New Card Counter Seeking Advice...

Hi all!

First of all, please have patience with me if my questions are stupid or way off base. I have been playing blackjack for a few years and I am very competent with basic strategy. I now feel I am at a point where I can concentrate on the count and not be concerned with making mistakes with BS. As aforementioned, I realize my questions will probably be silly ones, but I am willing to ask them anyway. Please realize, I am VERY new to counting. Obviously, I want to start with the most basic counting method (High-low).

1) When counting, is it better to keep the running count from the previous hand in mind and just total it with the count at the end of the hand being played, as opposed to trying to count card-by-card?

2) Would you recommend Casino Vérité Blackjack V5 to help with my skills?

To the resident experts, please feel free to let me in on anything that helped you Thanks for any and all advice.

New Card Counter Seeking Advice

casino verite is very good and I recommend it for practice. You can increase the speed as your skills develop and they have good drills. I would start out counting card by card as they are dealt to begin with and then develop short cuts from there. Practice offseting + and - rather than counting them. If the deal is fast and I am playing at a table of four I often hold off and mentally tabulate the count after the first four are dealt then after second four cards, then dealers card then I look at my hand for the play. I like to sit in middle of table or one left of center if possible. If you are at +4 and four face cards come out just go to zero without counting each one. Often there will be two face and two small that offset each other with no effect on count. However, on a slower deal it is better just to count each card one by one so you dont have to remember where you are as long. Also learn to automatically go from +1 to -1 upon seeing two face cards without counting each one. Dont count out loud or move your lips while practicing.

Sounds simple, and is with practice. Hard at first, but almost becomes automatic with practice. I practice Verite on my computer every day for an hour while I eat my lunch. Its work but its a lot of fun to win, and to win in the long run you must count.

Welcome to the forum all4tris!

The best way is to count the initial two-card hands together so that you can cancel the high/low combinations. In many cases you don’t have to adjust your running count at all if you can match the low cards to corresponding high cards. After that you can count each card as it comes out. There will be times when you need to use the count to make your playing decisions so it’s best to have an updated count at all times. There are some good discussions of counting techniques in the Frequently Asked Questions thread.

Hell yeah. Casino Verite has some great drills that will improve you skills much faster than practicing by hand. It also has lots of options that you can adjust as your skill increases. You can make it play faster, add more players, dealer errors, side bets, hand interactions and many other options.

-Sonny-

THANK YOU! Sounds like really good advice!