I closed the last chapter with this statement: Our business has been tested by amateurs and professionals for time immemorial, and we are still here.

Will you be?

Your first step is to fit in. If you are going to be in our environment, fit in. We are all playing in the same sandbox, and we are your means to the end you are seeking. As Casino employees we practice the same thing that you are planning EVERY DAY, five days a week for years and years. We have all seen an elephant and would certainly recognize Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey if they ran through our establishment. Do not expect to surprise us by outsmarting us with your new wrinkle because we see card counters every day.

We have no interest in doing you any disservice nor does it really matter on a daily basis whether you win or lose, not by the day and not by the play. No single hand can hurt us. You see, winners come back and bring friends, and losers come back to try again. Your gain or loss on any given day is really not something that we get involved in. Once you become a player, we know that we can count on your business.

We see gambling as a recreational activity, like Six Flags or Disney World. The rides are a little different, but the feature is the same. Come, have a good time, play our slots or take a chance at our tables, eat good food, enjoy. That is why we open the doors. We welcome and cater to a market that is willing to spend some or all of their 3% recreational income as gamblers. Understand that point because, as a card counter you are no longer in that group.

 

Card Counting is an effective way to reduce the odds that favor the house. I have to say at this point that the house will never open a game where it does not have an edge. It isn’t going to happen.

As more and more people become good counters the house tightens up the game. The Casino is still running a business, with a profit motive. We actually expect everyone that comes in to count a little, or at least pay attention to what they do with their own money. Back in the seventies the boss used to say “Send me the card counters! They bring more money!” The problem became that too many people were getting too good, so they had to change the game to remain in business. Now the single deck blackjack game is very hard to find, and instead of paying 3 to 2 for blackjack, they only pay 6 to 5. It is a natural assumption that players insisting on a single deck are very good counters (or think they are) and the house has to make them really work hard to win. If you are just learning to count, get used to counting the six or eight deck shoe, because that’s what you are going to find when you go out to play. The 20 Rules are for an eight deck game, and while they could be used for a single or double deck, they aren’t the best for them.

Here’s what happens when you count cards:

The house has an advantage. The game is always designed to maintain that advantage.

If you do not practice counting cards, you will not improve your advantage.

If you do not practice counting cards, you will not improve your advantage.

Yes, I repeated that on purpose. The basic strategy cuts the house edge by about .5% on an eight deck shoe. You can remain at that spot and have a lot of fun. Counting cards improves that percentage in your favor because of the opportunities that arise from knowing that you are in an enhanced position in the deck.

You, as the player have many options available to you on how you play your hand. For example, you can stand on your first two cards, no matter what they total, or split pairs, or double down, or simply hit. By knowing how many small sized cards are left in the deck, compared to how many big cards, you have a better chance of knowing if it is good to take a hit or split, or double down. You also know if it is more likely that the dealer will break if he has a 5 or 6, or if he is more likely to catch a small card and make his hand good. That is the simple essence of card counting, taking advantage of a favorable position in the deck by being aware of what cards are left in respect to the hand you are playing.

The house has set rules on how the dealer must play the hand. He must draw until his hand reaches a count total of 17 or more. Then he must stand. If he goes over 21, you win, unless you went over first. There are a lot of reasons that the count helps the player. The most obvious is that you will catch more blackjacks if the deck is ten rich, and because it is ten rich you will have a bigger bet, so when you do catch the blackjack, you win more money. If the dealer draws the blackjack instead of you, he doesn’t get any bonus, but you do when you draw one.

By playing the count, and taking advantage of splits and double downs, the counter can bring the house edge down to less than ½ of one percent. This doesn’t guarantee winning, and certainly doesn’t promise anything in the first 2 or 3 thousand hands. The profit for a card counter comes at the end of many, many sessions.

This will take you some practice to get good at, and if you don’t use the knowledge wisely, you won’t get to use it at all. There are dozens of people in every Casino that take two or three hundred dollars winner every day, and usually stay under the radar. There are very few people that come in and take three or four thousand over and over again without getting recognized. They end up getting refused. We don’t let them play. Remember that. It is important.

 

Right into the card counting systems.

First, most Casinos today play a side bet called Lucky Ladies. If you are playing at one of these Casinos, you have to keep track of the queens of hearts. There are only eight of them in a shoe, but if you see a deck running to the end with four or five left, the Lucky Ladies side bet will pay up to a thousand to one if you have two queens of hearts and the dealer has blackjack, or just 125:1 if only you have them. How simple is that? If you only count that much, you increase your chances of a really big win with almost no effort! How am I doing now? Most of the system sellers overlook the easiest way to win big. They are meticulous about the 6s but miss the jackpot!

 

The rest of card counting is to determine how you are going to play some hands differently from the twenty sentences. By knowing the count, you will vary the way you play, because the 20 sentences are based on a 2 million hand average play. The key word being average, since there can be long runs of unusual circumstances in any deck. If you see variances in the deck so that some things are more likely (or less) than average, you adjust what you are going to do. You also start to adjust your bets to the count as well. The most common and least difficult to remember is called +/- or plus/minus. If you are playing a face-up shoe, which is the most common blackjack game, you simply count plus one or minus one with each counting card laid out. The strategy for single deck games and double deck games varies slightly from the 6-8 deck games, but that you will find in the Advanced Strategy section.

