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Counting Cards in Blackjack- Part 1 - Part 2 -Vegas Owns You, Baby! All of us desire to improve our chances of winning and kicking ass at the blackjack tables of Vegas and elsewhere. I am certain we've all tried various grand betting schemes and practices, much to no avail. I clearly recall my 21st birthday, for example - a road trip from my school in Berkeley to Harrahs Tahoe to try out one such blackjack strategy, a stupidly simple strategy actually, wherein I would double my bet every time I lost. My 21st birthday did not prove enjoyable to say the least. Within an hour of arriving, I stumbled back to my car to drive back to Berkeley's ivory towers. With tears on my face, crying not so much from losing my ass, but from the realization that 1) I was an Idiot, perhaps a complete one, and 2) I would have to eat rice and potatoes for the next month and a half, I vowed "never, never again!" Indeed, vengeance filled my mind. Therefore, the next time I visited Harrahs Tahoe, two months later, instead of doubling my bet when I lost, I doubled when I won. The experience proved exciting, but only briefly, for the end result confirmed that I was indeed an Idiot, a complete one, but an Idiot studying at Berkeley. And therefore, as an Idiot studying at Berkeley, and a damn proud one, I would not give up until I found a solution. I am certain that most, if not all, of our attempts to swing the tables and cards in our favor prove most futile. And the reason, my friend, is simple. Vegas owns you, Baby! And they always will, unless we rise up and collectively play Blackjack like professionals. The information I provide here will help you defeat the Vegas Beasts and other ungodly card monopolists where they stand. You can learn to play like a professional, you can learn to count cards, and contrary to popular belief, you can learn to count any size deck! For the most part, the reasons for our failures at the blackjack tables have as their roots either 1) our own failure to understand the probability of a given situation and/or 2) that Idiot siting next to us who also does not understand the probability of a given situation. Both of these points are important. Most of my discussion will be in helping you overcome the former, that is, in improving your understanding of blackjack and the real probability of given situations. But I will also talk about those other Idiots at the tables, and what you can do about them, for they also heavily influence whether you win or lose. With the card counting method I will describe, you can significantly improve your chances of winning at blackjack. Counting cards, however, is not an end in itself. You must also know what actions to take (whether to stand, hit, double, split), and how much to wager. The key issue influencing your actions is not just the count of the cards, but includes such simple things as the particular card(s) the dealer is showing, the particular card(s) any other players are showing, the particular cards you have, and the approximate number of cards that have been dealt out and are left in the deck. It is important to realize, though, that all of your actions will revolve around the count of the cards, and therefore, it's important to establish the card counting method first, before discussing how to act on the count of the cards and other issues. The method I describe probably represents the easiest, yet also the most fundamental and comprehensive approach to counting cards. I did not invent it, but learned it during my college days, from reading various books on the subject, subsequently programming various techniques and running various computer simulations on the school's computers (thank you Berkeley!), and then taking my new found knowledge and skills back to those Beasts in Tahoe, then on to Vegas, Europe and Asia. This was one of my projects, by the way (the programming and computer simulation part); and yes, I did receive an A. But that was a long time ago, and we don't much care about grades in the real world, do we?! We just want to do some serious ass kicking at the blackjack tables, correct?! So, let's got on with the details. |