Blackjack

Read more about the
Las Vegas 2024 Super
Bowl Streaker!

Counting cards in blackjack is really a way to increase your chances of winning. If you’re good at it, you may really take the odds and put them in your favor. This works because card counters elevate their bets when a deck wealthy in cards that are advantageous to the gambler comes around. As a basic rule, a deck wealthy in 10’s is much better for the gambler, because the dealer will bust a lot more frequently, and the player will hit a chemin de fer more often.

Most card counters maintain track of the ratio of good cards, or 10’s, by counting them as a 1 or a minus 1, and then offers the opposite one or – 1 to the very low cards in the deck. A number of systems use a balanced count where the variety of very low cards would be the same as the number of ten’s.

Except the most interesting card to me, mathematically, is the five. There had been card counting techniques back in the day that included doing nothing much more than counting the number of fives that had left the deck, and when the 5’s have been gone, the gambler had a major benefit and would elevate his bets.

A beneficial basic strategy gambler is getting a ninety nine point five per-cent payback percentage from the gambling den. Each five that’s come out of the deck adds point six seven per-cent to the player’s expected return. (In an individual deck game, anyway.) That means that, all things being equal, having one five gone from the deck provides a gambler a smaller advantage more than the house.

Having two or three five’s gone from the deck will in fact give the gambler a fairly considerable edge over the gambling establishment, and this is when a card counter will usually increase his bet. The issue with counting five’s and absolutely nothing else is that a deck low in 5’s occurs quite rarely, so gaining a large advantage and making a profit from that situation only comes on rare instances.

Any card between 2 and eight that comes out of the deck boosts the gambler’s expectation. And all 9’s. 10’s, and aces increase the gambling establishment’s expectation. But eight’s and 9’s have quite little effects on the outcome. (An eight only adds point zero one % to the gambler’s expectation, so it’s usually not even counted. A nine only has 0.15 per cent affect in the other direction, so it’s not counted either.)

Understanding the results the reduced and great cards have on your expected return on a bet will be the initial step in understanding to count cards and play black jack as a winner.