Editor’s note: When this
Card Counting article
originally ran in the
April issue, it contained
several typographical
errors, none of which were
the fault of the author.
We are printing it in its
entirety with those
corrections highlighted
with red type and
underlined. We apologize
for any confusion that the
article as originally
published may have caused.
It’s been well proven over
the past few decades that
the game of casino
blackjack can be beaten.
The way sharp players beat
the game is by keeping
track of the cards that
have been played, aka
“card counting.”
When card counting was
first publicized in the
1960s, the “plus/minus”
method of mentally adding
and subtracting points for
each high or low card that
came out became standard
operating procedure. Even
today, the old tried and
true “Hi/Lo” Count from 40
years ago remains probably
the most widely used card
counting system around.
With the Hi/Lo, you
mentally add a point every
time a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6
comes out and subtract a
point with each 10, jack,
queen, king or ace that’s
dealt. Anytime your
running total is a
positive number, it means
more little cards have
come out than big ones,
and if you have a negative
total it means the
opposite. With this
information, the card
counter can glean enough
extra accuracy in sizing
his next bet and playing
his hands to gain an
outright advantage in the
game.
HORSEPOWER vs. SIMPLICITY
As time moved into the
1970s and ‘80s, even more
sophisticated “plus/minus”
counting systems were
developed under the
natural assumption that
more is better. Some
super-structured systems
counted various cards as
+2 or -4 as they came out
in an effort to optimize
card counting efficiency.
It wasn’t realized until
blackjack simulation
software became widely
used in the 1990s that
these super-structured
count systems gained very
little in the way of
additional performance.
Ninety percent of the
advantage produced by
these super-systems could
be netted with the use of
the good old Hi/Lo Count.
Even at that however, the
basic Hi/Lo card counting
system was still too much
for 99% of the blackjack
players to handle. That
caused system designers to
think in the opposite
direction. The question
now became: How simple can
you make a card counting
system, and still have an
advantage over the house?
In blackjack, high cards
are more precious to the
player than the dealer.
For low cards, it’s vise
versa. For those reasons,
all card counting systems
involve monitoring the
dispersion of high vs. low
cards via one method or
another. With the help of
blackjack simulation
software, several simpler,
shorter, more user
friendly methods of
tracking high vs. low
cards were developed that
might bring beating the
house at blackjack within
the reach of the
recreational player. The
systems described in this
article all fall into that
category. They are much
easier to use than the
standard Hi/Lo Count and
underperform it
substantially as well.
Nevertheless, they still
carry enough oomph to
create a net advantage for
the player, albeit a small
one.
If card counting always
seemed too technical and
over your head, maybe you
can find a simpler system
in here to fit you.
CAUTION: It should be
strongly advised however,
that playing advantage
blackjack is serious
business. Even if learning
one of these systems
becomes child’s play for
you, implementing it
effectively and
responsibly is not. You
will need to adhere to the
system almost perfectly so
as not to lose your edge.
You will have to invest a
lot of money to win a
little. All card counting
systems require that you
vary the size of your bets
substantially, and
sometimes you will lose
several hands in a row
with your biggest bets out
there. If this reality
doesn’t rest well on your
stomach, then it might be
better for you to remain a
basic strategy player and
plan on being slowly and
gradually ground down by
the house. That being
said, we’ll start with the
bare bones, simplest
counting systems first,
and move slowly up the
ladder from there.
THE ACE/10 FRONT COUNT
Crossing over the line
from being the underdog to
being the favorite at
blackjack doesn’t get any
easier than this. The flip
side is, your advantage
using the “Ace/10 Front
Count” perfectly will be
a mere
1/4%.
That means if you vary
your bets between $10 and
$60 (with the averaged
wager being $17), you
should net $4 per hour
long term. Note that the
two key words here are,
‘long term.’ You see, even
after 100 hours at the
tables using the Ace/10
Front Count, your chance
of being ahead of the game
will be only 55%.
Sound like a waste of
effort? Remember the
alternative. If you played
perfect basic strategy
with no count system you’d
be at an
1/2%
disadvantage. After 100
hours at $17 per hand,
your fighting chance of
being ahead would be only
33%. Your most average
result over that period
would be a loss of $800,
but with the Front Count
it would be a gain of
$400. It’s your call, but
if you plan on playing
blackjack in the coming
years anyway, it ought to
be worth taking your game
up this critical notch.
Here are the basics of the
Ace/10 Front Count. Since
most blackjack games today
are played with a six-deck
shoe, the Ace/10 Front
Count was designed
specifically for that
particular setup. With
that many decks being
used, it usually takes a
couple of decks to be
dealt out before the shoe
can become substantially
biased to the high or low
side. That’s the sole
purpose of the Ace/10
Front Count. It merely
gauges the high/low
strength of the shoe at
the point where the first
two decks have been dealt
out. Using it as a
barometer, you’ll know
when to bet more money the
rest of the way, and when
to leave the table. A
particularly recreational
feature of the Ace/10
Front Count is that you
stop counting altogether
once the first two decks
of the shoe have been
dealt. From there on out,
you just play. That’s why
it’s called a “front
count.” Nevertheless,
following your Ace/10
Front Count religiously
can give you the overall
edge in the game.
