Practicing the count

3 August 2019

By John Marchel

While practicing the count for blackjack at home and you are interrupted for any reason, stop, recite the count to yourself, silently, over and over again so you don't forget it.

Let’s say you’re are practicing and one of your little ones has an important question or the phone rings and it’s for you. If the count at that point of “mi-6,” just keep repeating “mi-6, mi-6” in your mind as you take action on the interruption.

You will know you are making progress when you can talk on the phone or answer the important question your little had and still remember the count.

Practicing this little technique over and over will make this happen at home and, more importantly, while at the casino. Card counting dose take time and effort to be effective. You need to practice and put in the time to become skilled at it. You shouldn’t overlook your need to practice.

Another practice technique is to learn to count backwards. This will help with the minus count in blackjack. This is a good exercise to practice at home or waiting for the stop light on the way to work. Start at 20 and count to zero. Next, count down from 20, but this time do it by 2s; 20, 18, 16, 14, etc. Then, count down by twos with odd numbers 19, 17, 15, etc.

Do these exercises a couple of times a day to help with memorization. It should also cause an automatic reflex action in the subconscious mind that will help later at the blackjack table.


BET YOU DIDN'T KNOW

• Card counting works because blackjack is one of the very few casino games in which every hand is not an independent trail. The hand you’re playing now is dependent on the previous cards removed from the deck or shoe.

• Card counting requires nothing more than your brain and some practice, and it’s not illegal.

• You cannot use card counting against a continuous shuffle machine (CSM). These are machines where the dealer inserts the discarded cards back in to the machine after nearly every hand of play.

• Big cards (10s) are good for the player and small cards (2-6) are good for the dealer.

• In a massive study by the New Jersey gambling commission of players and hands played at the tables during the blackjack card-counting controversy in Atlantic City in the early 1980s. Players were categorized as novice, experience, basic strategist, and card counters.

• There are over 55 different card counting systems for blackjack. Some are multi-level counts, while others are simple plus or minus one counts. There are also unbalanced counts. While learning and playing them, you might find the simpler the better.

• Six deck shoes require a lot of work but can be played. Avoid any eight-deck shoes.

• Avoid any 6:5 payout for a blackjack. You are giving too much back to the house.

• Professional blackjack teams want you to be able to count down a deck in 30 seconds or less.

• Acting like a tourist just looking for a good time may take the suspicion off of you as a counter. You want to blend in.