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I just started counting cards and i found 2 casinos with good rules but i don’t know which is better. In both casinos the dealer stands on S17, double on any 2 pairs is allowed, resplitting is allowed and after splitting aces you get one card and black jack pays 3:2. But the first one is an 8-deck with 85% penetration while the other is 4-deck with 65-75% penetration. Which one should i prefer?
The off-the-top difference between 4 decks and 8 decks is only around 0.1%. Because the penetration is so much better on your 8-deck game, I would choose the 8-deck game for card counting. (Just to be clear: Basic strategy players would be better off in the 4-deck game, since penetration doesn’t matter to them.)
Hey Ken, I have a question. In your basic stategy matrix you write to split the 8,8s against a T or A, but in a matrix for a UK casino would just hit. What is the difference between them?
In the UK, the dealer does not deal a hole card, and any doubles or splits are vulnerable to a possible dealer blackjack. In the US, the dealer checks for blackjack immediately before play begins, so you can’t double or split if they have a blackjack. This difference makes it unwise to double or split in the UK when the dealer has a ten or an Ace showing. One exception: In the UK, still split Aces against a dealer ten.
To get the appropriate strategy for these games, you can use the Strategy Engine and choose “No Peek”.
I have a question about which count is more preferred. I play in 2 casinos one of which is 4deck with 75% penetration and the other one is 6deck with 85% penetration. Obviously the best casino to choose is the second one but my question is that i use Hi-Lo count, but some say that the Knock-out count is more preferred for shoe games even if it is an unbalanced count, so which of these 2 counts is the best for these 2 casinos?? I find Hi-Lo profitable and easy but i find KO count easy as well, so does the KO count have more success than the Hi-Lo count for the casinos that i attend to??? Will i have more success by using KO count rather than Hi-Lo count in those casinos?? Please Help 🙂
Hey Ken i am counting card for almost a year and i always prefer to play alone with the dealer. Lets assume that the true count is +4 and i would bet 40 pounds. Is it better to open 2 or 3 boxes instead of playing in one box? Will i reduce the standard deviation? And will i have more or less profit in the long run?
Wagering the same amount split up over two spots instead of one will decrease your variance. In that case, your expected win is still the same but the swings will be smaller. Also, because the variance is lower, you can afford to make a larger total bet instead. If your bankroll allows you to make a $100 bet on one spot, you can afford to bet $75 on each of two spots and incur the same overall risk. With total action of $150 instead of $100, your win rate goes up but risk stays the same.
Love your site and tutorial. I’ve really been enjoying playing blackjack because of it. However, I’m confused or have a problem with one thing. You say to walk away when TC is -1. If I actually walked away, I’d wind up never playing. -1 occurs very very often, I don’t understand how you expect people to walk away. One time I went to the casino with my friends and we took up the whole table, so I was able to sit out a bunch of hands…when the count was negative, without looking suspicious. That was awesome. But I just can’t figure out how to do it when playing not-with-friends without looking suspicious. Can you give me a few pointers? Thanks
I think GameMaster’s advice here is impractical for most players. As you note, a true count of -1 happens very often. Too often for most players to want to, or even be able to switch tables. Realistically, switching tables at TC -2 is still tough but manageable if you are in a casino with plenty of tables. If that is still too difficult, at least save your restroom breaks for when the count really tanks.
AM INTERESTED IN DOWNLOADING THE BASIC BLACKJACK PROGRAM, NOT THE MORE SOPHISTICATED CASINO VERITE (YET). WHAT COST? HOW TO DO IT? HAD BEEN USING A CRAZY HERMIT “DRI SUPER BLACKJACK” BUT IS NOW UNSUPPORTED. STILL NEED A PRACTICING VEHICLE WITHOUT COUNTING. FEEL BEST RESULTS WHEN SOLIDLY FOCUSED ON BASIC STATEGIES.
