The Basics of Card Counting

Card counting is one of those things that seems like it would be easy to do. Movies like 21, Rain Man, Breaking Vegas and others tell stories of how people were able to count cards babu888 and beat the casino at their own game. And with such a low house advantage, one would think that with some practice it wouldn’t be hard to do.

But alas, it’s not quite that simple. There’s a lot more to it than just learning to count the high cards and low cards. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people try card counting every day and don’t succeed. Below are the 5 steps needed to become a winning card counter.

Memorize Blackjack Strategy
The first thing you must do is not only learn basic blackjack strategy, but memorize it. There are 300 possible combinations of player and dealer starting hands. You have to know every proper decision when it is presented to you and you have to know it within seconds.

Any mistakes is using basic strategy reduce the chances you will win in the long run. Simple mistakes like standing on a 16 against a dealer 7 will cost you hundreds of dollars per year. You must memorize basic blackjack strategy perfectly to succeed at card counting. You can find basic strategy charts and cheat sheets all over the internet for free.

Running Count
After you’ve memorized basic strategy, now you can start to learn how to count the cards. The best way to start is just with a deck of cards at your kitchen table. Once by one you flip cards over and practice counting. At the very end, you should come up with a count of 0.

To start out, use a high/low count. The high low count assigns a +1 to cards that help you when they have been used. Cards that hurt your future chances when played are assigned a -1. And cards that have little or no value in determining the strength of cards to come area assigned a 0 point value.

So, the cards 2-6 are assigned a +1. When these cards are exposed it means that a 10 valued card or Ace were not used up. These are great cards to see early in the game. Cards with ranks of 7, 8 or 9 are neutral. They get a 0 point value and in reality, you don’t event count them.They are just ignored. Finally, all 10 value cards and Aces are a -1. When these cards are usedup they hurt your future chances.

You must practice counting the deck over and over and over again until you can get through an entire deck in accurately and consistently in 30 seconds or less. Once you can do this, you can now attempt some online counting trainers, having a friend or family member deal blackjack to you while you count or play and count on the free play of an online casino.