![]() ![]() The timer and competing calculations pep up Blackjack’s dullness, but they also compromise what is, for me, 21X’s prime attraction. At its core, though, 21X is still a game of being dealt cards at random and trying to reach the vaulted 21. ![]() If anything about the above examples got even a small part of your brain tingling then you’ll probably enjoy playing about with 21X.Īnd ‘playing about with’ is the key phrase here.Īs a game it’s fine. There’s flexibility to make 21X as complex or simple as you’d like with the three difficulty Levels of cards, allowing the use of pen and paper and even permitting X to be a decimal number. ‘Twisting’ might give me something as simple as that -5 we saw before, or it might produce a Level 3 monster like 1 + X(N-2). The best I can manage is 19 and, honestly, I’d ‘Stick’ every time. For example: A starting hand with a Level 2 card and a Level 3 card: X/2 and (X-N)2 To get the most out of 21X you should shuffle the Levels 2 and 3 difficulty cards into the deck, introducing divisions, powers and brackets. Of course, that example just uses cards from Level 1. The best you can do is 16 (X = -4) which is worse than before you took a fifth card and significantly worse than what you started out with.Īt this point, aware of your own mental limitations and thankful that the rules don’t allow you to go beyond 5 cards, you call ‘Stick’ and then lose when someone manages to get 18 within a minute. It’s worse than what you started with but X can be negative so perhaps another ‘Twist’ might help… With a third (inadvisable) ‘Twist’ your fifth card is 5N. X must now be 1, giving you a total of 17. Trying X as 2 results in a total of 23, more than 21 and therefore ‘Bust’. Sadly though, just like in real Blackjack, you can’t ‘Stick’ on 20 so you decide to ‘Twist’ again. If you change X to 2 then you reach a total of 20. So, with -5 and 9 (3N) you’ve a subtotal of 4. Since you’ve got three cards, N equals 3. But that leaves you open to someone else reaching 21 in that time so you might instead ‘Twist’ and take another card. With 3 you’re up to 19 and might call ‘Stick’, challenging your opponents to beat your score within a minute. The total value of these cards is (-5 + 8X), but since you can choose the value of X you have some flexibility. You might be dealt these cards: Your starting cards are -5 and 8X. Each round you receive two cards, the value of which might be fixed or could be determined by the number of cards you have (N) and/or an integer of your choosing (X). The goal of 21X is to get as close to 21 as possible without going over. Something I can’t help but pore over, a fidget spinner for the mind. Something irresistibly playful, smart and altogether beautiful. Read our review of 21X to find out whether Blackjack with Algebra sticks with success or is a complete bust.Įvery now and then something lands on my desk that charms me completely. ![]()
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