 

This counting strategy, which I use every day at work, is a combination of several others, with exotic names like the five count and the ten count, plus four, and paints & aces, or Red Sevens. It is easy to learn and takes some practice, but doesn’t take months to get good at. Each of those I named is a useable strategy, but each of them gives you a false sense of what is going on with the deck. The reason that I add them together with the true count is to see which one the players are using. If it is accurate enough for my everyday observance and game protection, then it should give you a considerable edge over most counters. I can bring in several other strategies, like the Canadian or whatever, but this keeps me right on top of what you are doing as a player, and how good you are likely to be.

Most players start with a high/low count where A,K,Q,J,10 are minus numbers and 2,3,4,5,6 are plus numbers. This is the basic count. However, since I have to watch several games at the same time I use a speedier count. To get my results, I track the tens, which we call paints (10,J,Q,K) and the smalls, which we call the fives (3,4,5,6) as a +/-. When I see a ten, it is a minus 1, when I see a small, it is a plus 1. I want to know what the house edge is on the ensuing play, and can follow you in what you are counting.

If the hand dealt has six tens played and two smalls, it is ten rich. A ten rich deck compared to a five rich deck gives you huge advantages, and the opposite is true for the house. If the dealer shows a drawing hand, something between 2 and 6, tens will make him break if he has a ten down, but small cards will make his hand. Small card counts let you know if it is good to take a hit or not and the best drawing hands when you split. Remember, you split 3s if the dealer has 2-7, and 4s against 4 or 5. That being said, doesn’t it make sense to know how many smalls are left in the shoe, and how many decks are gone for plays like that? This is really basic. Stay with it.

For practice with this, start turning cards over one at a time and saying -1,0+1,+2,+1,0,-1 or whatever the sequence is. When you can do a single deck in less than a minute, you are as fast as the dealer will be spreading them. Then take several decks and mix them together. Do the same thing. This will take a lot of practice. Don’t move your lips when you count either. It’s a dead giveaway.

I personally like to count a little differently when I am counting two games at the same time. I drop the Plus 0ne to a One and make the Minus One Uno. I keep my minus counts in Spanish because I don’t have to remember whether it is plus or minus from game to game. One is faster to say than Plus One and Dos is faster to say than Minus Two.

Anyway, practice this counting pattern until you come out with zero at the end of every deck. At that level, you can keep up with the dealer and you are accurate.

 

This is the basic count strategy. It is quick and simple, but I’m going to complicate it a little for you.

On average there are 20 cards dealt each hand to a full table. A six deck shoe contains 312 cards, and an eight deck shoe contains 416 cards. Each dealer will cut off about 1-1½ decks at the shuffle, so you will only get about 6 1/2 to 7 decks out of the 8 deck shoe. You need to know how many decks are played so you can know the importance of the count. If you watch the table for two shoes, you can see about how many hands that particular dealer runs per shoe. What is left in the deck, the plus or minus count, divided into how many decks are left is your true count, the useful information in any counting strategy. This is the part left out in almost every system, because knowing what is gone tells you what is left but nobody with a system to sell you tells you that. If the deck is -6, for instance, do you have four decks left or 2? If it is 4, your true count is –1.5, and if it is 2, your true count is -3.

 

Obviously you have a better chance of drawing to a 16 than if the remaining cards are only enough for 2 hands, because the number of smalls outweighs the number of tens. If your deck is -6 and you have 2 hands left, you make an assumption that drawing to a 16 will result in making a good draw. That means either you or the dealer! If you make that assumption, then you must draw if you have a breaking hand. You may win by not drawing, but it is likely that you will lose if you do not draw. It is also likely that the dealer will not break if he has to draw. As you well know, having a ten up does not guarantee the dealer will have a twenty. Mathematically the dealer will only break 28% of the time. Analyzing the count you realize that most card counters avoid playing a minus shoe. They get up and make a phone call or go to the bathroom or some other stall to get out of playing an unfavorable deck. Remember this: it is still gambling, but if there are more tens and aces in the deck than less, it is more favorable to the player.

So if you have practiced, and I do mean practiced, and you can keep a running count as the cards are laid out, there is one more thing that you should do. Watch the aces. There are thirty two of them in the eight deck shoe that most Casinos play with.

If, for example, four decks are played and you only have six aces played, you know that the remaining four to seven hands are going to have a lot more aces fall, because there are twenty six of them left. You also know that the house does not get paid three to two if the dealer gets blackjack but you do, and the house doesn’t split aces and you can. Obvious answer? Play to the aces. It pays better. Sure, the dealer might get the blackjack and beat you, but like I said, the house does not get paid three to two if the dealer gets blackjack, but the house pays if you do.

Having learned your 20 basic strategy rules and applying the count to them, you then need to figure out how you are going to bet. If you sit for hours and hours and grind the same bet, you give the house it’s percentage every session. If you raise your bet when the deck is in your favor and lower it when it is in the house’s favor, you will undoubtedly increase your winnings in the long run. The profit for a card counter comes at the end of many, many sessions, never after one good deck.

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