HOW TO BEGIN
You must start at the top
of a fresh six-deck shoe.
The only cards you pay any
attention to are the 10s,
jacks, queens, kings and
aces. This is not a
traditional “plus/minus”
system; there is no adding
and subtracting of low vs.
high cards. You simply add
together all the 10s
through aces that were
dealt out during the first
two decks, no further. Do
this by starting off at
zero and counting forward
with each 10 or ace as it
appears. Once two decks
are in the discard tray,
stop counting altogether
and play the rest of the
shoe out according to how
many ace/10s you’ve
counted. Since there are
16 10s and four aces in
every deck, on average,
you will have seen 40
ace/10s after two decks
have been played, but not
always. That would merely
be “normal,” and when
things are normal, the
house still has the edge.
Sometimes however, you
will have seen say, 44
ace/10s in the first two
decks. At these times the
house will have an even
larger advantage than
normal on the remaining
shoe because so many high
cards are already dead.
Yet, sometimes you will
have seen maybe only 36
ace/10s in those first two
decks. That’s when you’ll
have an outright advantage
on the shoe and should
increase your bets as well
as play some of your hands
more aggressively than
usual.
The most sensitive part of
the whole Ace/10 Front
Count system is
determining when two decks
have been dealt. This you
do by looking at the
discard tray. You’ll need
to have a good picture in
your mind of what 104
cards (two decks) looks
like — not 98 or 110
cards, but within 3 or 4
cards of two decks. At
that point you’ll take
your read on the shoe and
either finish it out with
one unit bets, increase
your wagers substantially
— or leave the table.
REALITY CHECK
The Ace/10 Front Count is
not a key to riches. No
card counting system is.
The Ace/10 Front Count is
merely a super-simple,
recreational way to gain a
very small net edge over
the house at blackjack.
That’s reality number one.
Reality number two is, as
with any card counting
system, it needs to be
implemented with solid
financial backing. To play
it effectively, you should
have 12 times your maximum
bet in your pocket before
you sit down to play. This
rule goes for just about
any count system, no
matter how simple or
sophisticated. Playing
with any less is just
asking to get busted out.
Although investing a lot
of money to probably win a
little may seem like an
unattractive way to play
blackjack, it still beats
the snot out of losing
just like everybody else.
For a complete 13-page
instruction booklet on the
Ace/10 Front Count, send
$9 to Fred Renzey, P.O.
Box 598, Elk Grove
Village, IL 60009.
THE SPEED COUNT
The next step up on the
performance and complexity
ladder for recreational
blackjack counting systems
is the Speed Count. It’s a
bit tougher to learn than
the Ace/10 Front Count,
but performs somewhat
better as well. The Speed
Count makes unique use of
the handy statistic that
says the average completed
blackjack hand happens to
contain
2.7
cards. Now, since the key
low cards in the game (2s,
3s, 4s, 5s and 6s)
comprise 38% of all the
cards, then on average,
almost exactly one of
these low cards should
appear for every completed
blackjack hand. It’s true,
sometimes you’ll be dealt
a 10/10 and sometimes
you’ll end up with
A/3/9/5, but on average,
each hand will contain one
2 through 6.
Speed Count developer, Dan
Pronovost saw that this
could be a simple way to
infer the number of low
cards that have been dealt
thus far. In fact, the
more decks that are used,
the more accurate this
inference turns out to be.
Dan then teamed up with
Frank Scoblete and Frank
wrote, Golden Touch
Blackjack Revolution, a
182-page detailed book on
exactly how to apply the
Speed Count at the
blackjack tables. Here’s
basically how the Speed
Count simplifies and
avoids that tedious
plusing and minusing of
low and high cards as they
come out, which is so
traditional for full scale
card counting systems.
THE METHOD
As the hands are
completed, you simply
tally up how many 2s
through 6s were in all the
hands, including the
dealer’s hand. If there
were four players and one
dealer, there should’ve on
average, been five low
cards on the table. In
reality, there could’ve
been only two or three, or
maybe even seven or eight.
So what you do is subtract
the number of hands from
the total of low cards to
see whether that round
contained
an
average, an excess or
deprived number of low
cards.
In this example, if there
were seven low cards on
the board, your Speed
Count will have gone up
two points, indicating
that two extra low cards
have been dealt out of
play. If there were only
three low cards, your
Speed Count will fall two
points, informing you that
two extra low cards are in
the unplayed supply. A
rising Speed Count for the
round is a good thing and
a falling number is bad.
