Most people can’t count cards well, it’s much more complicated than the +1 minus 1 to actually consistently profit

Casinos love dreamers more than counters-house always wins eventually

This is pretty much a truth.

Sounds about right

No, you are not going to profit "a lot" from recreational card counting. And, if you are doing it recreational and possibly not very well, you will probably lose. A lot of people who attempt card counting who don't know what they're doing with their bet spread or bankroll requirements are simply losing players.

It also looks like you are in Europe. Most games there are CSM and thus aren't realistically countable anyway. But I'm sure there's no shortage of people who don't know the difference and attempt to badly count on CSM anyway.

Anyway, on a 6 deck H17 game with $18k bankroll and spreading $10 to $120 you can expect to make about $15/hour with 4% risk of ruin (meaning you suffer a downswing of $18k) with many large fluctuations along the way. So you lose $2k and then win $2k and in the very very long run you barely squeak out a profit of about $15/hour. For a bankroll of $18k.

If you are playing typical Europe No Hole Card style then you might be at an even greater disadvantsge than that.

Your fluctuations are much larger with card counting because you are putting large bets out there when you still have a relatively smallish advantage. If you just bet the minimum $10/hand for every hand and are playing a crowded and slow table at 60 or 70 hands an hour at 0.6% house advantage then that is $700/hour wagered in total meaning you are at -$4.20/hour.

That can be much better than dropping $2k in an hour because you are trying to squeeze out a long run $15/hour advantage. Sure, you might lose $100-$200 in an hour flat-betting at $10/hand. But, for many, that beats "might lose $2k in an hour if your big bets when you have a 2.0% advantage all went sideways on you."

New card counters who aren't really that into it should consider the ramifications of the wild variance compared with just betting the minimum and taking the smallish hourly loss.

If you like to gamble but don't like being a sucker, then you're like me and it's worth it to learn to find beatable games and to count cards. I never intended to try to make a lot of money at it.

My friends, colleagues and acquaintances seem to enjoy hearing my stories of 'big' wins, 'big' losses, and being backed off. So that's fun, too. 'Big' for me was anything more than $1000 when I was a low-stakes counter in the early 2000s...back when there was still 3:2 single deck in downtown LV, and 3:2 double deck for $25 or less all over the strip.

Generally, if you have enough wits and self control to make money card counting, you could have made more money doing something else. It is, however, very engaging to learn, refine, and put into practice (at first, until you start grinding).

The key to it besides being good at counting is playing a lot of hands. Your trying to grind out that small edge over a long period of time. 

I really only play occasionally and I get lucky some nights when the count is good. But many times I lose too. It's just the way the cards fall. 

I remember playing one night and my co-worker said "I've never seen anyone get cards like that before." I was like "I wonder why lol". 

My understanding from reading around here is that most of UK blackjack is CSM.

If he has access to some sort of non-CSM game near him then counting could be feasible of course.

I got the impression he might even not know that the way the game is dealt (CSM or not) makes a difference for whether it can be counted.

I like to visualize the count in my head instead of saying it. I find I can keep track of the count easier and faster this way.

Try it and see if it works better for you.

It's incredibly repetitive, so you have to either take joy in mundanity or be winning a lot of money for it to be "worth it" for most people after the initial rush wears off.

You might not profit a lot just because you don't play as often as someone trying to make a living off of AP, but you'll be playing a winning game anyway. If you can get an advantage you might as well do it

I don't know about counting cards, But always double down on a 10-11 check past 16 or 17 and you'll make some money.

I think this is a great idea. It’s obviously a single deck, shuffled every round, but there has to be a few points difference for some bets if you are betting last and most of the preceding cards have been either 10-A or 2-6. EDIT: There used to be programs available to simulate these things and work out exact strategy. I’d love to get a link to a spreadsheet that can do it if anyone knows of one.

For that we'd need to know how many card sets the game uses for the game. And since it probably keeps using a fresh set for every new round, it's probably an impossible thing to do.

The dealer shuffles between each hand. No counting cards, I was really hoping to try my skills out:(

I'll let you know when I find a table

Played with a few who actively did. One of my favorite dealers in Louisiana actively counts and reacts as people bet badly. What else do you do dealing cards day in and day out?

> Do you give off any signs to a card counter when to bet big?

I never had a dealer do this to me and never heard of one doing it. But it looks like a sure way to lose your job. Getting a big tip once doesn't seem worth it to never get tipped again.