I have a question about playing at home and playing at the casino. Why is it when i play at home i can win and at the casino its lot harder to beat. At the casino the dealer seems to always win. Is it the way the cards get shuffled? I think that i shuffle very good and it is much different at the tables.
there is a rogue casino i felt much obliged to report: the www_188bet_com——-Chinese version. According to them,they are legally regulated and licensed by the Isle of Man,which,as most of us know, is one of the most reputable gambling regulation authority.However,there is something odd about this.when you enter the webpage of its “table games”,the little icon of Isle of Man at the bottom of the main page suddenly turns into the icon of First Cagayan.I shared with them this confusion I had and they gave no explanation. When I play their microgaming single deck black,something even weirder happened.I won in a long string when i bet small like 10/20.But When I started to increase my bets,the odds just seemed to be all against me.i lost like 30 out of 40 times when i bet big and my bankroll just reduced from 10000 to 1500 while the maximum bet i made was no more than 450. Seriously,when i bet big,i just kept losing and losing and losing, and no one would not feel the same as i did if you ever were me there.Since there is no law in China to regulate online gambling ,I strongly suspect that they are exploiting some loophole to install a rigged game for the Chinese players,which probably is why they don’t show any information about relationship with Isle of Man at the Chinese version’s table game page.Because they know you have no authority to turn to even if you are cheated by an unfair game. I mean I don’t have any statistics here but as a seasoned blackjack player who has been playing this game in many other brick and motar casinos,I just got this instinct.The experiences are so apparently different to not be noticed.So here i sincerely encourage all players located in jurisdictions where online gambling is not in any way regulated not to play online blackjack on 188bet or ,if you can, any online blackjack without a live dealer.
I’m not sure how much I can trust this calculator because it really ought to give some kind of error message if you give it an unbalanced system. Or at least come with some explanation of what it does for an unbalanced counting vector. This casts doubt on whether I can trust ANY of its results.
What I’m trying to do is find something which has a low correlation with hi-lo (dot product with the vector -1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 -1, but with the last vector component counting 4 times as much since it’s 10 J Q or K, and then divide by the magnitudes of the 2 vectors) so that it’s undetectable to the people behind the eye in the sky the way they’re on the lookout for counters, but has a decent betting correlation. I’m playing around with 1 -1 -1 1 2 0 2 1 -1 -1 tentatively, which has a correlation of 0.3 with hi-low because A, 2 and 3 are reversed. But can I actually TRUST this thing’s results?
i would love anyone who saw my post to share it with other players in other casino forums.Even if you think i am just a paranoid soar loser who got pissed by nothing but simply regular bad luck,at least get this information talked about and debated on so as to either prove me wrong or warn others. If any Chinese blackjack players can see this,Please be cautious ever after or PM me if you have anything else related you would like to share with me(中国的朋友看过来!)
That comment indicates you fundamentally don’t understand how it works to use a counting system to supplement basic strategy decisions. There is no counting system where you just break basic strategy in a consistent way for any reason that is not dependent on the count! For any balanced counting system, when the count is ZERO, then your decision table should match basic strategy exactly. That means you split 2’s and 3’s against a dealer’s 2 or 3, if the count is 0, and that’s why basic strategy says to do that, because on average the count WILL be 0. However, splitting 3’s against a dealer’s 2 IS the one which has its threshold pretty close to a count of 0. For instance, in the classic method known as hilo (I don’t know about knockout), where 2-6 get +1 and A and 10 get -1, the threshold is about -0.3. So you’d hit if the count divided by number of decks left goes under negative one third. If it’s 0, you split. If it’s positive, you split. A pair of 3’s against 3 and the threshold drops to -3.6. Against a 4 and it’s -6.8. A pair of 2’s against 2 and it’s -3.4, a pair of 2’s against 3 and it’s -6.1, a pair of 2 against a 6 and it’s -2.2, against a 3 and it’s -4.7. You can see why