Blackjack Card Counting of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Old timers know this: Back in 1960s, 70s, 80s or even 90s, card counting was easy. Many made a fortune, some made fame as well. If you are a long-time card counter, you might be still relishing your glorious good old days.

But time has not been kind to most card counters. Many have quitted -- that is, marginalized and forced into early retirement. Many wannabees never made it. Easy money is no longer there. In my observation, the number of practicing card counters might not have grown at all even when so many new casinos have been added year after year. Why?

Casinos have wised up. 1 or 2-deck blackjack pitch games with decent rules have mostly disappeared. Shoes have grown from 4 to 6, and then to 8 decks.

Question to old-timers: Will you recommend to anyone whom you love and care to pursue a card counting career today? If yes, how can he/she prepare for the likely card counting career environment in the years to come?

 

I am not an "old timer' but I get what you are saying about players that played in the 80's and 90's, even 70's and had access to much better games. I have had the pleasure and honor of talking to a number of these type players on forums and privately, and to a man, they all hate today's conditions. That is understandable I guess.

But there is a whole group of players that began playing in the early to mid 2000's as I did, and these conditions, things like 6 deck, h17, 75-80% penetration are all we have ever known and are the games we learned to beat. I actually learned to play and win in Atlantic City, playing 8 deck games, so the games I play today, the 6 deck games that I just described are a step up.

Again, I am not an old timer, but I have been playing for a living for 18 years and I have taught 3 people to play in the last 10 years. A friend, my partner/spouse, and my brother. I didn't recommend or encourage anyone, they all came to me asking. My brother was the one I was really hesitant about. He moved to Las Vegas and moved in with me 6 years ago after college and wanted me to teach him card counting. At first I said no and discouraged him, put him off for better part of a year. He started reading some books and learning on his own and kept asking, and finally I agreed. And he has been playing for a living and doing pretty well for 5 years. So I have no hesitancy about helping someone get started even with todays conditions, if it is something they really want.

 

Congratulations! You and your brother are doing pretty well even under the playing conditions that old timers hate. What are the secrets/key ingredients of your and your brother's success?

 

Shorter sessions and agressively exiting and not playing the majority of (the worst of) the negative counts.

Dealer hit soft 17 was the rule that really changed the shoe game. On the surface it doesn't seem that much as it adds about .21% to the house advantage, with a standard 6 deck game going from .35% house advantage to about .54%. But what that means is accross the board every negative true count the house edge is larger, and every positive (+EV) true count the player edge smaller. And those really good positive counts, where a player is placing his max bet or big bet occur less frequently.

So there are two solutions. One is to use an even bigger bet spread, say like 1-20 or 1-24 when 1-10 or 1-12 used to suffice. Doing that requires a bigger bankroll and it becomes even easier for pit and surveliance to see that a player is counting cards and a larger bet spread will increase variance and the natural swings associated with blackjack to levels that many players can't handle.

The second way is the one that I employ and that is to simply exit negative counts aggressively, moving to a new game. This means you will not play the worst of the negative counts, reducing the overall house advantage, which will enable you to play with a smaller more traditional spread of 1-10 or 1-12 and experience less variance and swings than that bigger 1-20 or 1-24 bet spread. The other advantage of aggressively exiting (or wonging out) is it means your sessions will be shorter. Shorter sessions increase longevity because pit and survellance are not seeing you and your betting patterns for a long enough period of time to make a definitive determinationthat you are counting cards. And shorter sessions means you will have fewer of those really big wins (and losses) that really draw attention that a player has with the old traditional "play all" approach. Instead you will end up with many more smaller wins and losses (overall total will be the same).

So that is the big thing. The play all approach, of a player sitting at one table for several hours playing through all the negative counts is replaced by aggressive exits and short sessions.

 

O brother.

 

Stay in school. Get a real job. These days the work is so much more efficient. I can think of 10 people making well over 6. With Health, Dental, sick pay, matching 401k, vacation pay. Can reside wherever they choose.

