Thanks to the efforts of Edward Thorpe and some other experts in blackjack back in the mid-twentieth century, all fans of this game know that they can win against the casino, using the optimal strategy and card counting. At first,casinos tried to tighten the rules, but sharply reduced demand caused them to return to the previous conditions.
Currently, hundreds of casinos offer blackjack, a great professional game for the result. Thus, they not only suffer losses, but even thrive.
The reason is that the vast majority of fans do not want to learn blackjack and see it as entertainment. Many do not even trouble to learn the basic strategy. And only a fraction of the players goes to card counting.
But counting cards is not difficult. There are several popular methods, and the simplest of them can be learned and used in practice by anyone. Though, you need some practice before you start playing for money.
Basics of card counting
You must know that almost any blackjack (with few exceptions) has a percentage of mathematical advantage of the casino. It depends on the rules of the various game versions, the number of decks and other factors. To minimize it, you should play according to properly chosen strategy taking into account all the nuances.
However this amount is not fixed. During the game, the percentage of big cards in a shoe changes benefits. In some situations it becomes positive for a player. Card counters determine when the situation at the table becomes profitable for them, and raise the bets. When the game is not in their favor, they play at the minimum bets or even try to pass distribution.
Description of a simple system
For better understanding how beneficial the situation is, you need to calculate the ratio of large and small cards in decks in a shoe. More than a dozen aces are better for the player (read in another article, why).
So, in the professional basic strategy, you keep in mind the value of cards dealt. But this does not mean that you should memorize all of them. You need only add or minus ones when seeing certain cards. The larger the score, the higher the probability of winning.
A new shoe starts from q scratch. Next you need to calculate the following:
• Two, three, four, five, six - plus one
• Ten, Jack, Queen, King, Ace - minus one
• Seven, eight, nine - are not considered
With zero or negative score you need to do the minimum bets. If its value is seriously goes to minus you better stop playing or move to another table (although this is not always possible, as you risk drawing suspicion).
See below how to raise bets with a positive count
Drills
Theoretical information does not make sense if you do not know how to implement it in practice. So take a deck, mix it thoroughly and start to open the cards one by one, keep counting. When you go through the entire deck, the number must go back to zero, since there is the same number of cards that give +1 and -1.
True count
In blackjack with multiple decks (six or eight) you need to learn how to do the so-called true count. This means that you should count the number of decks remaining in a shoe. Then you need to divide the total count on this number to determine the true count when choosing the size of bets.
For example, you play with eight decks. In the bump there are about two decks. This means that the remaining six are in a shoe. The current count is six. You divide it by the number of decks (six) and get one. This is the true count and you should bet on it.
That may sound complicated, but you can easily learn how to do such calculations after some practice.
By the way, the true count makes significant adjustments to the basic strategy. So, if it is higher than two, you can get insurance on blackjack. For more information about changes in this kind of read the special articles on Casinoz.
Bet
Now let's look at the pattern of changing bets, if you count cards in blackjack. The easiest approach is raise bets by one unit at the true count of 0.5. For example, the count is 1 - 1 bet, 1.5 - 2 bet, the count is 2 - 3 bet and so on.
Conclusion
Finally, we remind you that you should be careful, because card counters are not welcome in any casino in the world. Most casinos will do everything possible to get rid of the customers as soon as they suspect that them of counting cards. In other articles on our website, we will tell you how to play so that pit bosses and security staff do not want to kick you out of the casino. Follow our advices.
Also do not forget that card counting does not make sense in online casinos, because games run on the random number generator, all decks are used in each hand, even if drawing cards is stopped.
The low effectiveness of such techniques in online games with real croupiers was also discussed in another article.
Once you have mastered the simplest system of card counting, you can try to learn better strategies for professional players.
Please send us your stories about your personal experience of card counting. Share your observations and best practices with other readers.