basic strategy is what it is because the basic strategy table tells you what you do when the count is 0, or more precisely, what the count would be on average by being dealt that hand. For instance, you double 9 against 2 when the count per remaining deck is more than 1.0, and that also demonstrates why you double on 9 against 2 in a 2-deck game, because just to get a 9 in the first place, you have to have gotten 2 low cards, and the dealer shows a low card, which means the count is 3, so in a 2-deck game, just by dealing a 9 against 2, the truecount is already 1.5, while in a 6-deck game the truecount is 0.5 since it’s a matter of dividing 3 by 2 or by 6, and so in the 2-deck game, basic strategy says double 9 against 2 because 1.5 is more than 1.0, while the 6-deck basic strategy says hit 9 against 2 because 0.5 is less than 1.0. But bottom line, if you’re varying strategy in accordance with ANY counting method, it will always be a function of the count. The decisions that hinge on a threshold that’s very close to 0 are the ones where it also won’t matter much on average if you do one thing or the other if you’re not counting and just using basic strategy. The decision thresholds that are closest to 0 are 16 against 10 hit/stand, 11 against A hit/double and soft 15 against 4 hit/double. Decisions that are kind of close to 0 are 3-3 against 2, soft 19 against 6, soft 18 against 2, and soft 13 against 5. In all of these, it won’t make a huge difference whether you do one action or the other if you’re not counting cards and you can just as well assume the decision thresholds are AT zero as to remember the exact numbers they are (11 against ace, the threshold is -.03, that’s super-super close, that means removing one high-card from a 30-deck shoe makes it no longer worthwhile to double 11 against ace).
An 8-deck 50% game is very tough, but it could be beaten with a large enough spread if you are also willing to leave in any negative count. It’s going to be a frustrating grind, and because the edge will be so small, you could play perfectly for many hundreds of hours and still be behind due to bad luck. I wouldn’t waste time on this game.
Hey Ken,
I just started counting cards and i found 2 casinos with good rules but i don’t know which is better. In both casinos the dealer stands on S17, double on any 2 pairs is allowed, resplitting is allowed and after splitting aces you get one card and black jack pays 3:2. But the first one is an 8-deck with 85% penetration while the other is 4-deck with 65-75% penetration. Which one should i prefer?
The off-the-top difference between 4 decks and 8 decks is only around 0.1%.
Because the penetration is so much better on your 8-deck game, I would choose the 8-deck game for card counting.
(Just to be clear: Basic strategy players would be better off in the 4-deck game, since penetration doesn’t matter to them.)
Hey Ken, I have a question.
In your basic stategy matrix you write to split the 8,8s against a T or A, but in a matrix for a UK casino would just hit. What is the difference between them?
In the UK, the dealer does not deal a hole card, and any doubles or splits are vulnerable to a possible dealer blackjack. In the US, the dealer checks for blackjack immediately before play begins, so you can’t double or split if they have a blackjack. This difference makes it unwise to double or split in the UK when the dealer has a ten or an Ace showing. One exception: In the UK, still split Aces against a dealer ten.
To get the appropriate strategy for these games, you can use the Strategy Engine and choose “No Peek”.
Hello Ken
I have a question about which count is more preferred. I play in 2 casinos one of which is 4deck with 75% penetration and the other one is 6deck with 85% penetration. Obviously the best casino to choose is the second one but my question is that i use Hi-Lo count, but some say that the Knock-out count is more preferred for shoe games even if it is an unbalanced count, so which of these 2 counts is the best for these 2 casinos??
I find Hi-Lo profitable and easy but i find KO count easy as well, so does the KO count have more success than the Hi-Lo count for the casinos that i attend to???
Will i have more success by using KO count rather than Hi-Lo count in those casinos??
Please Help 🙂
In 6 and 8 deck games, Hi-Lo and KO perform almost identically. Switching to the easier KO count will not cost you anything.
Hey Ken i am counting card for almost a year and i always prefer to play alone with the dealer. Lets assume that the true count is +4 and i would bet 40 pounds. Is it better to open 2 or 3 boxes instead of playing in one box? Will i reduce the standard deviation? And will i have more or less profit in the long run?
