Card Counting

By rigorously sticking to basic strategy, a player can sometimes nearly even up with the house. Here we take a look at card counting, considered the only way to make the blackjack edge decidedly positive for the player.

Casinos would like to make people think that card counting is illegal. It is not. It is no more illegal than keeping track of spades played in a game of hearts. It’s not the card counting per se that gets casinos’ underwear in a wad; it’s the winning of money that “rightfully” belongs to the casino. Strangely, the casinos usually do not have the same attitude about skilled sports handicappers or video poker masters. Perhaps they understand that they have to tolerate some winners when casting the nets for losers. But pit bosses systematically try to keep card counters off of the blackjack tables.

How do the pit bosses know that someone is counting cards? The fastest way is for the dealer to send a private signal to the pit boss that someone in a particular chair is winning significantly more often than losing. Apparently winning is discouraged. Of course, this can not be admitted, so the signal is “secret.” The pit boss then watches that player for a while. Sometimes a good pit boss will just watch a table and count along, seeing if anyone’s betting practices or tactics will match the count. Of course, a person playing basic strategy will have runs of positive luck, too, but in the long run they will balance out. The pit boss will focus on moments when a competent player either departs from basic strategy or increases the bet when the count is positive.

In Las Vegas, a casino has the privilege not to serve any person (for so long as no legally protected categories are involved). Therefore, if a card counter is exposed, he or she will be shown the door by employees of the casino whose special function is evictions. Casinos have advanced techniques (including computerized image recognition and biometrics) to recognize the card counter on return trip to the casino, even is she’s wearing dark glasses and a fake beard.

Two tactics help to keep card counters in the game. One is being friendly and fun for the dealer. Dealers are less likely to “rat” on winning players if they are “nice.” Often “nice” involves generous “toking,” especially on big bets or good wins. This is not a bad practice, even if one is not counting cards, though apparently it is hard for many visitors to follow. The other tactic is to be selective when using the extra information card counting provides. For example, counting helps a player know when an insurance bet has a positive expectation. By using counting only for that decision, modest gains can be realized without a big risk of setting of an alarm with the pit boss or dealer. Bet variation is also an area in which counting has a strong influence. By not telegraphing the count in every bet placed, a player will be able to make money in the long term, perhaps not as quickly, but without being asked to leave.

In addition to counting and remembering the basic strategy rules and how the count affects them, the player also needs to be relaxed, chatty and friendly. This may require acting skills for some. It is quite a lot to do all at one time, and requires considerable preparation and training, or experience. Books have been written on how to adopt a credible persona for being able to count cards without being caught.

Card Counting Techniques

The two challenges of counting are (1) keeping the count and (2) knowing how to act on the count. The only way to learn step one is to practice counting. Take a shuffled deck and expose one card after another. Keep the count in your head. It should be zero at the end. Practice this faster and faster until you can count faster than you can turn.

Then deal hands of two cards, face down, perhaps 7 of them, and turn them over one at a time, keeping the count. Count by hands of two. Do this until you can count hands faster than you can reveal them. Then do the same thing with three cards per hand. Remember than when the deck is exhausted the count should be zero.
At the same time as you are practicing lightening fast reactions for counting the cards as they are revealed, be practicing basic strategy until it is second nature. Blackjack training software and some on-line games (not requiring real money) are a good idea. Otherwise, play a lot of blackjack with your friends. Get to where you can play 20 hands every time without a single tactical mistake. Work on the rules you have to look up or forget to apply. Remember in a casino, a hand takes an average of 36 seconds, and many dealers can serve them up in 15 seconds or less if there are just one or two players. Work towards 100 hands with perfect play. If necessary, talk it through out loud.

Once the basic strategy skills are honed and the card counting is second nature, try your hand at counting for real. Computer simulations of blackjack are particularly convenient for this, for so long as they are using the real probabilities for a pack of cards. (Some internet games are rigged in that cards are not generated with true allegiance to their usual distribution within a deck or pack. Sometimes counting can disclose this because a rigged deck will generate high negative counts. Other decks may have the right distribution of cards, but they are selected by the computer (only some of the time), in accordance with the cards the dealer needs to win. These games generate an unfair house edge and are obviously to be avoided).

