Card counting in blackjack
Most card counting systems start with a count of 0. This means that when you first sit down at a blackjack table, the count is 0. Depending on which counting system you are using, this count will fluctuate with every card that is dealt. You must keep track of not only the cards that you are being dealt, but every single card dealt to every player and to the dealer.
With most card counting systems you are looking for a positive count. When the card count is positive, this generally means there have been more smaller cards played and the deck now has a higher percentage of larger cards. When the deck has a high percentage of larger cards, the player has several different advantages:
* Dealer Will Bust More Often
* Player Will Be Dealt More Blackjacks
* Player Will Be Dealt Stronger and Higher Starting Hands
When a card count is high, the player bets larger amounts of money because they have a higher mathematical advantage. The card counting doesn’t stop here, though. Even when you are betting more and winning more, you still must focus and continue to count cards flawlessly. Once the high count starts to drop and gets either neutral or into the negative, you go back to betting smaller amounts because the casino now has the higher advantage.
How Can I Become Skilled at Card Counting?
The only way to become a skilled card counter is to practice, practice, practice. It can take several months if not several years to truly master several of the card counting systems mentioned above. You need to be constantly practicing your card counting techniques and skills until you can count flawlessly. Keep in mind you don’t have to be playing blackjack to practice your counting techniques. You can practice your counting methods anywhere.
One very effective method of practicing card counting is to create practice counting charts. You can create a chart that show your hand and the dealer’s up card, then you verbally or mentally recite the proper play. If you get stumped, simply refer to your basic strategy charts. Practice charts can be small enough to fit into your wallet so that you can practice card counting wherever you are.
Which Card Counting System Should I Use?
With several different card counting systems available, people often ask which card counting system they should try to learn, but it is often dependent upon each individual and their knowledge of the game. There is generally not a specific answer on where everyone should begin. Many factors determine which system you should use, such as what type of games you play, where you play, your skill level, and how many hours you are playing.
For beginning players, as a rule of thumb, it is recommended that you learn the most basic system first, either the Hi-Lo count or the KO count. These systems of card counting are generally the easiest to learn. Make sure to practice this system thoroughly before moving on to the more complex systems. It can often take months, if not years, to learn how to master blackjack card counting.
Generally, the advantages of the more complex card counting systems compared to the more basic systems are fairly slight, around 0.15%.
History of Card Counting
Card counting first originated when Professor Edward O. Thorp began revising basic strategy in 1962. Through mathematical computation, Thorp realized that whenever a deck was low in 5’s, the player had more of an advantage than if the deck was low on any other cards. Card counting started when players would attempt to keep track of how many 5’s had been dealt, so they would know how many 5’s were still remaining in the deck.
This system was the first basic blackjack card counting strategy and it is known as the “Five Count.” The strategy was later revised to also account for the number of 10 cards in the deck and was known as the “Ten Count.”
The legality issue of card counting is a common topic around casinos and the game of blackjack. I’m definitely not a lawyer, so take this information in stride and make sure to do thorough research if investigating the full laws and regulations of card counting. The act of card counting at a physical blackjack table with your brain alone (without using any counting devices such as computers and electronics), is considered to be perfectly legal and is not considered cheating.
However, most casinos will not allow a known card counter into their blackjack games and will generally ask card counters to leave if they are caught counting during a game. Since casinos are private property, they have full authority to ask players to leave and to not return if they are caught counting cards in blackjack. They cannot take legal action, but they can force you off their premises and ask you not to return.
High cards – tens, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces – are good for the player and low cards – 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are bad for the player. By keeping a ratio of good cards to bad cards the player can make an assessment of whether the cards still to be played will benefit or hurt them. Many people hold the mistaken view that card counting requires incredible intellect or a photographic memory – this simply is not true. Whilst the first card counting systems developed by Edward O. Thorp in the middle of last century were clumsy and difficult to apply, they quickly evolved into much simpler methods that far surpassed their predecessors in terms of effectiveness.
In this article I am going to look specifically at the Hi/Lo counting system. I would however recommend that anyone seriously intending to learn to count cards does some research before they begin. There are a multitude of different legitimate counting systems available today – ranging from the simplest unbalanced systems – to the far more complicated multi-level count systems with various side counts. I have chosen to focus on the Hi/Lo count as I feel it to be the best balance between power and simplicity and it has the greatest durability for extension to more powerful strategies.
Running Count
The Hi/Lo count assigns the following card values: 2-6 (the low cards) +1, 7-9, 0, and cards 10, J, Q, K and A (the high cards) -1. Start the count after the shuffle at 0 and every time you see a card with a face value of 2-6 add one to the count, if you see a card valued 7-9, do nothing and every time you see a 10 or A subtract one from my count. The resulting number is called the Running Count (RC) and this indicates how many extra high or low cards have been dealt. When extra low cards have been dealt (i.e. the count is higher than 0) it means that there are extra high cards still to come and consequently the deck is more favorable to the player. For example, if the following combination of cards was dealt during the first round of play:
Player 1: A,10
Player 2: 3, 7
Player 3: 8, 9
Player 4: 5,9
Player 5: 4,6
Dealer : 10
It should be counted as follows. The RC starts at 0; player 1 has 2 high cards so the RC is now -2; player 2 has 1 low card and one neutral card, the RC is now -1; player 3 has 2 neutral cards so the count does not change; player 4 has 1 low card so the RC increases by 1 to 0; player 5 has 2 low cards so the RC increases again to 2; finally, the dealer is showing a high card so the RC drops by one, resulting in an overall RC of 1.
True Count
We now require a method that can quantify just how favorable the remaining cards in the deck are for the player. Each extra high card in a deck of cards adds 0.5% to the player’s advantage, so we need to know how many extra high cards per deck remain to calculate our exact advantage. This is especially important as today the game of Blackjack is rarely played using a single deck, far more often it is dealt using 4, 6 or 8 deck shoes. To work out how many extra high cards remain per deck simply divide the RC by the number of decks left to be played. This new number is called our True Count (TC) and gives us an assessment of how advantageous the remaining cards are to the player. So if the RC is 15 and there are 3 decks still to be played simply divide 15 by 3 to get a TC of 5. Similarly, a RC of 8 with 2 decks remaining would result in a TC of 4 and so on.
House Advantage
There is however one fact that we have yet to account for – namely that the player always starts at a disadvantage. This is how casinos make money in the first place. What we need to know now is at what point the player overcomes this initial house advantage. To calculate this we must analyze the rules of each specific game of Blackjack we are considering playing. The number of decks of cards being used in a particular game (1, 4, 6 or even 8 ) should also be noted. As this is just a short article on the subject and I have no desire to re-invent the wheel, I will instead refer you to a fantastic website designed to calculate the house edge (this website has a huge amount of quality information on every casino game imaginable and is well worth looking through – Michael Shackleford is a highly respected and knowledgeable member of the gambling community): http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack.
A little down from the top of this page, under the heading ‘Rules of the Game’, is a link to the house advantage calculator. Use this to calculate how much of a disadvantage you will start with for the specific game you intend playing. If the disadvantage is 0.5%, or less, subtract 1 from the TC before calculating your bet. If the disadvantage is 0.75%, or more, subtract 1.5 from the TC. If the initial disadvantage is any higher than 0.75% you should not be playing the game at all. By adjusting the TC to take into consideration the initial house advantage the TC becomes an accurate assessment of the advantage a player has at any give point in a specific game of Blackjack.
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