Wagering the same amount split up over two spots instead of one will decrease your variance. In that case, your expected win is still the same but the swings will be smaller.
Also, because the variance is lower, you can afford to make a larger total bet instead. If your bankroll allows you to make a $100 bet on one spot, you can afford to bet $75 on each of two spots and incur the same overall risk. With total action of $150 instead of $100, your win rate goes up but risk stays the same.
Ken, when trying to print this lesson, the charts don’t print in color. Not sure why, but it shows up fine on-screen but just doesn’t print in color.
Thanks for pointing out this issue. It is fixed. Printing will now show the colored decision text.
Love your site and tutorial. I’ve really been enjoying playing blackjack because of it. However, I’m confused or have a problem with one thing. You say to walk away when TC is -1. If I actually walked away, I’d wind up never playing. -1 occurs very very often, I don’t understand how you expect people to walk away. One time I went to the casino with my friends and we took up the whole table, so I was able to sit out a bunch of hands…when the count was negative, without looking suspicious. That was awesome. But I just can’t figure out how to do it when playing not-with-friends without looking suspicious. Can you give me a few pointers? Thanks
I think GameMaster’s advice here is impractical for most players. As you note, a true count of -1 happens very often. Too often for most players to want to, or even be able to switch tables.
Realistically, switching tables at TC -2 is still tough but manageable if you are in a casino with plenty of tables.
If that is still too difficult, at least save your restroom breaks for when the count really tanks.
Alright, noted. At least that’s one less thing I have to worry about doing wrong. Thank you for such a quick reply!
AM INTERESTED IN DOWNLOADING THE BASIC BLACKJACK PROGRAM, NOT THE MORE SOPHISTICATED CASINO VERITE (YET). WHAT COST? HOW TO DO IT? HAD BEEN USING A CRAZY HERMIT “DRI SUPER BLACKJACK” BUT IS NOW UNSUPPORTED. STILL NEED A PRACTICING VEHICLE WITHOUT COUNTING. FEEL BEST RESULTS WHEN SOLIDLY FOCUSED ON BASIC STATEGIES.
I have a question about playing at home and playing at the casino. Why is it when i play at home i can win and at the casino its lot harder to beat. At the casino the dealer seems to always win. Is it the way the cards get shuffled? I think that i shuffle very good and it is much different at the tables.
there is a rogue casino i felt much obliged to report: the www_188bet_com——-Chinese version. According to them,they are legally regulated and licensed by the Isle of Man,which,as most of us know, is one of the most reputable gambling regulation authority.However,there is something odd about this.when you enter the webpage of its “table games”,the little icon of Isle of Man at the bottom of the main page suddenly turns into the icon of First Cagayan.I shared with them this confusion I had and they gave no explanation. When I play their microgaming single deck black,something even weirder happened.I won in a long string when i bet small like 10/20.But When I started to increase my bets,the odds just seemed to be all against me.i lost like 30 out of 40 times when i bet big and my bankroll just reduced from 10000 to 1500 while the maximum bet i made was no more than 450. Seriously,when i bet big,i just kept losing and losing and losing, and no one would not feel the same as i did if you ever were me there.Since there is no law in China to regulate online gambling ,I strongly suspect that they are exploiting some loophole to install a rigged game for the Chinese players,which probably is why they don’t show any information about relationship with Isle of Man at the Chinese version’s table game page.Because they know you have no authority to turn to even if you are cheated by an unfair game. I mean I don’t have any statistics here but as a seasoned blackjack player who has been playing this game in many other brick and motar casinos,I just got this instinct.The experiences are so apparently different to not be noticed.So here i sincerely encourage all players located in jurisdictions where online gambling is not in any way regulated not to play online blackjack on 188bet or ,if you can, any online blackjack without a live dealer.
I’m not sure how much I can trust this calculator because it really ought to give some kind of error message if you give it an unbalanced system. Or at least come with some explanation of what it does for an unbalanced counting vector. This casts doubt on whether I can trust ANY of its results.