Perhaps the toughest part
of the Speed Count is that
you must remember and
carry over your net total
to the next round, and
keep updating all the way
through to the shuffle. If
your net Speed Count on
the first round went down
a bit and on the second
round it went up a lot,
you’ll now have a small
positive net Speed Count
total. The book offers a
valuable streamlined
format that makes this
task much easier, and
allows you to avoid using
negative numbers.
Once your Speed Count has
risen far enough above
your starting point to
erase the house edge and
create a player edge, it’s
time to increase your
bets. At a certain
elevated point in the
count, you should also
take insurance due to the
significant number of
extra 10s that remain
available. In its
continued effort to
streamline and simplify,
the Speed Count shies away
from playing various hands
different ways at various
counts. Instead, it uses a
handcrafted,
one-size-fits-all playing
strategy unwaveringly at
all Speed Count totals,
called Optimum Basic
Strategy. It differs from
standard basic strategy in
that a small cluster of
hands are always played as
if the count were just
modestly positive.
The Optimum Basic Strategy
reputedly performs better
than sticking to straight
basic strategy, yet is
simpler than playing some
hands two different ways
depending upon the count.
PERFORMANCE
In a typical six-deck
game, my simulations and
analyses suggest that the
Speed Count, played
appropriately would yield
a net player advantage
between
4/10% and 1/2%.
As with any card counting
system, you still need to
have about 12 maximum bets
available for action at
the beginning of any
playing session.
For complete details on
exactly how to implement
the Speed Count, get a
copy of Golden Touch
Blackjack Revolution
online:
www.goldentouchblackjack.com.
It retails for $24.95 and
comes with an
instructional CD.
THE K.I.S.S. COUNT
Once you go beyond the
improvisational card
tracking methods of the
Ace/10 Front Count and the
Speed Count, the next
practical rung up the card
counting ladder would be
an entry-level,
abbreviated plus/minus
count. That’s basically
what the KISS Count is. It
stands for “Keep It Short
& Simple.”
Although the KISS Count is
an honest-to-goodness
plus/minus system, it
counts only 50% of the
cards, ignoring less
significant ones. In doing
so, the KISS Count still
garners about two-thirds
as much net edge over the
house as the old full
scale Hi/Lo plus/minus
count. The KISS also
avoids the traditional
need to divide your
running count by the
number of remaining decks
in order to determine your
advantage, or true count.
Perhaps the most desirable
part of the KISS Count
however, is that it’s
directly upgradeable to a
better, more expanded
system once the user has
become comfortable with
it. The KISS I, II and III
systems were all developed
together with each
succeeding version being a
natural progression of the
last. This allows the user
to ease his way from
entry-level card counting
to full scale counting one
soft step at a time.
THE SYSTEM
With the KISS
I system,
you count the picture
cards (jacks, queens and
kings) as -1 point when
they come out, while the
4s, 5s and 6s are +1
point. The black deuces
(but not the red 2s) are
also grouped in with all
the 4s, 5s and 6s as a +1
to
“unbalance”
the system. That
eliminates the old
stumbling block of
converting to a true
count, and enables the
user to bet and play
entirely by the running
count.
To avoid ever dealing with
negative counts, the KISS
player begins his running
count off the top of the
shoe at a positive number,
then pluses and minuses
his count from there.
When the count rises to a
given point, he will have
the advantage and should
begin increasing his bets.
In addition, six hands
should be played
differently from basic
strategy at that same
point due to the extra
supply of available high
cards. The KISS Count also
recommends taking
insurance at a specific
running count or higher.
Once a player becomes
comfortable with the short
KISS I system, he can opt
to upgrade to KISS II by
simply adding the 3 and
the 10-spot to his count
structure as +1 and -1
cards, respectively.
Beyond that, he can later
upgrade to KISS III by
adding in the 7 on the low
side and the ace on the
high side. The KISS II and
III systems come with a
table of 21 dedicated
hands that get played
differently at various
running counts.
PERFORMANCE
In a typical six-deck
game, the KISS I Count,
used correctly will gain
about a 1/2% net advantage
over the house. The KISS
III is a full scale
unbalanced plus/minus
counting system and
performs on a virtual par
with the standard Hi/Lo
count.
Not to beat a dead horse,
but it must continually be
emphasized that no card
counting system has the
room to perform up to its
ability without proper
bankrolling. As usual, you
will need 12 maximum bets
in your pocket in order to
play the KISS Count right.
Complete detailed
instructions on how to
play and use all three
KISS Counts are presented
in Blackjack Bluebook II
by Fred Renzey. It retails
for $16.50 and is
available at
Amazon.com or
look for the Blackjack
Bluebook ad on the pages
of this magazine.
— Fred Renzey is a poker
and blackjack expert,
author and gaming
columnist. For a copy of
his 218-page poker manual,
77 Ways to Get the Edge at
Casino Poker, send $17.50
to: Fred Renzey, P.O. Box
598, Elk Grove Village, IL
60009.
