How to Adjust to Blackjack Games With a Spanish Deck

Published: January 9, 2014

Spanish 21 and a number of other blackjack games use something called a Spanish deck. This is a 48-card deck that is just like the standard 52-card deck with the 10s removed. There are a number of ways that this deck influences play, and we're going to cover what those ways are. You should be aware that the introduction of the Spanish deck itself adds to the house advantage, and you should be very aware of which house rules are being changed to add back to your payout rate. If there aren't any bonus additions to help you out, then you should probably find a different game to play.

With fewer 10s in the deck, the most obvious thing that happens is that you get blackjack less often. This will hurt your bottom line a bit, but it's important to realize that the dealer will also get blackjack less often as well. Since this isn't something that you can do anything about, it won't really change how you play very much. Instead, it will just affect your bottom line without you having to really do anything. Next, we're going to look at some ways that this rule does affect your play.

When you have hard hands against weak dealer cards of six and lower, often the correct strategy is to stand and give the dealer a chance to go bust. Because the dealer is forced to hit on hands that are worth less than 17, this can give you a big advantage when the deck has a lot of high cards in it. With fewer 10s in the deck, the dealer is less likely to bust, so this advantage is smaller than usual. As a result, you'll need to hit with hard 12s and some hard 13s in games that use this rule.

If you're playing hard 9s, 10s and 11s, or you're playing with smaller soft hands like 13-14, then you'll often double as an aggressive strategy, especially if you're playing against a weak dealer card with a soft hand. A part of this is based on being able to catch a high card to create a strong total, and another part of this is based on the dealer going bust often. As we've seen above, the dealer won't bust as often, and you also won't catch high cards as often when you double, so you have to do it less often.