Online Blackjack Card Counting
Playing basic strategy correctly is often enough to get a basically even game, however to achieve a long term advantage for the player, card counting techniques must be used. There is no point in trying to learn how to count cards without first knowing the basic strategy correctly, so make sure you first know the basics before attempting to learn advanced techniques.
Most people think that card counting means that you have to memorize every card as it’s played. Fortunately, there is a much simpler way. It requires no memorization at all, just some very simple arithmetic. The key is to assign a plus or minus value to each card in the deck, then to total these values as each card is dealt. All the cards from the 2s to the 6s hurt your chances of winning. It’s to your advantage to have those cards removed. For that reason, you will assign a +1 value to each of these cards and add +1 to your count each time one of these cards goes out of play by being dealt to someone’s hand.
The tens and aces are the cards most favorable to the player. Each time one is removed, your chances of winning the next hand suffer. Therefore, you will assign every ten and ace a -1 value and add -1 to your count each time one of those cards is dealt. The remaining cards, 7s, 8s, and 9s, have so little impact on your chances of winning that we will assign them a value of zero. The point values you have to remember for this count system are as follows:
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 A
+1 +1 +1 +1 +1 0 0 0 -1 -1
Through the game, you keep a running computation of each card as it is dealt. Your count begins at zero before any cards have been dealt from the deck or shoe.
You must re-calculate your running count when playing in a multiple-deck game. You keep a running count just like in a single-deck game, however before deciding how much to bet on a hand you must first convert the running count into a true count. You do this by dividing the count by the approximate number of decks still undealt. You can either look at the shoe and estimate about how many decks are left in it, or you could look at the discard rack to get an idea of how many decks that are left in the shoe. The total you arrive at is your true count.
Your disadvantage is usually about 0.5% at the start of a new shoe, and your odds improve with about 0.5% for each true count. For example, your advantage would be about 1.0% with a true count of +3.
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