Ace-Five

C

CowboyKO

Member
A friend of mine will be traveling with me on my next blackjack trip and wanted to know if there was anything she could do to improve her odds over basic strategy. I told her she should learn to count cards if she wants to gain a real advantage over the house. She told me that she didn't want to put in the time and effort required to learn a respectable system, so I suggested that she use the Ace-Five count since it offers a slight advantage over basic. My question is: what is the appropriate bet progression for this count and what kind of advantage can she gain on SD games? I assume she should just increase her bet when the count is above a +1 TC. Thanks for any input.
CKO
 
T

The Mayor

Well-Known Member
>A friend of mine will be traveling with me on my next blackjack trip and wanted to know if there was anything she could do to improve her odds over basic strategy.

Yes, of course there is.

>I told her she should learn to count cards if she wants to gain a real advantage over the house.

Good advice!

>She told me that she didn't want to put in the time and effort required to learn a respectable system,

So why did she ask the question in the first place?

>so I suggested that she use the Ace-Five count since it offers a slight advantage over basic.

Given her response above, I doubt she knows basic strategy. BS is much more difficult to learn than a count system. Test her on a few (e.g. A-7 vs. T, A-2 vs. 3 and 4, and 2-2 vs. 4).

The A-5 count is not worth the time, if played perfectly she will be able to buy a cup of coffee on the EV in about 2 years, meanwhile the variance will be the only thing that she notices.

>My question is: what is the appropriate bet progression for this count and what kind of advantage can she gain on SD games?

My question is, what kind of friend asks for good advice, gets it, then turns her nose on it when it is given?

Tell her to play keno, maybe she will get lucky.

--Mayor
 
C

CowboyKO

Member
Great response, and very appropriate, matches her exactly. She can play basic strategy well though. She accompanied me on my first Vegas trip and I watched her play. I think she knows DAS strategy since she was splitting 4,4 against a dealer 5 in a nDAS game downtown. It's not that I think she doesn't want to learn to count in the future, it is just that our trip is coming up relatively soon and she doesn't have the time to learn a system before we leave. Oh well, I'll just tell her to stick to basic strategy. Thanks Mayor.
CKO
 
Automatic Monkey

Automatic Monkey

Banned
Just make sure you set her up in a game that has favorable rules. Good rules + good comps = break even for a BS player. Ace-five could be a useful first step in learning to count, just to see how it works, but High-Low isn't that much harder.
 
S

Stealth Bomber

Well-Known Member
CKO:

If she is somewhat serious about learning to count in the future, don't have her twist her mind in a hurry to learn an ace-five count. If she were to learn it, then it could make it more difficult to retrain her mind when she's ready to learn a count that can provide a significant advantage.

In my beginning months of play years ago, I took the advise of an old time BJ pro. He told me that until I was willing to put forth the time and effort of keeping a RC, to just do three things: 1) Learn and play a perfect basic strategy. 2) Play SD with the best rules 3) Keep sort of a right-brain picture of good cards and bad cards (big ones and little ones) as they are dealt. Put more $ out after seeing an abundance of bad cards and put less $ out after seeing an abundance of good cards.

I became so good at this; I kept doing it for about a year before I decided to keep an actual perfect RC. Even got bared a couple of times. However, I don't advocate playing BJ anything near as long as I did in this manner.

Stealth
 
B

BJ Mentor

New Member
Ace/10 Front Count

There's a more effective count than the Ace/5. It's the Ace/10 Front Count. It's used primarily for the six deck shoe. It's not a plus/minus count. You simply tally up together all the 10's, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces that come out in the first two decks of the shoe. ONLY THE FIRST TWO DECKS! Once two decks hit the discard tray you stop counting and either raise your bet for the rest of the shoe, keep it at one unit or walk. Put out 4 units at a front count of "36", 6 units at "35", 8 units at "34" or less and keep it at 1 unit between "37" and "41" -- but walk at "42" or higher. It's a super-simple way to get a high/low "read" on a six deck shoe.
 
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