How To Card Count Blackjack

How To Card Count Blackjack – Card counting is a blackjack strategy used to determine whether the player or dealer has an advantage in the next hand.

Card counters are players with advantages who try to beat the house edge by keeping count of the high and low value cards that are dealt. They generally bet more when they have an advantage, and less when the dealer has an advantage. They also change the decisions in the game based on the composition of the deck.

How To Card Count Blackjack

How To Card Count Blackjack

Card counting is based on statistical evidence that high cards (aces, 10s and 9s) suit the player, while low cards (2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s and 7s) suit the dealer. High cards suit a player in the following ways:

How To Beat Baccarat By Card Counting

On the other hand, low cards suit the dealer. The rules require the dealer to hit solid hands (12-16 total), and low cards are less likely to ruin those totals. A dealer holding a stiff hand will bust if the next card is a 10.

Card counters do not need unusual mtal abilities; they don’t track and remember certain cards. Instead, card counters assign a point to each card that estimates the value of that card. They keep track of the sum of these values ​​with a running count.

The myth that counters follow every card was depicted in the 1988 film Rain Man, in which the scientific character Raymond Babbitt counts through six decks of cards with ease, while a casino employee claims it is impossible to do so.

Basic card counting systems assign a positive, negative or zero value to each card. When you deal a card, the number is adjusted according to the count value of that card. Low cards increase the number; they increase the percentage of high cards in the deck. High cards reduce the count for the opposite reason. For example, the Hi-Lo system subtracts one for every 10, jack, queen, king or ace and adds one for all cards between 2 and 6. 7s, 8s and 9s count as zero and affect not the number.

Blackjack Card Counting

The card counting system aims to assign point values ​​that are roughly related to the effect of card removal (EOR). EOR is the estimated effect of removing a given card from play. Counters measure the effect of removal for all cards dealt and how it affects the house’s current advantage. Higher ratios of point values ​​create better correlations with the actual EOR, increasing the efficiency of the system. Such systems are classified as level 1, level 2, level 3, etc. The level corresponds to the ratio between the values.

The Hi-Lo system is level 1; the number of runs is never increased or decreased by more than one. Multi-level counting, such as Z Count, Wong Halves or Hi-Opt II, separates the card values ​​further to increase accuracy. An advanced number includes values ​​such as +2 and -2, or +0.5 and -0.5. Advanced players can also take care of certain cards such as aces. This is done where the bet accuracy is different from the game accuracy.

There are many hand counting techniques, including special purpose counting used for games with non-standard profitable play options, such as over/under bets.

How To Card Count Blackjack

Tracking multiple data with multiple levels can hurt speed and accuracy. Some counters make more money playing a simple count quickly than playing a complex count slowly.

Card Counting Systems

The primary goal of the card counting system is to assign point values ​​to each card that roughly correlate with a card’s “removal effect” or EOR (ie the effect a card has on the house’s advantage when it is removed from play), thereby allowing the player to assess the house’s advantage based on on the composition of the cards yet to be dealt. Larger ratios of point values ​​may correlate better with the actual EOR, but add complexity to the system. Scoring systems may be called “level 1”, “level 2”, etc., corresponding to the number of different point values ​​the system requires.

An ideal system is a system that a player can use that provides the highest average dollar return over a period of time. With this in mind, the systems aim to achieve a balance between efficiency in three categories:

When the sum of all permutations of the undealt cards gives a positive expectation to the player using the optimal playing strategy, there is a positive expectation to the player betting. The system’s BC measures how effective the system is in notifying users of this situation.

Part of the expected profit comes from changing the playing strategy based on the known modified card composition. For this reason, the system’s PE measures how effectively it informs the player to change the strategy according to the actual composition of the undealt cards. The system’s PE is important when the effect of PE has a large impact on the overall winnings, for example in one- and two-deck games.

Simple Strategies & Tips For Double Deck Blackjack

Part of the expected profit from card counting comes from taking an insurance bet, which becomes profitable at high totals. Increasing the IC will provide additional value to the card counting system.

Some strategies count aces (ace-counting strategies) and some do not (ace-neutral strategies). Including aces in the count improves betting correlation because the ace is the most valuable card in the deck for betting purposes. However, since an ace can be counted as a single or as an ace, including aces in the count reduces the accuracy of the game’s effectiveness. Since PE is more important in one-deck and two-deck games, and BC is more important in shoe games, ace counting is more important in shoe games.

One way to deal with such trade-offs is to ignore aces to achieve a higher PE while keeping the number of sides used to detect the additional change in EV that the player will use to detect additional betting opportunities that would not normally be indicated by primary card counting system. .

How To Card Count Blackjack

The most common hand-counted card is the ace because it is the most important card when it comes to achieving BC and PE balance. In theory, a player could keep the number of sides of each card and achieve nearly 100% PE, but methods that involve extra side counting for PE become more complex at an exponential rate as you add more sides and the capabilities of the human mind. quickly become overwhelmed and unable to perform the necessary calculations. Without page counting, PE can approach 70%.

How To Count Cards In Blackjack: A Quick Guide

Since there is the potential to place too much demand on the human mind while using a card counting system, another important design consideration is ease of use. Higher level systems and side count systems are obviously going to be more difficult, and in an effort to make them easier, unbalanced systems eliminate the need for a player to keep track of the number of cards/decks they’ve already played typically on an exploit. lowering of PE.

The run count is the total sum of the value assigned to each card. By using a balanced count (such as the Hi-Lo system), the number of runs is converted to a “real number”, which takes into account the number of tires used. In Hi-Lo, the true number is the number of runs divided by the number of decks not yet dealt; this can be calculated by dividing or approximating by the average number of cards per round multiplied by the number of rounds dealt. However, there are many variations of calculating the correct number.

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Counting backwards, or “Wonging”, consists of standing behind a blackjack table and counting the cards as they are dealt. Stanford Wong first suggested the idea of ​​countdown, as it is the name.

Anatomy Of A Blackjack Card Counter

A player will fold or “win” the game when the number reaches a point where the player has an advantage. A player can increase their bet when the lead increases, or lower their bet when the lead decreases. Some back-counters prefer to bet evenly, betting the same amount only after they have completed the game. Some players will stay at the table until the game is shuffled, or they may “kick out” or leave when the count reaches a level where they no longer have an advantage.

Counting is usually done on shoe games with 4, 6 or 8 decks, although it can also be done on games with 1 or 2 decks. The reason for this is that the count is more stable in the shoe game, so a player is less likely to sit down for a hand or two and have to get up. In addition, many casinos do not allow “trying in the middle” in single or double deck games, making Wonging impossible. Another reason is that many casinos put more effort into preventing card counters in their court games than in their shoe games, since the counter has less of an advantage in the average shoe game than in the pitch game.

The countdown varies

How To Card Count Blackjack