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You really should know it’s better to use 2-7 against 9 10 and A instead of 2-6 against 10 and A. Hi-lo may be the original and of historical significance, but it’s better to use 7’s as low cards and 9’s as high cards with only 8 as the one not counting for anything. It’s just as easy a method to do in practice, and it is better for everything except the insurance correlation (the truecount threshold for taking insurance is 4.000 doing it that way instead of 3.333 with hi-low, which is 20% higher, but of course the standard deviation of the count will be sqrt(1.2) times as high, 10% higher, with 1.2 times as many cards having point values).
If you find a place with a super promotion, so that you actually have a slight advantage even flatbetting, you could practice with another vector when the pressure is off and you can stop trying for the rest of the shoe, but the casinos will be most looking for hi-lo first and foremost, and if you are doing something that is not quite the same, yet works better, that means they are less likely to detect you, because you may be betting low when they’re expecting you to be betting high and vice versa, AND you’re more likely to leave the casino a winner instead of a loser.
As such, it is a bad plan to burn this into memory and indoctrinate yourself with the habit of seeing a 7 and an 8 and saying that’s 0 points. No, it’s 1 point. Or seeing a 4 and a 9 and saying that’s 1 point. No, it’s 0. Break that habit before you make it in the first place, don’t train yourself to follow an inferior method as if it was 2nd nature.
Actually, Hi-Lo has a betting correlation (BC) of 0.9682, while your recommendation (AKA the Silver Fox count) has a very slightly lower BC of 0.9625 instead. (See https://www.blackjackinfo.com/card-counting-efficiency-calculator/ or https://qfit.com/card-counting.htm) Yes, the playing efficiency (PE) is improved with Silver Fox, but the Insurance Correlation is far weaker. For beginning players I absolutely stick with my recommendation of either Hi-Lo or KO.
These counts are so similar in practice that you are unlikely to gain much camouflage value by including the 7s and 9s. Yes, I agree that the 7 is effectively a low card, and the 9 effectively a high card, but to weight them the same as the others is iffy. If these kinds of things concern you, use the more complex count that I actually use, Wong’s Halves.
I disagree. 1-deck games are not lucrative, they always come with horrible caveats, like blackjack paying 1-1. I’d even say the 6 deck games are better than the 2 deck games. The 6 deck games, they usually have the cutcard 1 deck before the end. The 2 deck games, they also have the cutcard 1 deck before the end. But the standard deviation of the count is a parabolic function of your progress through the shoe. Meaning 1 deck before the end, you’ll be at the top of the parabola of a 2-deck game, in a 6-deck game, it’s most of the way to the base of it. The bottom line is that the standard deviation of the count, 1 deck before the end of a 6-deck shoe, will be sqrt(5/3) times as high as it is 1 deck before the end of a 2-deck shoe. It’s easier for that 1 deck at the end to be jampacked full of the high cards from all 6 decks than it is to be jampacked with just the high cards of 2 decks, basically. You just have to suffer through counting through 5 decks accurately, that’s the cost. But the minimum bet of a 6 deck game is generally 5 and sometimes 3 dollars as opposed to 25 or 15 in the 2 deck game. Your expected earnings are actually about the same if you play to minimize risk of ruin in either case, except the risk of ruin in the 6 deck game is smaller for a given bankroll size.
As for playing face down, what I do is just count them when they’re overturned and I don’t play if there are more than 2 other people at the table face down. But who needs that, 6 deck games are almost always face up.
There are still good one-deck games in northern Nevada, but you are right that the games are rarely found elsewhere. The GameMaster’s lessons were obviously written a few years ago when 1-deck 3:2 games were not dinosaurs.
The “M” isn’t a variable. It’s a mental shorthand for keeping track of the fact that the count is negative. Instead of thinking “minus 1”, just think “M1”.
The answers for questions 7 and 9 are exactly correct as posted.
