Card Counting

Card counting is predicated on the fact that high cards such as aces and 10s favour the player while low cards such as fours, fives and sixs favour the dealers. With aces and 10s your chances of hitting blackjack is brighter and the payout for blackjack is 3/2. The only exception here is when the dealer also holds blackjack. Doubling becomes more profitable if you have 10s. 10s also makes insurance bet more valuable.

On the other hand, low cards favour the dealer more than the player. This is because they make it possible for the dealer to hit stiffs hand while the player has no option other than to stand or hit in accordance with the rule of blackjack.

It is not true that card counting requires higher mental abilities before one can apply the strategies. This is because, you do not need to memorize or track particular cards. What you are expected to do is to give a specific point score to each of the cards and through this point score the sum of the cards can be tracked. The above false believe emanated from the film Rain Main.

How to apply card counting

In order to apply this strategy, you have to give each card used in the game a positive, negative as well as zero value. High card decreases count and then increase the percentage of low cards while the low card does the reverse.

The aim of card counting is to give a card a point value that is in line with the effect the card has on the house edge of game when it is taken away from the game. This will help the player to calculate the effect of the all the cards that have been dealt and remove. Then he will be able to determine the house edge of the casino based on the existing cards.

Counting systems

There are different levels of card counting. High-low system is referred to level-one or single-level. This is because the count does not increase nor does it decrease higher than a single prearranged value. There is also multilevel count which include Wong Halves and Zen count. This multilevel has a better means of distinguishing between the cards.

There are also another card counting strategy known as the side count which is usually apply by high level players. Each of these card counting strategies may have their strong and weak points. But a player can make more money by applying this strategy.