One started his journey 18 years ago at 37. He was broke and ran a cop off the road. He decided it was time to pull it together. Today, he is close to a mil. so is his wife. And her folks are multi mil.

Blackjack takes time and work and money. Compete when you retire. It takes more than forum vote acceptance to compete.

 

Thanks for the tip that "aggressive exit" and "short session" are important. But in many places of North America (such as Atlantic City that you mentioned before), some may find that there are no more than 10 casinos in 100-mile radius, and out of the 10, only 2 or 3 casinos may have playable/beatable blackjack. Often, if one "wonged out", the player might not find another playable blackjack table for severable hours. Under such circumstances, playing out most of the shoes even at negative counts seems to be only viable option left.

Any suggestions (other than increasing the bet spread) for beginners in that scenario?

 

Learn the Tarzan count if you want to make a living. Moraine count is fine if you play recreationally.

6 decks means your going to have to play 100k hands annually with HiLO. Still there are no guarantees. You might lose $75k.

 

1. Tarzan count? What PRECISELY is it? Is it a count system like some Level 2, 3 or 4+ systems invented by a genius and intended for use by other geniuses only?
2. In many places, 6-deck is the best blackjack you can ever find normally. Or, you can settle for 6-to-5 double deck after some diligent searching. Between the two, which one do you like?

 

Tarzan count is complex. But it provides options that most counts dont. You might be a able to read old posts at BJFT. It's a column count of 2-5s 6-9s 10s and Aces. It's quite different than what I do when getting deep pen. For instance, there are times he could Double on 12 if the shoe was rich in 6-9s. He has many examples.

2. Neither. I can still play single deck 3.2. My point is there is a big difference between being competitive and making a living.

 

LOL. Two blackjack players. KewlJ and Moses/Tater. They use two of the words that, if I ever start to use them in a gambling context, just do me a favor and shoot me.

First, regarding life as a "journey," allow me to refer you to the very first blog entry I ever posted:

https://theskepticalgambler.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-brief-introduction.html

Second, regarding moses/Tater using the word "compete" as applicable to sitting at blackjack tables. "Compete" has a lot of the same flavor as "trying real hard," -- LOL -- which has a lot of the same flavor as "losing." If I ever give you a list of things to do so you can "compete" at sports betting or any type of gambling, just fuhgeddabout them, put me on ignore, and understand that "compete" is a stand-in for "losing."

Casinos love for you to "compete." That's what got Michael Jordan losing gazillions in casinos -- he loves to "compete," which in his case is another word for "lose" when it comes to gambling. There's nothing noble about "competing" in gambling. "Competing" is for suckers. The word puts a palatable spin on casinos taking your money. "I competed." Sounds better than "I lost."

Time to write a book. "My Journey Competing in Gambling."

Gag me with a spoon. Or better yet, get those baseball bats I recommended in my blog entry and take me to a cornfield.

 

I invite you to compete against me. KJ wont offer you that challenge.

I have the ability to know exactly whats been played and what still remains. But it doesnt do much good without deep pen and limited bet frequency and amount.

The dealer has the option to decide when to shuffle. The pit boss or EITS can say "no mas" at any time.

So yes, it's very competitive. But unlike sports competition, it's not hard how you can hit. But rather how well you can duck.

 

I don't use "journey" in reference to my life, although I see nothing wrong with that, I use it in reference to my blackjack career and that is exactly what it has been, a journey and I vowed to share as much of it as I could, and I have. Not sure what your issue is?

As for "compete", that is Moses. Don't lump me in with him on that. I have always said I am competely with no one, except maybe myself. If you haven't figured it out by now, Moses is one of those guys that wants to make everything a pissing contest, trying to prove something about his own insecurities and inadequacies. He wants to play blackjack against me, when blackjack for me is not a competition, it is how I make a living. He wants to fight me. He wants to fight you. He wants to fight the world. He is one of those guys.

 

I started at the bottom. Ive been at the top. And landed somewhere in the middle.

My middle is far more than KJs top will ever reach.

