bit alien. It travels a further distance from the regular blackjack game we know and love.

Geoff's games have a knack of adding a clean humdinger without adding excess complexity or too much difference; this new game might.

The jury is out, it may do fine, hopefully so.

Quote: Paigowdan

I agree with Paradigm. This "21 and done" game is slightly cumbersome: splitting three cards to three poor hands when you may wish to split 2-1 to keep a good two-carder is now lost.

I agree too the game could easily be confusing (though that is probably what they are looking for in some sense) a low HE game if you know what to do, that quickly gets worse as you make errors. I'll be happy to watch and see what the players are saying about the game, but until I understand a strategy that is easy enough to understand I think I'll just be watching.

Quote: bj4fun

Just got my mailer from the Tropicana in AC and they are promoting a new table game called Three card 21 "n" done. I don't see a strategy or analysis here on the sight, and I'm wondering what the house edge might be. It seems to be claiming it is lower than other carnival games.

Here is a link to the NJ documentation on the game. Three card 21 "n" done

Any help on strategy or house edge would be appreciated. I'll report on back on the game after my next trip in a couple of weeks.

Your post piqued my interest, so on Sunday I dropped by the Trop to see Three Card 21 "N" Done. It was a $5 table; the game is dealt from an 8-deck shoe apparently (I didn't ask if it was eight decks), and the dealer hits soft 17.

Here is the Trop's bonus bet pay table, which is the same as in the video:
Royal flush: 50 to 1
Straight flush: 15 to 1
3-of-a-kind: 5 to 1
Straight: 2 to 1
Flush: 3 to 2
Pair: 1 to 1
Total of 21: 1 to 1

(I get a bonus bet house edge of 16.22% for this pay table with an 8-deck shoe.)

I'm curious how often people will bust out after the first three cards being above 21, thereafter making the player place two additional units to keep the game alive... I feel that this game can get very pricey in only a matter of a few hands for a BJ varient.

Points for creativity.

Minus points for a high, seemingly mandatory, side bet.

I could see strategy for this being a bit more complicated, but perhaps not too crazy. If the dealer has an ace, then you never want to split to 3 hands unless you have like 2 or 3 aces. Everything else would essentially be a -EV split per regular blackjack. Thus, I could see the splitting following the "trend" at least of regular blackjack where it's got a decent base on dealer up card. Analysis wise though I do think it adds a lot of complexity... Best of luck, Mike! =p

So following the rules... There's no way for the player to ever get a blackjack and ever get paid 3:2 on their initial wager? What if the player gets A-J-10, 21... I believe according to the video that's just "21" and an "automatic 1 to 1 win," correct?

Blackjack pays even money -2.27%
Mandatory 16% HE on the side bet which appears to have to match the game bet... ouch.

Where is the upside for the players that balance this game out? The ability to split to 3 hands against good bust cards?

I had a brief chance to witness this game live this week. We spent several days at the Tropicana in AC where the game is live (well sort of). On both Tuesday and Wednesday it was not open as the pits where it was located were not open. However, Thursday night one of these pits was opened.

I watched for a bit, a nice little old lady who "knew what she was doing" was losing quite a bit. She was playing $5 on the regular bet and $5 on the 3 card side bet. It was not clear to me that you had to play both, but it looked like you did.

She had a few pairs which got paid off, but I didn't see any bigger hits. EVERY hand, no matter what her cards or the dealer up card, she would split to 3 hands! Certainly not the right strategy. She was losing, of course.

A second couple came up and had a hard time understanding how to play though the dealer tried to explain as best he could. The little old lady offered help, and the couple placed their bet. She was very confused by getting 3 cards (that busted) but did work out that surrender was the better option with a dealer Q showing. They played a few more hands and moved on.

I did not play. It looks to me that the game is too complicated for the average gambler. The right strategy is not at all obvious, loses will be fast, and many hands at a $5 table will require $20 bets. (Though I guess that is similar to 3 card poker with the 6 card bonus bet but some of those are optional). My prediction is that this game will not catch on and will not last.

Well, I found this thread and read about "21 'n' Done" about 24 hours ago. I came up with an approach to model it that has gone pretty fast.

There are 220 distinct 3-card hands that must be analyzed in the "blackjack portion" of the game -against 10 different dealer upcards. So, that's 2,200 different hands.

