Card Counting in blackjack is a method to increase your odds of winning. If you are very good at it, you are able to really take the odds and put them in your favor. This works because card counters raise their bets when a deck wealthy in cards that are advantageous to the gambler comes around. As a general rule of thumb, a deck wealthy in ten’s is better for the player, because the dealer will bust extra frequently, and the gambler will hit a pontoon far more often.
Most card counters maintain track of the ratio of high cards, or 10’s, by counting them as a one or a – 1, and then offers the opposite one or minus 1 to the reduced cards in the deck. A few methods use a balanced count where the number of reduced cards may be the same as the amount of 10’s.
Except the most interesting card to me, mathematically, is the five. There have been card counting techniques back in the day that involved doing absolutely nothing much more than counting the number of fives that had left the deck, and when the 5’s had been gone, the player had a massive advantage and would elevate his bets.
A very good basic strategy player is getting a 99.5 per cent payback percentage from the gambling establishment. Every 5 that’s come out of the deck adds point six seven per-cent to the gambler’s expected return. (In a single deck casino game, anyway.) That means that, all things being equivalent, having one 5 gone from the deck offers a player a small benefit over the casino.
Having two or three five’s gone from the deck will actually give the gambler a quite substantial edge more than the betting house, and this is when a card counter will normally increase his wager. The problem with counting 5’s and absolutely nothing else is that a deck very low in 5’s happens quite rarely, so gaining a huge advantage and making a profit from that situation only comes on rare situations.
Any card between 2 and 8 that comes out of the deck increases the player’s expectation. And all nine’s. ten’s, and aces increase the gambling den’s expectation. But eight’s and 9’s have very little effects on the outcome. (An eight only adds 0.01 % to the player’s expectation, so it is typically not even counted. A nine only has 0.15 per cent affect in the other direction, so it is not counted either.)
Understanding the results the reduced and high cards have on your anticipated return on a wager may be the first step in learning to count cards and wager on twenty-one as a winner.
Comments