Why? Because he cant make it without the approval of others. That is VCT in a nutshell. KJ needing believers and going crazy without it.

Having fight "in" you is far better than letting cowardness consume you. The KJ rants because he cant face the fears that lurk within.

He lies then hides which eats him up inside.

 

Of course not everyone has the situation that I have, which I have specifically designed my game plan for. But even if you can't exit agrressively, escaping all of the bad counts, you can still do things to escape at least some of the bad counts. Bathroom breaks, well times fake phone calls, even just sitting out some round with negative counts so as to "change the cards" (which isn't a real thing).

Escaping just some of the real negative counts and real negative EV situations will improve your win rate dramatically.

While most of my play takes place in Vegas, I do travel some, well I did before Covid. Only have made 1 trip to Pa so far this year. So I do play some places that I can't employ my usual strategy of escaping all negative counts. Escaping some, with the things I mentioned above really helps.

There is one other thing you can do that will help. I call it spreading both ways. So you sit down at your 6 deck game, I don't know what stakes you play, but let me just use my stakes as an example. So $25 table. I bet $50 spreading up to $500. That is a 1-10 spread. Usually fairly tolerated, unless you camp out for hours.

So any shoe that the count goes positive, that is what they will see. 50-500 spread or 1-10 spread. So let's say the shoe goes negative and you have already used your bathroom break to esacpe 1 negative shoe, you simply drop down to $25. So now for this negative shoe, you started with $50 and drop down to $25. That certainly isn't something that draws attention.

So the pit would need to see you play (2) negative count shoes (one with a bathroom break, one with a reduction in wager to $25 AND a positive count shoe to see your full bet spread of $25-$500. (1-20). And by the time you have played 2 negative shoes, taking a bathroom break on the first and reducing bet on the second AND then played a positive shoe all the way up to your max bet, you have probably played 4, 5, 6 shoes total. Time to move on after that.

And I don't advise the Tarzan count or any column count for 6 and 8 deck shoe games. That is not how you beat those games in 2021. It is all about a decent bet spread and escaping at least some of the really bad negative counts.

 

The Tarzan count might keep you close. But making a living at 6 decks is impossible.

One might as well stay with Moraine count.

 

And YOU would know how?

The fact is there are many players playing 6 deck games and making decent money. I don't know how many actually make a living but there are some. Many have been on GWAE at different times. Some I see somewhat regularly. Almost every serious player, whether making a living, supplementing income or just playing recreationally for decent stakes, plays the 6 deck games over double deck, for heat and longevity reasons. And there are some very good 6 deck games scattered around las Vegas. 1/2 deck to 3/4 deck cut off (that is 88% to 92% penetration) with surrender. With just a moderate spread, a very high SCORE.

 

There are too many variables with 312 cards. Tarzan count will turn many losing hands into winning hands. HiLo gives the same weight to the 2 as the 5. So your betting directly into bad deck compositions.

As you've been told a million times. You have no clue of middle cards. And THAT is why your variance is so high. Tarzan ducks out of throwing money at bad deck compositions.

So you have to play more hands. You cant because you are always on forums seeking approval.

 

The weight given to every card is only approximate compared to actual effect of removal. The exception is one level 10 count count (I forget the name) that assigns a different 2 digit value for each card which is the same as effect of removal. Such a count cannot be played by humans.

Don and Norm both played RPC which is a level 2 but still doesn't account for 7, 8, 9.

Stanford Wong and the MIT players all used counts that didn't account for the middle cards.

Kenny Uston used a count that didnt account for all cards.

The Al Francesco and Tommy Hyland long running teams didn't account for the 7, 8, 9.

Are you telling me none of these players won?

Your thinking is simply outdated.

 

Blackjack is a game of skill and precision. The mistake was on the 2. So that throws all the old stuff out of whack.

Sims clearly indicate same. You bought into one sentence as your Holy Grail. Thus your mind is closed. But it doesnt matter. You dont have time to play anyway. Let alone chase variance you create with a weak/wrong count.