I have analyzed all 165 "hard" 3-card hands - that is, all the 3-cards hands that have no ace. These 165 hands comprise 78.6% of all the 3-card hands the player will be dealt.

3-card Hands totalling "hard" 22-30: Prob = 0.386
On these hands, the initial decision is whether to split the hand or surrender it.

3- card Hard hands totalling 21: Prob = -0.058
These hands are automatic winners - and the player has no option to split them or play them differently

3- card Hard Hands totalling 6-20: Prob = 0.349
When these hands have no pair, then they must be played as a normal (3-card) blackjack hand, and the first decision is whether to stand or hit the 3 cards. (These hands may not be split of doubled.
When these hands do contain a pair (example: 922) then the hand may be split into 3-hands or HIT/STAND as a single 3-card blackjack hand.

Here is the optimum "21 n Done" strategy for all hard 3-card hands, plus the calculated EV for each hand:

(I can't get the strategy images to load here, so I've posted a link to another website that has nothing to do with this topic but to which I've posted the images. If someone can explain to me how to post the images here, I will do that and erase this link.)

21nDone_Strategy

For this strategy and EV calculation, I assumed the "Blackjack game" was H17, Double on any two cards (after splitting the 3-card hand), DAS, 3 splits on 2-9.) In the tables in the previous post, the EV values for dealer Ten and Ace are for after it has been determined that the dealer does not have Blackjack.

Having calculated 78.6% of the possible player hands, the cumulative EV so far is EV = +0.058 units. Remember that the initial bet is actually 2 units:

- 1 unit that has a pay-out table with a net EV reported earlier to be EV = - 0.1622
- 1 unit for the blackjack portion of the game that has a cumulative EV = +0.058 after 78.6% of the hands have been considered.

I will be calculating the strategy and EV for the "soft" hands -the 3 card hands that contain one or more aces- over the next day or so. I would not be surprised if the total EV for the BJ bet increases to +0.1 or higher. That would still leave a net EV for the two bets that is a large negative value. We shall see.

As an update, the Three Card 21 'n' Done was pulled from Fantasy Springs in Palm Springs and the table was being used for a new game: Chase the Flush

Well, I finished my calculations of strategy and expected value.

For the 3-card blackjack bet, I calculate that EV =+0.1592. I could have made a mistake -so any independent calculations would be appreciated.

For the mandatory side-bet, the EV was previously calculated to be -0.1622.

So, based on these calculations, the net EV for "21 n Done" is EV= - 0.30% in units of the blackjack bet size. This assumes that a player plays perfectly. The game involves larger bet sizes than blackjack and has more decisions and more complexity that will lead to more non-optimum play.

I did assume that after a 3 card hand is split that Aces could only be hit once and not re-split, but that individual cards of ranks 2-T could be hit as often as necessary and if 2 card hands were a pair they could be split and then re-split again 3 times. The video explaining the rules was not clear on whether split 3-card hands can be split again.

I also calculate that a player is dealt a 3-card 21 with a frequency of almost 8.9%.

Thanks for doing this analysis. As I expected my "gut feeling" on how to play many combinations are non-optimal, and the strategy itself would be very difficult to get correct without a card or printout in front of you.

I'm heading down to AC again in a couple of weeks, so if it is open I'll give it another look but still doubt that I would play.

Quote: gordonm888

For this strategy and EV calculation, I assumed the "Blackjack game" was H17, Double on any two cards (after splitting the 3-card hand), DAS, 3 splits on 2-9.) In the tables in the previous post, the EV values for dealer Ten and Ace are for after it has been determined that the dealer does not have Blackjack.

While I might try my own analysis later, you have some wrong info.
The player may double on their original first 3 cards. (Or first 2 cards after splitting. )
There is no re-splitting.

The math report lists 15.74% player advantage for h17 8 decks.

Just got back from an AC trip and Three Card 21-n-done... is DONE! Nowhere to be found at the Trop. Not surprising to me as you can tell from my previous posts.

Quote: bj4fun

Just got back from an AC trip and Three Card 21-n-done... is DONE! Nowhere to be found at the Trop. Not surprising to me as you can tell from my previous posts.

You didn't look hard enough, it's still at the Trop.