If possible, get some live play before leaving for Vegas. Recall that a counter has to cover his tracks pretty well against people who are paid to sleuth them out. Be mindful that this may be your first time in a Las Vegas casino (or second or fifth or whatever), but these people work there – all day, every work day! The odds are that you are not as good at hiding your counting as they are at finding it. The solution is to work on your system more, organize your “affect” for once you are at the blackjack table, and plan exactly when you will take advantage of your superior knowledge of the count, and when you will not, just to throw them off.

Finally, review the circumstances in which counting contributes the most to profits: Bet variation, insurance, surrender, other strategy changes. It is not a good idea to take all of these on simultaneously under “live” conditions without a few hours (or days) of experience under the belt.

Read about the most popular - and easiest - card counting technique in Blackjack, HiLo Card Counting.

Using Card Counts

A piece of good folkloric advice (in general) is “Pigs get Fat and Hogs get Slaughtered.” The point is that a relatively small and discreet use of the count will create extra value for the player, but greedy exploitation of the count will lead to an early exit for sure. Eighty-seven percent of the advantage generated by card counting comes from bet variation. Unfortunately, bet variation is the easiest behavior to spot by a dealer or pit boss. So it helps to be sneaky.

Bet Variation

Almost any system can be used for so long as bets are minimized when the count is negative and bets are increased as the count goes higher into positive territory. One approach is to imagine what the minimum bet is, either at the table, or in your own mind (a “psychic” minimum bet). Suppose that amount is $5. When the count is +4 or more, bet $50, which is ten times the minimum bet. When the count is +3, bet somewhat less, perhaps $35 (or seven times the minimum bet). When the count is +2, bet $25, and when the count is +1, bet $15. At zero, make the “standard” bet of $10 and go to $5 when the count is negative.
Even though it may cost a little in expected earnings, it is often smart to throw in some bet variations that do not follow the count, just to keep people guessing. The best time is early after a shuffle, as everyone will think the count per deck has to be pretty close to zero. If the count is a couple of points negative and then takes a strong turn to deeper negative territory, it may be time to close down the operation and take a break.

Insurance

After bet variation, blackjack insurance is the next most productive use of the count. If the count per deck is +3 or more, buy insurance. (The threshold count drifts from 3 to 1.5 as the number of decks being used goes down from 6 to 1. For an 8-deck game, a safer threshold would be 3.1) Because the payoff of the insurance bet is 2:1, any time that more than one-third of the deck appears to be tens, the insurance bet has a positive expectation. A count of +3 means, roughly, that there are more tens than the “normal” ratio, which is 4 out of every 13. (The imprecision here is that aces also enter into the count, and an ace in the hole is not a winning bet on insurance.)

Strategy Variation

Of the 360 possible combinations of player hands and dealer up cards, about one-third of them are subject to change from basic strategy if the count is low enough or high enough. A number of these simply reverse the basic strategy’s position on splitting pairs, double down and surrender. As mentioned, the most productive strategy shifts involve hitting or standing on 15 or 16 against a 10. Hit 16 against 10 if the count is negative. Hit 15 against 10 if the count is less than +4. Another productive strategy shift deals with splitting nines. Basic strategy says to split nines unless the dealer’s up card is a 7, 10 or ace. Counting amends that rule: Split nines against a 7 or ace if the count is +3 or higher. Many other strategy variations have been verified, but quite a few apply to counts that are at the extremes (like -9 or +9), which do not frequently occur. The table provided summarizes all these recommendations of strategy variation based on the count (in a range from -10 to +10), with the exception of surrender, which has its own separate table. A newcomer to counting should restrict strategy variation to just a few choices at first, where the impact on the edge is greatest, leaving the others for addition to the arsenal later on.