by Jinsen D

Created on: September 24, 2009   Last Updated: March 13, 2010

Here are a few of the many systems used to count cards at blackjack,you should bet the minimum until the count gets good,however you need a big bankroll to make it worth it,and casinos like to limit betting spreads.You may run out of cash before the count evens gets near good.Nowadays it is very harder to pull.

-Hi/lo and Hi opt 1 system

The easiest and most popular system for card counting is the hi/lo system and hi opt 1 system which in a nutshell for the hi/lo system cards 2-6 are given a+1 and 7-9 count as zero and all the other cards are -1,for the hi opt 1 card 3-6 are +1,cards 7-9 ace and the deuce count as zero all high cards (except the ace) count as +1. Different systems are better for different variations of blackjack,the hi opt 1 and 2 are best for single or double deck and hi/lo system for 8 deck games. The trick is betting more when the count gets good,if you do not bet more when the count gets good you gain no advantage.

Basic strategy, rules, decks and house edge

-Before you start learning to count cards you should want to memorize the basic strategy table for the variation of blackjack you expect to be playing, an 8 deck blackjack game will have a different strategy table than a single deck game, also different rules also effect the strategy table, just a simple rule like dealer hits soft 17 effects you.

Different rules give the player either an advantage or a disadvantage and casinos know this, it also helps fight the advantage counters get. It is possible for a casino to make a blackjack game so nobody can ever get any sort of advantage, for example a single deck blackjack game with no missing high card or ace and true rules has no house advantage, so if a card counter could play a single deck blackjack with no gimmicks he would get a huge advantage, probably about 3-6% as opposed to the 1% you can get nowadays.

By adding just one additional deck the casino gains a 0.35% advantage, by not letting you re split aces there's another 0.06% for the casino, so it is important to pick and choose carefully which casino and which table you will sit at, and possibly ask for a list of rules on paper and decide if it's worth playing.

Casino verite is a free software that is a complete casino simulation and it teaches everything from basic strategy to card counting, a very good software, however any is a great tool and won't cost you anything like books will. Card counting software saves the headache of having to google everything.

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