Counting

Cards.

So that 21 (the blackjack thing) movie was on one of my movie channels and I've had nothing to do all day. So, bored, I was like "Hey, I'm obviously smarter than the actor playing the genius, I should be able to do that". So I started trying to keep a count on a single deck. I kept ending up with +1 as the count, which is one more than it should be. I was pretty frustrated because I didn't feel like I was messing up at all. Hours later, I realize the deck was missing a Jack (which I had somehow missed in my first inspection of the deck), I got a different deck and felt confident that I was actually keeping an accurate count. Then I tried timing myself, my average time was about 52.33 seconds for 52 cards. I'm pretty proud of the fact that I was able to keep count with one card per second dealing them for myself. With background noise and other distractions, as well as having them dealt to different locations will cause the time to increase, having someone else deal them for you will decrease the time.

If anyone is curious the counting system they use in the movie is
+1: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
+0: 7, 8, 9
-1: 10, J, Q, K, A

The idea behind this is that the higher the count, the greater the chance that the next card dealt will be a 10 through an Ace, which in blackjack is when you'd want to bet on being able to get close to 21 easily, as well as making it easier for the dealer to bust when they have 12-17 already. Most casinos use enormous amounts of card decks now in order to make the count required for increased probability of success a lot higher which requires more time and effort spent counting before making a move. They probably also have other new inventive ways to prevent counting since the events that the movie was based on actually occurred.

I just felt like sharing.

What can you really DO to prevent it though? I think you should go out and count.

Shuffling after each round of blackjack would nullify the count, it'd be pretty hard to actually use this method on the scale they did in the movie. You could probably pull a marginal profit by maintaining one count per round if they're using a single deck and shuffling often or just regularly counting if they use a lot of decks and don't shuffle often. But if they use a lot of decks and shuffle, you're screwed and you'll never be able to get to a high enough count to make your odds better before they shuffle again.

Exactly. I don't think you can beat the system by card counting anymore. They just use too many decks and shuffle too often.

In REAL blackjack (Like the "sport", like on TV) they use one deck and don't shuffle....Casinos don't play it properly then. Should register some complaints, or play the REAL blackjack like on TV .

no matter how many decks, no matter how many shuffles and cuts, if you go to a blackjack table at the casino you are likely going to be playing with at least 4 other players and the dealer making 7 cards available to see and assuming the dealer always has the best possible card available then that's 8 cards available. If your smart enough to can always hedge odds based on that alone.

Instinctively I always count cards, Its in my nature to view odds and probabilities and I have always enjoyed Card games at the casino, You wouldn't believe it if I told you but I have been to the casino about a dozen times in my life and I have never lost more then 100$ bucks in a go and I generally always walk away with more then I start with. Granted I enjoy Texas Hold em more frequently then any game since its a game designed for a single deck and you are playing against players not the house. BJ is certainly a game Ive studied intensely because as far as house advantage goes Black Jack offers the least amount for the House, I believe it is literally under a 1% advantage for the house.

If your talking about all games and what is favorites to play and what you can walk away with the most cash in the shortest time, then hands down it is Craps. If you don't know how to play craps my friends, well trust me it is literally the funnest Casino game ever invented and you can either spend 5 minutes in the game and become richer then you ever imagined or walk away with not even your shirt, its all in the luck of the roll and the strategy you enter into with it. Personally I always bet against the player and with the house when it comes to crap but most if not 99% of players tend to bet with the dice and not with the house which is why I personally almost always walk away with cash while the rest of the table walks away with sad faces.

I wasn't under any impression that it would have practical applications. I've always enjoyed mental exercises and being able to do things in my head. I even looked up a way to extract square roots on wikipedia one day because I was bored and practiced that week until I could do it in my head. It still takes a long time, but the ability to do it is valuable to my pride.

Oh, all of my friends refuse to play card games with me. I count cards naturally in any game. When we are only using one deck, (Which is almost always.) I can easily keep count of everything. One of my personal favorites is a game called "Kemps" where you have to get four of a kind and then get your partner to say "Kemps" before the opponent's say "No Kemps". Of course your opponents are doing the same thing. With my card counting, I always "No Kemps" the opponent's before they even have a chance to signal the opponent.

Isn't that just Signal...?