The answer is it depends on the parameters of the game. Where the cutcard is. If you’re giving the money in pounds, you’re probably playing by different rules, in England don’t they check for blackjack after you double down? In America you don’t even have an opportunity to double down or split if the dealer has blackjack. In the US though, if the cutcard is 1 deck before the end, if the dealer checks for blackjack first, if double after split and resplit aces is allowed, then the correct answer is to add 3 times the minimum bet for each 1 the truecount gets past 1.8. You bet the minimum bet as long as the dealer has the advantage. You add to it when you start having the advantage, which is at a truecount of 1.8, that’s the breakeven point. So if the truecount is 0, you bet the minimum. I the truecount is 1, you bet the minimum. If the truecount is 2, you bet the minimum, if the truecount is 3, you bet 4 times the minimum, if the truecount is 4, you’d bet about 7 times the minimum. This is how you minimize risk of ruin. If you want to maximize statistical expected return on a linear scale without concern of ruin, you would bet the minimum bet whenever you have the disadvantage and the maximum bet whenever you have the advantage, however slight, with nothing in between, and if you can do that, you can expect to lose all your money in a hurry and if you don’t, you can expect to be thrown out of the casino in about 20 minutes.
I would imagine that the list is mostly accurate. These conditions change over time, but this is a fairly recent effort it appears. It certainly should give you an idea where to start looking once you are in Vegas.
Thank you for the reply, I typically play $25/$50 tables to get the better parameters and no Mid-Shoe Entry. Hopefully with those minimum bets I can get a good game out there. I found this website while searching online, any idea if it is pretty accurate or up to date? http://wizardofvegas.com/guides/blackjack-survey//
There’s nothing wrong with that bet ramp if you’re getting away with it. 20:1 will definitely win the money! I like big spreads. Especially if you have the flexibility to travel a bit. And some out-of-the-way casinos are just clueless.
Probably not much to be done. These databases are pretty much one-way. In my experience, once you’re listed, you’re listed. The good news is that virtually every pro I know has made a lot more money in the years after they were in Griffin than before. It’s not as fatal as it sounds.
It’s been a while now since I have been to Vegas, but TI consistently gets the best reviews for low limit blackjack games with decent rules. Anywhere on the strip, it’s getting hard to find 3:2 BJ at low limits. Many places just don’t offer it at all until you get to $25+ limits. You also will find most games are now H17. Even downtown is no longer immune. Depending on how serious you are, it may be worth buying a subscription or single issue of Current Blackjack News at bj21.com. They show all the current conditions, updated monthly.
For a card counter, there is a tiny advantage to be gained by sitting at “third base”, since you get to see a few more cards before you must play out your hand. But the effect is minimal expect in single deck. I recommend most inexperienced counters not sit at third base, because other players mistakenly think your play makes a difference in their results. Until you develop a pretty thick skin, just avoid that issue by sitting elsewhere at the table.
I assume you are talking about online casinos. I would recommend avoiding any place that doesn’t have the rules clearly available on their site. Certainly, if they don’t respond to requests for the rules, that’s all I would need to know about their level of support. No way!
Yikes! That’s a terrible rule, and one I have never personally seen. I wouldn’t trust any online casino that does such a poor job of implementing blackjack, as I suspect it was just a programmer that didn’t understand even the basics of the game. Who knows what else they are doing wrong! To answer your question, no, this is never done at any casino I have visited.
Most published “win rate per hour” numbers assume you will play through all those negative counts. When they do not, the author will clearly mention the criteria for leaving the table. That’s an excellent plan by the way, because your results will be much better if you leave in bad counts. 40 hours is tough to maintain anywhere, because if you are playing a winning game you must spread out that much play over multiple casinos or you won’t last long at all before being backed off.
If you are going to just play basic strategy, you can find $5/$10 tables in lots of places with continuous shuffle machines. If you plan to count, you will need to look a lot harder to find decent regular shuffled games at that level. The first thing to check is make sure that blackjack pays 3:2, not 6:5. Check TI for some decent low-limit blackjack tables, or look downtown. The rules are generally going to be 6 deck or 8 deck, dealer hits soft 17, no surrender.
Sorry to contradict your dream of winning a house . In Philippines ,they don’t just use 6 decks but all use CSM !!