What I’m trying to do is find something which has a low correlation with hi-lo (dot product with the vector -1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 -1, but with the last vector component counting 4 times as much since it’s 10 J Q or K, and then divide by the magnitudes of the 2 vectors) so that it’s undetectable to the people behind the eye in the sky the way they’re on the lookout for counters, but has a decent betting correlation. I’m playing around with 1 -1 -1 1 2 0 2 1 -1 -1 tentatively, which has a correlation of 0.3 with hi-low because A, 2 and 3 are reversed. But can I actually TRUST this thing’s results?
i would love anyone who saw my post to share it with other players in other casino forums.Even if you think i am just a paranoid soar loser who got pissed by nothing but simply regular bad luck,at least get this information talked about and debated on so as to either prove me wrong or warn others. If any Chinese blackjack players can see this,Please be cautious ever after or PM me if you have anything else related you would like to share with me(中国的朋友看过来!)
That comment indicates you fundamentally don’t understand how it works to use a counting system to supplement basic strategy decisions. There is no counting system where you just break basic strategy in a consistent way for any reason that is not dependent on the count! For any balanced counting system, when the count is ZERO, then your decision table should match basic strategy exactly. That means you split 2’s and 3’s against a dealer’s 2 or 3, if the count is 0, and that’s why basic strategy says to do that, because on average the count WILL be 0. However, splitting 3’s against a dealer’s 2 IS the one which has its threshold pretty close to a count of 0. For instance, in the classic method known as hilo (I don’t know about knockout), where 2-6 get +1 and A and 10 get -1, the threshold is about -0.3. So you’d hit if the count divided by number of decks left goes under negative one third. If it’s 0, you split. If it’s positive, you split. A pair of 3’s against 3 and the threshold drops to -3.6. Against a 4 and it’s -6.8. A pair of 2’s against 2 and it’s -3.4, a pair of 2’s against 3 and it’s -6.1, a pair of 2 against a 6 and it’s -2.2, against a 3 and it’s -4.7. You can see why basic strategy is what it is because the basic strategy table tells you what you do when the count is 0, or more precisely, what the count would be on average by being dealt that hand. For instance, you double 9 against 2 when the count per remaining deck is more than 1.0, and that also demonstrates why you double on 9 against 2 in a 2-deck game, because just to get a 9 in the first place, you have to have gotten 2 low cards, and the dealer shows a low card, which means the count is 3, so in a 2-deck game, just by dealing a 9 against 2, the truecount is already 1.5, while in a 6-deck game the truecount is 0.5 since it’s a matter of dividing 3 by 2 or by 6, and so in the 2-deck game, basic strategy says double 9 against 2 because 1.5 is more than 1.0, while the 6-deck basic strategy says hit 9 against 2 because 0.5 is less than 1.0. But bottom line, if you’re varying strategy in accordance with ANY counting method, it will always be a function of the count. The decisions that hinge on a threshold that’s very close to 0 are the ones where it also won’t matter much on average if you do one thing or the other if you’re not counting and just using basic strategy. The decision thresholds that are closest to 0 are 16 against 10 hit/stand, 11 against A hit/double and soft 15 against 4 hit/double. Decisions that are kind of close to 0 are 3-3 against 2, soft 19 against 6, soft 18 against 2, and soft 13 against 5. In all of these, it won’t make a huge difference whether you do one action or the other if you’re not counting cards and you can just as well assume the decision thresholds are AT zero as to remember the exact numbers they are (11 against ace, the threshold is -.03, that’s super-super close, that means removing one high-card from a 30-deck shoe makes it no longer worthwhile to double 11 against ace).
An 8-deck 50% game is very tough, but it could be beaten with a large enough spread if you are also willing to leave in any negative count. It’s going to be a frustrating grind, and because the edge will be so small, you could play perfectly for many hundreds of hours and still be behind due to bad luck. I wouldn’t waste time on this game.