QUESTION: Are there any secrets to winning at blackjack? — Craig S.
ANSWER: Secrets? Yes — and one that’s been around for almost five decades: counting cards.
Counting cards is nothing more than wagering more money when the cards remaining in the deck are rich in 10s and aces. What counting cards does is establish mathematically the degree to which the as-yet-undealt deck favors either the player or the dealer by tracking the changing imbalance of big to little cards.
A deck that has previously dealt a bunch of low cards and is now rich with high cards (10, jack, queen, king, ace) favors the player, while the reverse, an excess of low cards (2, 3, 4, 5, 6) remaining, favors the dealer.
At your kitchen table with a shuffled deck of cards, try this one-level count system called Hi-Lo. At the outset, assign the following count values to each card:
• 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (small cards): +1
• 7, 8, 9 (neutral cards): 0
• 10, J, Q, K, ace (big cards): -1
With a starting figure of zero, slowly peel off one card at a time, adding to, or subtracting from, the constantly shifting figure as each card’s value changes it.
On a live game, you would factor in possible discards, then vary your bets from one hand to the next, guided by the constantly updated imbalance figure, which predicts whether the next hand will favor you or the dealer.
Card counters, in theory, have an advantage of 0.5% to 1.5% over the casino on a handheld or shoe game. At a casino that offers only continuous shuffling machines, you gain no advantage by counting.
QUESTION: What do you think of a betting strategy where you make a single even-money, 50/50 bet like a pass line bet in craps instead of trying to grind it out a few dollars at a time? If I lose, I’m done for the day. But if I win, I’ve doubled my money and I go home a guaranteed winner. — Charlie H.
ANSWER: Your betting strategy is sound provided you have a 50/50 chance of doubling your money. But with a pass line bet, it’s not quite 50/50. The house still holds a 1.4% edge against your play.
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I’ll agree that you are more likely to double your money with a single bet than by trying to do it a few bucks at a time. The more time you spend on a dice game, the better the casino’s chances of grinding away at your bankroll, no matter how small your bets are.
Mathematician Jess Marcum illustrated this in 1980 when he figured out how time affects gambler odds. He figured that a player who bets $1 per crap game for two months straight would have only one chance in 2 trillion of winning $1,000 before he lost $1,000. But by playing just 25 minutes and betting $200 every bet, the same gambler would increase his odds to 1.15 to 1.
Conversely, with a single bet, there is no way of minimizing your losses. One loss, and it’s adios, Charlie. What’s more, what about all the time, money and energy expended just to get to the casino to make a single wager? You’ll spend more time parking your car than you would making one pass line bet.
MARK PILARSKI is a contributing editor for numerous gaming periodicals. E-mail questions to pilarski@markpilarski.com.
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