How to Count Cards at Blackjack

Every time the player sits at blackjack table he expects to win big. Usually it is very difficult to get advantage over the casino at blackjack game that is why many players resort to the help of different winning methods including cheating. With the purpose to outsmart the house card-counting was invented. It was considered to be cheating at first but today the casinos do not ban this practice at blackjack tables though it became very difficult to count cards because of numerous preventive methods applied by the casinos.

Card-counting is the blackjack strategy that is used to determine what advantage the player has in different situations. As the name of the strategy states, it involves tracking the ratio of high to low cards at blackjack game.

The main idea of the card-counting system is based on the fact that the deck rich in high cards (Aces and ten-valued cards) is beneficial for the players. But if the deck contains many low cards it is good for dealer as the probability of blackjacks is higher, double down is successful and the dealer is more likely to bust the stiff hand. According to the basic card-courting strategy all the cards is the deck is assigned null (0), positive (+1) and negative (-1) value.

Advanced Card-Counting

The card-counting system that uses 0, -1 and +1 values of cards is known as Hi/Lo system and it is also sometimes called a single-level count because the player always add or subtract one point (not more) from the total count. On the contrary, according the multilevel count the cards can be also counted as +2 or -2 and these parameters influences the final count. The players who use advanced card-counting strategies may also additionally count the specific cards, for example, Aces. To tell the truth, multilevel system has one great disadvantage: as the players maintain side counts they must track much more information and thus they lose the ability to be completely concentrated on the game, play accurately and quickly take an action.

Running and True Counts

The running count at blackjack game is the total count of the dealt cards according to their values (0, -1, and +1). The count that takes into consideration the number of decks used at the game is known as the true count. So, the true count depends on the number of decks and is calculated by dividing true count by the number of the decks at the game or the decks that have not been played. In fact there exist many versions of calculating the true count.

Unbalanced Card-Counting

If all cards in the decks when counted totals zero the card-counting system is called balanced. On the contrary, in some card-counting systems, such as KO, the total count of all cards is positive. Such systems are called unbalanced. They are successfully used in both running and true count systems. Though the balanced systems are considered to be much easier and accurate some players manage to master the unbalanced systems and use them effectively.

Back-Counting

Back-counting system involves counting dealt cards outside blackjack table. This means that one person that is not playing stands behind the table and counts the cards that come out. This system is also known as “wonging” as it was invented by the professional blackjack player Stanford Wong. According to back-counting system the player who counts the cards enter the game as soon as the count is in his favor and leave when he no longer has an advantage over the house. The players also can raise the bets when their advantage increases and lower them when the advantage decreases.