|
- Basic Game Play
- Choosing the Casino
- Choosing your Table Position
- Basic Stategy
- > Card Counting
- True Count
- Raising the Stakes
- Deviation from Basic Strategy
Card Counting
The thing that makes blackjack different than most other casino games is the fact that you play multiple hands using the same deck or shoe. Very generally, the cards that come out first tell you what cards are left in the deck. And having an idea of what cards are left in the shoe give the player an advantage. A lot of people believe card counting involves keeping track of each individual card in the shoe, which is not feasible and also not true. In order to give the player advantage, all it takes is knowing whether or not there is a lot of high cards left in the deck. There are a lot of different card counting schemes to accomplish this. The one we teach here is called Hi-Lo, a very basic card counting scheme that works like this: For every 10 or Ace dealt, the counter subtracts 1 from his running count, for every 2-6 dealt, the counter adds 1 to his running count. When a lot of 2-6's have been dealt (the count is high), there are a lot of high cards (10's and Aces) left in the shoe and the player has a better chance of winning. Basically the player has a better chance of getting 20 or 21 and the dealer has a better chance of busting when showing a 2-6. When the player has better odds of winning, the player bets more. When the opposite is true, when a lot of high cards have already come out, the count is low, there are a lot of low cards in the shoe and the odds are in favor of the dealer. In this case the player will end up with more 12-16's and the dealer will be able to successfully hit his 12-16's more often. When the count is low, the player should bet the table minimum and wait for the count to get high again. These are the basic principles behind card counting and enough information to start practicing keeping count flipping through a deck of cards or in a practice blackjack game. However, there are several more things you need to learn before card counting can become effective at a real blackjack table. These issues are discussed in the articles on True Count, Betting on the Count, Varying Basic Strategy.
|
|
|
