Blackjack Basic Strategy and Card Counting
Does blackjack card counting work? Yes it does, at an average (and that is if you're really into it), you might get a chance to win up to 44% of all the hands dealt. But card counting alone doesn't really bring everything into your favor in a game of blackjack.
What players (especially those who want to learn card counting) really need to know first is basic strategy. Card counting by itself is dead without the foundation of blackjack basic strategy. Every decision you make during a game of blackjack should be just a matter of reflex.
Often, when you look around a table you can tell if a player is new depending on how he makes his decisions. You should be aware when to hit, stand, split, and double down by simply looking at the dealer's up card and your own hand. But that's not all there is to basic strategy.
Learn to play the blackjack soft hands and hard hands as a matter of course. Blackjack basic strategy is the foundation to make card counting really work. If you have 20 solid hours of learning and practice on basic strategy that is an average required time to get you up to speed.
Moving on card counting, there are two general categories of the many card counting systems out there. They are the unbalanced and the balanced counts. There is little difference between a simple and a complex card counting system. There is a difference, but it isn't really that much.
We'll consider High-Low as an example of a card counting system. This is a balanced card counting system in that it considers that there is an equal number of cards that benefit the players and the blackjack dealer.
Like other basic card counting systems, the High-Low card counting system assigns a positive number (i.e. +1) to the cards Two to Six. The Seven, Eight, and Nine cards are assigned a zero value (meaning they're neutral in this card counting system). Finally, the face cards, the Tens, and Aces get a -1 value.
As we see the cards Two to Six being dealt, we count from zero adding +1 for every card that comes up. We do a -1 for every face card, Ace, or Ten dealt.
If we have get a pretty high total in our count along the game we would raise our bets since we expect that there'll be more high number cards left in the deck waiting to be dealt. More opportunities for us, pretty bad picture for the dealer.
If we get the opposite amount (a low total) using this card counting system (meaning that we made too many -1's) this situation means we bet only at the minimum. Since there are too many low number cards. Pretty good picture for the blackjack dealer.
Card counting with blackjack basic strategy will prove to be a useful combination next time you play. These require practice and time before you really get to use them properly.