Super Fun 21: Liberal Rules, Even Money Blackjacks

Some blackjack variants are subtle about what they take. Super Fun 21 is not. As Wizard of Odds frames it, the game offers lots of liberal rules, offset by most blackjacks paying only even money. Read the rule sheet top to bottom and it reads like a gift: doubles everywhere, surrenders everywhere, split aces you can hit and resplit, bonus payouts for long hands. Then the last line quietly deletes the premium on most naturals.

It is a variant worth understanding even if you never sit down at it, because it is a clear example of a trade that runs through blackjack's variant family: the house never gives a rule away, it prices it. This piece lists what the game actually offers, what the even money blackjack costs, what the published edges are, and why your standard strategy chart is the wrong tool for any of it.

The rule list

Wizard of Odds describes the game as standard blackjack rules with the following specifics and changes. It is dealt from one, two or six decks, and the dealer usually hits soft 17. The player-facing rules:

• Double after split is allowed.
• Resplitting up to four hands, including aces, and the player may hit and double split aces.
• Doubling is allowed on any number of cards, not just the first two.
• Late surrender is allowed on any number of cards.
• After doubling, the player may surrender half of the total bet, a rescue Wizard of Odds notes is called Double Down Rescue in Spanish 21.
• A hand totaling 20 or less with six or more cards wins automatically, except after doubling.
• A 21 made of five or more cards pays 2 to 1 immediately, except after doubling.
• A player blackjack always wins.
• A blackjack in diamonds pays 2 to 1; all other blackjacks pay even money.

Several of those are rules players would celebrate individually. Late surrender on any number of cards goes well beyond the narrow rule our early versus late surrender comparison covers in the standard game, where surrender is a first-two-cards option on a short list of hopeless hands. Hitting split aces lifts the one-card restriction that our resplit aces piece calls near universal in the standard game, and double after split is one of the more valuable common rules a standard table can offer. The two bonus rules, the automatic six-card win and the 2 to 1 five-card 21, resemble the house bonuses described in our piece on Charlie rules and similar bonuses: generous on paper, rare in practice.

The price: what even money does to a natural

In a standard game, a natural pays 3:2, and that premium is worth a great deal. Our comparison of 3:2 and 6:5 blackjack works the arithmetic: dropping the payout to 6:5, where a 10 unit bet wins 12 instead of 15, costs the player roughly 1.4 percentage points of house edge per the commonly published tables, the single most expensive common rule change in the game, enough to nearly quadruple the edge of an otherwise decent game.

Super Fun 21 cuts further, to even money on most naturals. Even money is not a smaller premium than 6:5; it is no premium at all. The 3:2 payout, 6:5 and even money are the stops on the same downward line that our payout variants tour walks through, and the payout line's one sweetener, the 2 to 1 on blackjacks in diamonds, still leaves most naturals paying the same as an ordinary winning hand. That is the bill for everything in the rule list above.

The lesson generalizes past this variant. A payout line is not fine print; it is often the most expensive rule on the sheet, and the classic error with liberal variants is to read the rules, feel richer, and never price the offset. The house did the arithmetic before printing the felt.

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The published house edges

What the whole package nets out to, per Wizard of Odds: the figures come from random simulation, assuming a cut card and using their strategies computed for this game. With the dealer hitting soft 17, the house edge is 1.16 percent in the one deck version, 1.30 percent in two decks, and 1.40 percent in six decks.

To read those numbers honestly, put them next to the standard game's, and then stop before subtracting. Perfect basic strategy in standard blackjack carries a house edge of roughly 0.5 percent under liberal multi deck rules, as we cover in explaining the house edge. But the comparison is loose in both directions: the 0.5 percent comes from a different rule set, and Super Fun 21's edges assume play from its own strategies, not from a standard chart. The right conclusion is the ordering, not a precise gap: a game full of player favors, played well, still carries a higher published edge than a good standard game.

Notice also that the edge rises as decks are added, 1.16 to 1.30 to 1.40. Deck count works the same direction here as in standard blackjack, where moving from one deck to eight costs the player roughly half a point.

Why a standard chart is the wrong tool

Wizard of Odds publishes separate strategies for the one, two and six deck versions of Super Fun 21, and even a rule for the rescue option: surrender after doubling with 12 through 16 against a dealer 8 through ace, or with 17 against an ace. We are not going to list cell differences here, because inventing them is exactly how variant misinformation spreads. The honest statement is that a chart built for standard blackjack is not the right tool for this game.

The parallel is Spanish 21, which our Spanish 21 piece covers. That variant removes the tens from the deck and compensates with bonuses and liberal rules, and the lesson there carries over: a chart is an answer key for one specific game, and a variant is a different game. If Super Fun 21's strategy ever matters to you, learn it from a source computed for the game, the same advice we give for the soft 17 rule in S17 versus H17, where even that one rule moves real cells.

What transfers from standard blackjack is not the chart but the habits: knowing that rules stack, that payouts dominate, that a house edge deserves its qualifiers. Those habits are what let you read a variant's rule sheet once and know where to look for the catch, and in this game the catch is printed in one line.

Learning the trade with standard rules

The 21 Trainer app does not play Super Fun 21 and does not teach its strategy. What it does teach is the machinery underneath the trade: how the payout line, surrender, double after split and the soft 17 rule each move the standard game's edge. Set the rules in the app, and the strategy chart redraws for the selection; switch the payout between 3:2 and 6:5, and you can watch the app's house edge calculator price the change you just made. That is the skill this variant proves matters most: not memorizing any particular rule sheet, but knowing how to price one.

Price the rules yourselfFull rule customization with charts that redraw for the selection. No account, no ads, and your progress stays on your device. Download