True Count Blackjack

• Blackjack Card Counting Simulator
• Card Counting
• True Count Vs Running Count Blackjack
• Blackjack True Count Frequencies
• 6 Deck Blackjack Card Counting
• True Count Blackjack Edge

Blackjack True Count Advantage. How valuable is each True Count? Here we will look at the advantage at each count. That is the percentage gain you can expect on average from the initial Blackjack bet. Data for six decks, two decks and single-deck with two or four players are displayed. It can be seen that the number of decks does not have a. Blackjack counting is based on. By dividing the number of cards that have already been dealt by those remaining in the deck, you get the true count.

Card Counting

Blackjack Card Counting Simulator

Card Counting

In Blackjack Card Counting is the only chance for the player to get a long term, statistical advantage over the casino. The main principle of card counting is that a deck with high proportion of high cards (ten-valued cards and aces) to low cards is good for the player, while the opposite situation (a deck with a high proportion of low cards to high cards) is good for the dealer. Despite the popular myth, a player does not have to be brilliant to be able to start counting cards since the player doesn’t track or memorize specific cards. Instead, card counter applies heuristic point score to each card he sees and then track only the total score which is called the “count”. Card counting is not that difficult and it requires just simple addition, and possibly division, depending on the system the counter uses. Nowadays the casinos have made the game tougher to beat, they use 8 deck shoes and have low deck penetration.

True Count Vs Running Count Blackjack

If you have decided to learn card counting first you must learn Basic Strategy. This strategy is mathematically valid and if you want to become a successful card counter, Basic Strategy has to become your second nature.

If you want to make money, bet more when you have an edge and less when the casino has the edge. For example, if the odds are in your favor then bet $50, if they are against you then bet $5. This difference between the two amounts of bets is known as the 'bet spread'.

Different counting systems

Different counting systems can be classified different ways. You should choose card counting system according to your skill level. We suggest to your attention the following classification:

Balanced vs. Unbalanced Card Count System

In a 'balanced' card counting system, the total of all the point counts in a 52 card deck will add up to 0. In an 'unbalanced' system the sum of all the cards is positive. Balanced strategies have an advantage in that they are generally more accurate and they make the counting easier. They require conversions from the running count to a true count, in other words, the count works perfectly in a single deck game, but in a multiple deck game, the number of decks and the penetration into the deal has to be considered when you decide to raise a bet. In an unbalanced system, the number of decks is taken into account by the starting value when counting. This compensates for the multiple decks. In a balanced count, the count begins at 0, but in an unbalanced count, the count starts with a number that corresponds to how many decks are in use, in order to compensate for the increased number of decks.

Ace-Reckoned vs. Ace-Neutral

When you count, the Ace is counted as a negative number (Ace-reckoned) or zero (Ace-neutral). Ace-Reckoned strategies are better for shoe games and Ace-Neutral strategies are better for single and double deck. Nowadays Ace-reckoned strategies are much more popular.

Level

Blackjack True Count Frequencies

The level of a strategy refers to the highest value assigned to cards. Level 2 and 3 card counting strategies are more effective, but they are more difficult for the average people. Multi level systems for counting cards give different values to different cards, sometimes counting some cards as +2 or +3, or -2 or -3. These systems provide a more accurate gauge of the player's advantage. The most popular strategy is a level 1. In this strategy, the high cards are counted as -1 and the low cards are counted as +1. When the running count gets high enough, the player has an advantage because there are more high cards than low left in the deck.

Side Counts

Some strategies, like the strategy used in The World's Greatest Blackjack book, use one or more side counts. The most common is counting the Aces in a separate count to make betting more accurate in Ace-neutral systems. This is because Aces are large cards for the purposes of betting but small cards for the purposes of playing when you don't have a Blackjack.

You can read about the most popular Card Counting Systems in the next seccions.

We all know that the higher the True Count when using a Blackjack cardcounting strategy, the higher the advantage. Genrally, the edge movesto the player at a True Count of +1. The below chart displays the advantage(expected value) for each True Count from -25 to +25. (Sim specifics:HiLo strategy, Full set of card counting indexes, Flooring, 6Decks, S17,DAS, LS, 5/6, 25 billion rounds.)

We can see that the edge tends to level off at low True Counts.

The above chart looks fairly linear. But let us look more closely athow much gain exists as the count increases. The chart below displaysthe increase in EV at each TC. You can ignore the extreme TCs as theyare rare and often involve strange card subsets. It is known that Blackjackis not linear. The chart below indicates that the advantage tends to increaseby about .5% at each card count. But, the increase tends to acceleratesubstantially as the count increases.

6 Deck Blackjack Card Counting

The two charts posted assumed a full set of Blackjack card counting indexes.Suppose we use no indexes at all. I ran another 25 billion rounds andthe charts are very different. With full indexes, the advantage gain perTC is larger at positive TCs. With no indexes, the gain per TC reducesas the TC increases. The below charts are the same as the previous charts;only they chart both full card counting indexes and no indexes.

What about the Illustrious 18 and Fab 4? These are the most useful cardcounting indexes. I ran another 25 billion rounds. These charts includethe Ill18 & Fab4 Advantage by TC and Gain by TC:

True Count Blackjack Edge

All these charts displayed advantages by TC. But if you want to lookat the actual value of an index set; you need to bring True Count frequenciesinto the equation since the larger the magnitude of the True Count thefewer hands you will experience. So this is the same chart as the aboveedge by true count, but in terms of dollars per hour won/lost insteadof edge:

On the right side of the chart, green indicates the $ won by TC withno indexes. Red is the additional gain with the Illustrious 18 & Fab 4.Blue is the additional gain using Full Indexes. There is barely any gainwith full indexes. On the left, you see the amount lost by removing indexes.This last chart demonstrates something long known. Blackjack card countingstrategies realize most of their gain with a small number of importantindexes.