Single 21 Advice

At Bally's in Tunica I played a BJ variation called Single 21. It's played with a single deck and is similar to Super Fun 21 with the following exceptions:

1. BJ pays even money unless suited, in which case it pays 3:2
2. Player may not hit or double to split aces
3. No automatic wins for 6 card hands
4. 5 card 21 does not pay double

5. Player may split any time 2 equal value cards touch that don't bust, i.e. if the first 2 cards are 3-A and you hit (or double) and get another A, you may split that into a separate hand.

I was wondering if you could tell how these rules affect the house edge and what, if any, differences in basic strategy there would be between this and single deck super fun 21. Thanks.

Quote: scooch10

At Bally's in Tunica I played a BJ variation called Single 21. It's played with a single deck and is similar to Super Fun 21 with the following exceptions:

1. BJ pays even money unless suited, in which case it pays 3:2
2. Player may not hit or double to split aces
3. No automatic wins for 6 card hands
4. 5 card 21 does not pay double

5. Player may split any time 2 equal value cards touch that don't bust, i.e. if the first 2 cards are 3-A and you hit (or double) and get another A, you may split that into a separate hand.

I was wondering if you could tell how these rules affect the house edge and what, if any, differences in basic strategy there would be between this and single deck super fun 21. Thanks.

It takes a bit of analysis to figure this out. From The Wizard's blackjack page:

1. My calculation based on single deck is that a 1.5x on suited blackjack instead of 2.0x on diamonds only adds a .30% PA
2. double or stand after splitting aces .08% HA
3. 6 card "Charlie" .16 HA
4. 5 card 21 adds .24% HA

So, at this point, "Super Fun" goes from 1.16% HA to 1.34%.

But then you add the dimension of splitting at any point in the hand and that becomes very difficult to calculate except knowing it's a Player Advantage. I think that the only way to calculate the player advantage is through a brute force method. Whether it would add .18% PA to make it a better game is unclear.