How Blackjack Card Counting Works

History of Card Counting

Card counting was invented by Edward Thorp back in the 1960s. He was a maths professor, a hedge fund manger and a blackjack player. After testing out his method, he wrote a book - Beat the Dealer. From then on, card counting became very popular.

Card counting is not illegal, but it is see as a small cheat. Casinos know all about it, they welcome card counters to their casinos. For the popularity of card counting has brought more people to casinos than ever before. There are not many successful card counters. If they won too much money, the casinos will just politely ask them to leave.

There are quite a few different card counting methods. The one I am going to discuss here is called "High- Low". It is one of the simplest and it is also quite effective. Even some professional people use it in Las Vegas.

Method:

For each and every card deal on the table, you have to count it as below. It is called "running count."

• Value of cards 2,3,4,5,6 - add 1 to your count
• Value of cards 7,8,9 - ignore these cards (add 0 to your count)
• Value of cards 10,J,Q,K,A - subtract 1 from your count

True Count Value

The count you have is not the true count, because most casinos use more than one deck of cards. So to get the true count, you have to divide the number of deck left in the shoe. You look at the amount of cards left in the shoe and make an estimate.

True count = Running count / Decks remaining

Example, if your running count is 6, and the no. of decks remaining is 2.

True count = 6 / 2 = 3

So how do we use the true count?

Beating Decision

The theory is when the count is high, you bet more. When the count is low, you bet less or bet nothing. It would be best if you can sit and watch when the count is low. The casino will be suspicious if you just sit there, you might just bet the table minimum.

When you have a very high count, you will need to bet as much as you can to take the opportunity.

Practice

Before you want to beat the casinos at their game, you have to practice your card counting art first. Get a deck of cards and practice and try to minimise your counting time. The running count for a deck of cards is zero after you finished, so you know you have counted correctly. When you can count a deck of cards within 20 seconds, then you are ready.

You also need to know what we called the basic strategy. You can download blackjack basic strategy table from the internet, relating to the number of decks of cards used. It is a little bit different when you are playing with two decks and six decks. You need to memorise the table and follow it. Basic strategy tells you what to do, you stand or hit when the dealer has a ten value card and you have a two value card. It will include all situations.

You should also practice in the casino before you start betting large amount of money. To beat the casino, you need a fair amount of cash. Even though you are good at counting, there are something what the professional called variants. Variants are unexpected events which might cause you to lose money, without fair amount of cash you cannot recover from your lost.

Conclusion

Be sensible with your game and do not bet more than you can afford. Click here for more information on blackjack card count counting and how to beat the online casino.

I wish you good luck.

Signing off

-MisterWailor