You really should know it’s better to use 2-7 against 9 10 and A instead of 2-6 against 10 and A. Hi-lo may be the original and of historical significance, but it’s better to use 7’s as low cards and 9’s as high cards with only 8 as the one not counting for anything. It’s just as easy a method to do in practice, and it is better for everything except the insurance correlation (the truecount threshold for taking insurance is 4.000 doing it that way instead of 3.333 with hi-low, which is 20% higher, but of course the standard deviation of the count will be sqrt(1.2) times as high, 10% higher, with 1.2 times as many cards having point values).
If you find a place with a super promotion, so that you actually have a slight advantage even flatbetting, you could practice with another vector when the pressure is off and you can stop trying for the rest of the shoe, but the casinos will be most looking for hi-lo first and foremost, and if you are doing something that is not quite the same, yet works better, that means they are less likely to detect you, because you may be betting low when they’re expecting you to be betting high and vice versa, AND you’re more likely to leave the casino a winner instead of a loser.
As such, it is a bad plan to burn this into memory and indoctrinate yourself with the habit of seeing a 7 and an 8 and saying that’s 0 points. No, it’s 1 point. Or seeing a 4 and a 9 and saying that’s 1 point. No, it’s 0. Break that habit before you make it in the first place, don’t train yourself to follow an inferior method as if it was 2nd nature.
Actually, Hi-Lo has a betting correlation (BC) of 0.9682, while your recommendation (AKA the Silver Fox count) has a very slightly lower BC of 0.9625 instead. (See https://www.blackjackinfo.com/card-counting-efficiency-calculator/ or https://qfit.com/card-counting.htm) Yes, the playing efficiency (PE) is improved with Silver Fox, but the Insurance Correlation is far weaker. For beginning players I absolutely stick with my recommendation of either Hi-Lo or KO.
These counts are so similar in practice that you are unlikely to gain much camouflage value by including the 7s and 9s. Yes, I agree that the 7 is effectively a low card, and the 9 effectively a high card, but to weight them the same as the others is iffy. If these kinds of things concern you, use the more complex count that I actually use, Wong’s Halves.
I disagree. 1-deck games are not lucrative, they always come with horrible caveats, like blackjack paying 1-1. I’d even say the 6 deck games are better than the 2 deck games. The 6 deck games, they usually have the cutcard 1 deck before the end. The 2 deck games, they also have the cutcard 1 deck before the end. But the standard deviation of the count is a parabolic function of your progress through the shoe. Meaning 1 deck before the end, you’ll be at the top of the parabola of a 2-deck game, in a 6-deck game, it’s most of the way to the base of it. The bottom line is that the standard deviation of the count, 1 deck before the end of a 6-deck shoe, will be sqrt(5/3) times as high as it is 1 deck before the end of a 2-deck shoe. It’s easier for that 1 deck at the end to be jampacked full of the high cards from all 6 decks than it is to be jampacked with just the high cards of 2 decks, basically. You just have to suffer through counting through 5 decks accurately, that’s the cost. But the minimum bet of a 6 deck game is generally 5 and sometimes 3 dollars as opposed to 25 or 15 in the 2 deck game. Your expected earnings are actually about the same if you play to minimize risk of ruin in either case, except the risk of ruin in the 6 deck game is smaller for a given bankroll size.
As for playing face down, what I do is just count them when they’re overturned and I don’t play if there are more than 2 other people at the table face down. But who needs that, 6 deck games are almost always face up.
There are still good one-deck games in northern Nevada, but you are right that the games are rarely found elsewhere. The GameMaster’s lessons were obviously written a few years ago when 1-deck 3:2 games were not dinosaurs.
7 and 9, your answers are wrong. 7 is 0.4*M-2 and 9 is M/3-1. You forgot to divide your variable M by the number of decks left too.
The “M” isn’t a variable. It’s a mental shorthand for keeping track of the fact that the count is negative. Instead of thinking “minus 1”, just think “M1”.
The answers for questions 7 and 9 are exactly correct as posted.
