More practice drills for blackjack

28 October 2017

By John Marchel

Just like baseball players, you need practice to maintain your skill at blackjack. Ball players do a lot of practice drills before a game, and even if they are not scheduled to play, they still come to the ballpark and warm up by doing the drills. Even if you are not planning to go to the casino, you should do the drills periodically.

Set some time each day to do the practice drills. Spending just 15 minutes some time during the day would result in improving your skill significantly. All the drills should become part of you normal practice sessions. See other drills at John Marchel’s archives. There are drills to help you to learn a task more quickly; others need to be continued on a regular basis to maintain proficiency. Your action at the blackjack table should be almost automatic. Practice drills will do that for you. Here are more drills to add to your inventory.

Drill 7 - Deck scan, single deck

This drill will help your card counting speed. Hold the deck in your hand and scan cards instead of turning cards over from the top of the face-down deck. Hold the deck in your left hand face-up, and push cards from left to right off the top of the deck. Initially, keep the count in two card combinations. As you become more adept, you can scan 3-, 4- and even 5-card combinations. With a little practice, you can scan a single deck in 30 seconds or less.

Drill 8 – Deck scan, six decks

Using six decks, break the shuffled decks into six piles. This size should be easy for you to pick up and scan. Set these six even piles in front of you. Starting with the pile on the left, pick up each pile in turn and scan from left to right, similar to the scan for a single deck. Carry your count from pile to pile until you finish. At the beginning of this drill you should set aside two to three cards. At the end of the drill you should be able to tell what the set aside cards are. For example, if the count is +3, your three remaining cards should be three high cards.

Drill 9 – Multi-card hand drill

The purpose of this dill is to teach you to maintain the running count while making hitting-standing decisions in a multi-card hand (a hand with three or more cards). Multi-card hands often present problems for novice card counters. To start, use two decks of cards to make up a special training deck composed of 25 low cards, Eight 10’s or court cards and six ace cards. Shuffle up this special deck and deal yourself hands. In each hand deal cards until you get a soft 19 (a hand total 19 with one ace counting as 11) or better, or a hard 17 (a hand with all aces counting as 1) or better. With the 25 low cards, you will find that most hands will contain three cards or more.

As you deal the cards, total the value of your hand, make you hitting-standing decision and keep an accurate running count. At the end of each hand, set it aside for later review. When you reach the end of your training deck, the count should be +17 (25 low card minus the 8 ten’s are +17). If you have made an error, recount the hands that were played.

Countdown drill and minimum times
1 deck (52 cards) . . . 30 seconds
2 decks (104 cards) . . . 60 seconds
4 decks (208 cards) . . . 1 minute 45 seconds
6 decks (312 cards) . . . 2 minutes 45 seconds
8 decks (416 cards) . . . 3 minutes 45 seconds


BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW

• When playing roulette in France, with the single zero wheels, the house edge is 2.7%. However, if a player wins a single number bet and gets the 35 chips, it’s almost a “must” to pay one of the dealers a tip. This so-called tradition of tipping the dealer certainly moves the odds back considerably toward the 5.26% of the double zero American wheel.


• As far back as the reign of William the Third [~1700], on matters great and small, the only sure test of English opinions was the state of the odds. A common phrase was “Bet or be silent.” Wagering was generally legal under British common law, so long as it did not to lead to immorality or impoliteness.


• Odds of someone being married in Nevada rather than somewhere else in the United States are 1 in 17, in 2004, approximately 7% of all U.S. marriages took place in Nevada.


• The odds of getting a royal flush in a five-card (no wild card) poker deal is only 650,000 to 1.


• The odds of winning the British, Canadian, French or Spanish (Pimera) lotteries are the same: 1 in 13,983,816.


• In the fall of 2015, the Multi-State Lottery Association, which runs the Powerball lottery game, changes the odds of winning the top prize from 175 million to 1, upward to 292.2 million to 1 odds. Two months later, a world record of $1.5 billion was awarded.