“ Sir, please step away from the table”. The life of a blackjack card counter.

CHAPTER 1

When I got home from the airport I took my cowboy friend’s advice and looked up BJ21 on the Internet. The forums were much more involved than I had expected. The lingo was unfamiliar and their banter was inscrutable. Terms like wonging, deck penetration, late surrender, S17 vs H17, combinatorial analysis, hi low, advanced omega II, Indices, risk of ruin, and ramp betting etc. The subject matter was much more deep and broad than I had imagined. I was intrigued. I could tell these posters were intelligent and they seemed confident. The man who ran the site had a pseudonym , Stanford Wong, and I decided to buy his book, Professional Blackjack . Another pseudonym author, Bryce Carlson, wrote Blackack for Blood which became my blackjack Bible. I decided to learn his card counting system, advanced omega II. It was one of the two strongest counting systems, and even though it was more difficult it promised superior results
I first memorized blackjack basic strategy, which gives a foundation for the best way to play. Using perfect basic strategy still gives the casino an edge, but it is not a great edge and will give you the best odds of any game in a casino.
Have you ever heard people say at a blackjack table, it’s OK to do something, as long as you are consistent? For example, if you don’t like to hit your 16 against a dealer’s 10, then they say to either do it all the time or never do it. In the world of card counting this could not be more wrong. As the cards are dealt, there are times when the remaining decks in the shoe are rich in either high cards or low cards. If you know the deck is bloated with big cards, then you would not hit on your 16 versus the dealers 10. Conversely, if the remaining shoe is filled to the brim with little cards, then you would gladly hit. That’s where the indices come into play. You have to memorize every single possible combination of what your two cards are versus the dealers up card. You also have to learn the indices for double downs, splits, double downs after splits, and soft ace hands, like you hold an ace and a 7 vs a dealers 4. (Btw, You should always double down on that scenario if the count is greater than -8, which it usually is, so it’s a good play. However, most players will not do it. )
After mastering basic strategy, the next step is learning the counting system and memorizing the value of each card. A 2 and 3 is +1, a 4, 5 and 6 are +2, a 7 is +1, an 8 is 0, a 9 is -1, and a 10 and all face cards are -2. An ace is 0.
So you have to train your brain to be able to see the cards both as their actual values, like an eight and a five equals 13, but in our system it is 2.
Surprisingly, as you go through a deck of cards it’s not as difficult as it appears if you practice enough!
Next Up will be by preparation in learning the systems and planning my first blackjack trip!