Card Counting

Now lets discuss the +/- Point Count. As you can see from the small chart below, a plus value is given to low cards, and a minus value is given to high cards. Notice that 7, 8, and 9 have a value of zero. This is because their overall effect is negligible as compared to the others. Some systems use a value of -2 for the Ace instead of -1 and give a value of +1 to the seven instead of zero.

As you may notice, this is a balanced system. There are 20 cards in a deck that are valued +1: two through six. There are 16 ten value cards and 4 Aces in a deck (20 total) that are valued -1. The remaining 12 cards (7, 8, 9) have a value of zero. At the end of a deck the count should be zero. A good drill to practice is to get a deck of cards, turn them over one by one, and keep track of the count. If you enter a game mid-way between the deck or shoe, flat bet until the cards are shuffled. Once the cards are shuffled commence counting from zero.

Card counting can be broken down this simply. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are worth +1. 7, 8, and 9 are worth zero. 10, J, Q, K, and A are worth -1. Keep a running total. When the deck is at +2 or higher raise your bets.

A quick example using ten cards: the following cards are shown in the course of a hand: A, 4, 7, 10, 10, 9, 10, 2, 10, 5. The first value is -1 (the Ace) & the second is +1 (the 4) = 0 (the current total hand count). The next card is the 7 which is zero so disregard it. The next card is a ten so the total count is now -1. The next card is another ten, giving a total count of -2. The next card is a nine which has a value of zero so ignore it, total count is still at -2. Next is a ten, total count is at -3. Next is a two which adds +1 to the minus three yielding a total of -2. A quick look at the next two cards shows that the two will cancel each other out (-1+1=0). So at the end of a hand of ten cards dealt to 2 players and the dealer, the point count is minus two. This provides you with the knowledge that your are at a slight disadvantage. Your next bet should either be the same or a unit or two lower.

From this example you see that it would be easier to count cards if you play in a "cards-up" game. That way you can see all the cards as they are dealt and count them as they go by. When the dealer deals fast, just count every two cards. You still count each card but you only add to your total count after every two cards since many times the two values will cancel each other out to give a net value of zero, which doesn't need to be added to your total. If you play in a cards-down game, you may want to consider playing at third base. The reason being is that in a cards-down game you only see the other players' cards:

if you peek at their hand (not polite but it's not cheating like in poker) if a player busts when the dealer settles each players' hand. When there are other people at a table, all this happens rather quickly and you may miss a few cards here and there, which essentially invalidates your count. You can't control how fast the dealer deals, but you can slow things down when the dealer prompts you for a play decision.

For one deck, alter your wager according to the following table:

Example: After the first hand of a one deck game, the point count is plus four and you just bet a $5.00 chip. Before the next hand is dealt, wager $15.00 (three units of $5.00) as the above table mandates.

What if there are four, six, or more decks instead of just one? I recommend that you perform a "true-count" rather than trying to remember different betting strategies for different number of deck games. By doing a true count, the above table can still be used.

The True Count is found with the equation below. I provide an example along with it for the case of having a running count of +9 with one and a half decks left unplayed. It doesn't matter how many decks are used, you just have to have a good eye at guesstimating the number of decks that are left in the shoe. I just measured the thickness of a deck of cards to be 5/8 (10/16) of an inch. Hence the thickness of a half deck is 5/16 of an inch. One and a half decks would be 10/16 + 10/16 + 5/16 = 25/16 or a little over an inch and a half. You probably see a relationship here. The number of decks is approximately equal to the height of the cards in inches.