Really helpful website and app; wish I had known about this in the 1st lesson before I made up my flashcards…
The answer is it depends on the parameters of the game. Where the cutcard is. If you’re giving the money in pounds, you’re probably playing by different rules, in England don’t they check for blackjack after you double down? In America you don’t even have an opportunity to double down or split if the dealer has blackjack. In the US though, if the cutcard is 1 deck before the end, if the dealer checks for blackjack first, if double after split and resplit aces is allowed, then the correct answer is to add 3 times the minimum bet for each 1 the truecount gets past 1.8. You bet the minimum bet as long as the dealer has the advantage. You add to it when you start having the advantage, which is at a truecount of 1.8, that’s the breakeven point. So if the truecount is 0, you bet the minimum. I the truecount is 1, you bet the minimum. If the truecount is 2, you bet the minimum, if the truecount is 3, you bet 4 times the minimum, if the truecount is 4, you’d bet about 7 times the minimum. This is how you minimize risk of ruin. If you want to maximize statistical expected return on a linear scale without concern of ruin, you would bet the minimum bet whenever you have the disadvantage and the maximum bet whenever you have the advantage, however slight, with nothing in between, and if you can do that, you can expect to lose all your money in a hurry and if you don’t, you can expect to be thrown out of the casino in about 20 minutes.
I would imagine that the list is mostly accurate. These conditions change over time, but this is a fairly recent effort it appears. It certainly should give you an idea where to start looking once you are in Vegas.
Thank you for the reply, I typically play $25/$50 tables to get the better parameters and no Mid-Shoe Entry. Hopefully with those minimum bets I can get a good game out there. I found this website while searching online, any idea if it is pretty accurate or up to date? http://wizardofvegas.com/guides/blackjack-survey//
There’s nothing wrong with that bet ramp if you’re getting away with it. 20:1 will definitely win the money! I like big spreads. Especially if you have the flexibility to travel a bit. And some out-of-the-way casinos are just clueless.
Probably not much to be done. These databases are pretty much one-way. In my experience, once you’re listed, you’re listed. The good news is that virtually every pro I know has made a lot more money in the years after they were in Griffin than before. It’s not as fatal as it sounds.
It’s been a while now since I have been to Vegas, but TI consistently gets the best reviews for low limit blackjack games with decent rules. Anywhere on the strip, it’s getting hard to find 3:2 BJ at low limits. Many places just don’t offer it at all until you get to $25+ limits. You also will find most games are now H17. Even downtown is no longer immune. Depending on how serious you are, it may be worth buying a subscription or single issue of Current Blackjack News at bj21.com. They show all the current conditions, updated monthly.
Thanks for posting a note. Sam is missed by many.
For a card counter, there is a tiny advantage to be gained by sitting at “third base”, since you get to see a few more cards before you must play out your hand. But the effect is minimal expect in single deck. I recommend most inexperienced counters not sit at third base, because other players mistakenly think your play makes a difference in their results. Until you develop a pretty thick skin, just avoid that issue by sitting elsewhere at the table.
I assume you are talking about online casinos. I would recommend avoiding any place that doesn’t have the rules clearly available on their site. Certainly, if they don’t respond to requests for the rules, that’s all I would need to know about their level of support. No way!
Yikes! That’s a terrible rule, and one I have never personally seen. I wouldn’t trust any online casino that does such a poor job of implementing blackjack, as I suspect it was just a programmer that didn’t understand even the basics of the game. Who knows what else they are doing wrong! To answer your question, no, this is never done at any casino I have visited.
Most published “win rate per hour” numbers assume you will play through all those negative counts. When they do not, the author will clearly mention the criteria for leaving the table. That’s an excellent plan by the way, because your results will be much better if you leave in bad counts. 40 hours is tough to maintain anywhere, because if you are playing a winning game you must spread out that much play over multiple casinos or you won’t last long at all before being backed off.
If you are going to just play basic strategy, you can find $5/$10 tables in lots of places with continuous shuffle machines. If you plan to count, you will need to look a lot harder to find decent regular shuffled games at that level. The first thing to check is make sure that blackjack pays 3:2, not 6:5. Check TI for some decent low-limit blackjack tables, or look downtown. The rules are generally going to be 6 deck or 8 deck, dealer hits soft 17, no surrender.