Edit: adding to this, if the player is counting and knows what he's doing, why would he need the dealer's help?

Dealers gotta focus on the sucker bets, proper payouts, making change, coloring up etc.

If they can also count then they are probably very skilled at it, because they have to do a lot of math regardless of the counting.

Being a dealer is probably just as hard as counting. Probably more. You have to watch your hands, the players hands, the bets, make sure no one touches their cards or does anyting outright stupid. People's drinks and the waiters walking by. You have to do quick math in your head that's sometimes not easy on blackjack if people put stupid white chips on their bets. Card placement, making sure youre actually dealing correctly.

Counting cards is actually be simpler. Much simpler.

Now if you do both and practice really hard you can do it. None of the dealers are my large well known casino knew how to count. I was the only one. But, I didnt have nearly enough experience to even attempt it; Both in counting and in dealing.

The people in the casino trying to track and bust card counters is the surveillance and security teams. They aren't even allowed to hangout with dealers outside the casino or they can get fired. They will not help you, theres no way, you will never see them.

Agreed. I have never met a dealer who knows basic strategy cold, much less can actually count during play.

It’s pretty good pay as far as I know but you usually have to work nights and you have to be 100% “on” whenever you’re on the floor.

I’d imagine for a veteran dealer it would be easy to count cards on top of dealing but for the average dealer it’s way too hard to do that on top of being a fast dealer and there really isn’t any reason for them to do so.

I think everyone’s mind works a bit differently, over time mine has become a bit of a mix. 

A few things that are very important:

• Do it the same way every time. If you wait for the table to be dealt to add it up, always wait. If you count as they come out, always do that. Otherwise you’re likely to miss a card or double count.

• Don’t try and “uncount”. If you’ve already adjusted your running count and then you are trying to back it out because you see that the table is easy to cancel hands out, you’ll probably make a mistake

Learn to count based on sets of cards, rather than individual cards. Efficiency means you don’t have to focus as much, and you don’t make as many mistakes since you don’t have to pay attention to every single detail.

sacrifice a deck of cards. Take a sharpie and write the value of your count on each card.

Practice counting down a deck. Go by pairs or triplets of cards learning how to cancel or look at groups of cards. Do it with two decks. Hide six hards so you're not always going back to zero by the end of the deck. Do it while watching TV or playing videos or having a Convo with someone.

I count on my fingers but I only have 10 and just one deck has 52 cards :/

I group them after the second pass on the first round. After a while you'll just glance at them and know what it is. So an ace and a five is nothing because the two cancel. A 7 and a 4 is +1. Pair of eights is 0 etc. 

I visualize the count in my head. I don't say it. I find it easier to keep track that way. 

When converting to the true count I round to the nearest deck. It seems to work good enough. 

Remember that if the true count is +3 or higher to take insurance.

The deviations yield you more return but are bit trickier to remember if you ask me. 

The hard part isn’t getting the basics of the skill down. Anyone can do that. What makes card counting hard is perfecting the skill, having the discipline to trust the math/bet spread, not getting distracted and being able to keep the count perfectly, having a good cover at the tables and being able to act naturally and fit in with other gamblers, etc. there are plenty of resources for learning counting, but books are a good start and/or a blackjack apprenticeship membership. Also, they have an app for like 5 bucks or so that is good for training in Hi-Lo if you want the bare minimum

Pointing out that you “weren’t winning EVERY hand” and your edge shooting up 1-2% is not something somebody who knows what’s going on would ever say. Not winning every hand is such an obvious thing to a card counter so pointing it out as a meaningful observation is like pointing out the sky is blue. And no, your “theoretical edge” did not increase by 2% after counting cards for a few hours. A 2% edge increase, say from 0.5% house edge to 1.5% player edge is about the max edge increase perfect counting gives you. The commonly cited amount of time (which was true in my case as well) it takes to actual learn card counting at a level to beat the casino is about 200 hours. That’s where the difficulty is, having the discipline to drill 10s of thousands of hands of blackjack with perfection and then having the nerves to replicate it in a casino with real money.

You're so good at counting. ignore the dude you're talking to and go straight to the casino. Max bet as soon as the time is right and generate that easy money.

AP Blackjack Trainer on iOS has a 99 cent Monthly Subscription for people that just want to try. Running Count drills are free!

