How does card counting effect your play?

[NoNeedForLuck]

Hello,

Today I peeked at different card countiing strategies and I want to know how they effect your play. From what Ive understood Betting Correlation systems use advantage of your chances so when you have for example 1% chance you bet more and there comes your profit.
The thing I dont understand which method is best for flat betting (always 1 unit) and how is it calculated?

I assume you analyse how much cards are left and then you can figure out if hit/stand/split/double based on probabilty calculations. That makes sense to me, but Im not sure so thats why Im asking :>

 

[Sonny]

The thing I dont understand which method is best for flat betting (always 1 unit) and how is it calculated?

The best system for flat betting will have the highest playing efficiency (PE). Since you won’t be changing your bets you don’t need a good BC so just look at the PE and the insurance correlation (IC). That way you will be using the most accurate playing decisions. Most systems max out around .70 PE so you would need to use side counts to get any higher than that.

The efficiencies are calculated by comparing the count to the actual deck composition. If the count indicates a 1% advantage but you actually have a 3% advantage then you can see that the system is not very efficient. The more efficient it is (the closer to 1.0 the numbers are), the more accurately it follows the actual condition of the deck.

-Sonny-

 

[moo321]

Hello,

Today I peeked at different card countiing strategies and I want to know how they effect your play. From what Ive understood Betting Correlation systems use advantage of your chances so when you have for example 1% chance you bet more and there comes your profit.
The thing I dont understand which method is best for flat betting (always 1 unit) and how is it calculated?

I assume you analyse how much cards are left and then you can figure out if hit/stand/split/double based on probabilty calculations. That makes sense to me, but Im not sure so thats why Im asking :>

Betting efficiency is much more important to your overall advantage than playing efficiency.

 

[NoNeedForLuck]

Ok I understand principles of counting strategies now. But for example if you have hard 19 and dealer has an ace. Would you take insurance or not?
I presume you have to know played cards (logically).
Example:
There are 10xtwo, 11xthree, 7xfour, 9xfive, 9xsix, 5xseven, 6xeight, 9xnine, 10xace and 35xten left in 4 deck game. So I have to compare tens against sum of all other cars and I get 35:65. So in this case I shouldnt take insurance because there is 30% more probability there will be some other card. Insurance part is easy...

Here things get complicated (or Im just poor at math). You have hard 15, dealer has 4. Now lets say we have 5xace, 3xtwo, 3xthree, 7xfour, 5xfive, 6xsix, 9xeight, 9xnine and 30xT left in deck. If you play by BS without counting you would stand. Now if the dealers total of next 2 cards is from 13 to 17 you lose. And even this is too little to calculate praobability because dealer could hit 13-17 with next 3,4,5,6,7 (including hole) or more cards. What bothers me here is that this **** gets complicated as **** so if I want to have those probabilities down, I should learn them by hard. At least estimated valuse because they dont swing by much. If all written above is true, then calculating exact chances would be senseless, since its so much to calculate.

But If I would still want to do this calculating while playing I should just cut off all possible variations that delaer hits 13-17 with next 3 or more cards (including hole card). Estimated value would be still pretty good... I think?

Assuming this, dealer can hit 13-17 in next 2 cards with, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 85, 86, 87, 88, 76, 77. Now... you have to calculate probability from those possible combinations and cards still left in deck. Doing this cant be so hard if you can get at least approximate feeling of this numbers. But still is there any simplified caluclation to do all of this?

Well what Im saying is, I shouldnt remember all cards other than for insurance purposes and hit the casino right now with card counting system. Im kinda disappointed

 

[Sonny]

What bothers me here is that this **** gets complicated as **** so if I want to have those probabilities down, I should learn them by hard.

That’s true. Just read through Peter Griffin’s Theory of Blackjack book to see how quickly things get complicated. Even a simple playing decision requires lots of calculations. There are some approximations that you can use to make it a bit easier, but it’s still too difficult to do in your head at casino speed.

Well what Im saying is, I shouldnt remember all cards other than for insurance purposes and hit the casino right now with card counting system.

You don't need to count all the cards for the insurance bet either. There are much simpler systems that give 100% accurate insurance information. The unbalanced 10-count and Thorp's tens/others count are two options. There really is no point in memorizing all the cards when playing blackjack. The information isn’t very useful and it is much too difficult.

-Sonny-

 

[NoNeedForLuck]

Memorizsing is useful for 1 or 2 deck games but I heard they are very, very rare. So I will just discard this idea and hit casino tomorrow with one of card count strategies. At the moment Im thinking of using Hi-Opt II since it has very high PE. One last question. Where do I find how side counts can improve my PE and how to use it? Any resources, links?

Thank you for all replays. Were very useful

 

[Sonny]

Where do I find how side counts can improve my PE and how to use it?

Here are some sources:

http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=9975
http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/sdcnt.htm
http://www.bjmath.com/bjmath/counting/gordon.htm (Archive copy)
http://www.gamemasteronline.com/Archive/Blackjack/CountingSystemsP6.shtml (Archive copy)
http://www.qfit.com/blackjack-side-counts.htm

Just be aware that the playing decisions alone will probably not give you an advantage over the house. You really need to vary your bets to get a decent advantage.

-Sonny-

 

[NoNeedForLuck]

Sonny thank you very much for all replies on both threads. Were really helpful