Counting is one of the easiest parts to it. Basic strategy is a little more difficult imo. Then you have emotion and bankroll management. You have to have a bankroll, the ability to find and travel to a decent game or be lucky enough to have a couple decent games in a distance that financially makes sense to travel to. Then you have to be lucky that the decent game you found doesn't have such a scrutiny for loss that you can get some hours in, hopefully you don't get flagged at all the local casinos from a single event.

Welcome to the party. However long you stay I hope you enjoy yourself, learn a lot and don’t lose your whole ass.

Go to a real casino and back count. That's pretty easy to do.

Now play the table minimum and try to count and play perfect basic strategy with the proper deviations. It's much more difficult than it looks. Keep the count in your head at all times with distractions like the dealer talking and other players.

This takes a lot of practice to get good at.

If you ask me it's kind of boring and repetitive and mentally fatiguing.

Be sure to group the cards after the second pass. So a King and a 4 would be 0 since the two cancel each other out. 2 and 5 would be +2. 7 and 3 would be +1. You get the idea.

It's pretty straight forward but takes a lot of concentration and practice.

Try having your friend deal you an 8 deck shoe as fast as they can and see if you can still count.

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Wong Halves

Count Type: Balanced Difficulty: Advanced Card Values: • 2, 7 = +0.5 • 3, 4, 6 = +1 • 5 = +1.5 • 8 = 0 • 9 = -0.5 • 10, J, Q, K = -1 • A = -1

Notes: Highly accurate due to fractional values, but tough to use without lots of practice. Requires true count.

I've one dealer out of maybe 15ish at the local casino I play at. He knows I count by how I play. It's my local place, I don't abuse the spread. One evening after a stupidly good shoe where my bet had gone from $15 to $75 and $105 towards the end, he looks over at me and says something like, "dealers can't help players, but we do have a little control over the penetration." Then cuts less than a deck.

He gets some extra tips when we play together every few weeks.

As a blackjack dealer, no. 99.9% of us don’t care. Only ones who might care a bit are what we call dual supervisors, which are dealers who also have the ability to also to supervise a certain pit.

And to be honest, 90% of blackjack dealers and even floor staff give out terrible basic strategy advice and don’t know how to play properly. Let alone know how hi-Lo and true doings work. I heard my floor advise to a player to stand on his pair of 9s vs a 9 like literally 15 mins ago as I just started my break at work now lol.

It’s the pits/surveillance’s job to catch an affective card counters not the dealers. Us dealers are just there to run the game smooth and efficiently.

I dont even care if a card counter decides not to tip because I know what I signed up for, I’ll only rat out on a suspected AP if they’re being rude to me or anyone at the table.

If the dealer knows how to count, they can tell if you're counting. I don't think many of them know though. The dealers typically don't care, it's up to security or the pit boss to take action. If anyone higher up is asking the dealer about you, it's probably too late anyway

The dealer stands to gain nothing by calling you out unless they're also a pit boss trainee, and that's rare. They might make a few extra bucks if you win, so why would they bother?

I'm sure it is. But as mentioned, local casino so I don't abuse the spread. It's wife and I's date night. I break even most of the time, they feed us with $70ish for food comps, the occasional hotel room comp, and give me about $75 free play each night I go.

They are $15 to $3,000 tables though. In 8 years, I've only seen one person kicked for counting.

If I'm trying to actually make money, you'll find me playing in Gulf Coast casinos or Atlantic City. Southern France has the best beatable casinos I've ever seen — but $100 max bet there.

As a dealer, I’m convinced 90% of the people that think they’re counting… have no idea how this game works.

No. A dealer is supposed to make sure everyone at the table feels welcome. If some jagoff sidles up to the table and starts bossing everyone around and turning what was a good table miserable, it's their job to let their floor supervisor know.

Despite making the technique seem a lot easier than it really is (division is important when penetration is deep, since both betting and play variations depend on it), my main complaint is that it's hard to get many hours in before you get kicked out.

The subscription list registration is wonky on your website. At least for me. I added my name and half my email address before it went haywire. Could be just me, though.

Good job!

Edit: it worked the 6th or 7th time.

This is a great video! Commented on YouTube as well. This is a great beginners guide honestly. I loved the breakdown of the difference between dependent and independent events that you explained in such an easy to understand way. That's honestly one of the biggest reasons why counting works. It's also why no one who plays seriously should ever play at a continuous shuffle machines. SAY NO TO THE CARD SNAILS PEOPLE!

Team I forgot about pen and it will forever haunt me that I didn't mention it in the video 😂

I missed this week’s episode. Will it continue??