Many of us must have heard the stories of those Blackjack players who successfully outsmarted the dealer with their card counting skills and swooped down huge amount of money in the game. This is the reason why many newbie players are always too excited getting onboard with card counting skills. The skill does provide you a great edge over the dealer while helping you to critically analyse the Blackjack game.
Let’s dissect each aspect related to card counting in online Blackjack game and how it should be effectively done.
What is Card Counting?
The card counting is basically a strategy, implemented by skilled Blackjack players, to determine whether the next hand will turn out profitable for the dealer or the player. The players keep an account of all the high and low valued cards in order to have an edge over the dealer and thus they act accordingly. By knowing what cards have been drawn and given to the other players, a card counter is able to estimate which cards will be drawn. Card Counting isn’t easy at all. It requires a great deal of patience, determination and an intense practice. The practice can be really fun if you have your friends and family to play Blackjack online.
Why Should You Learn Card Counting?
For the very simple reason that it creates a great opportunity to bag all the money in the pot and strike for gold! Yes, if you play strategically in Blackjack you have a good chance to win real big in the game.
Since, Blackjack is a very easy to learn and play, it becomes quite interesting to pick up card counting for the beginner players. Card counting is a very effective practise since it gives an edge over the casino. It is, sometimes, frowned upon by the casinos but that’s not the case with the online social casino. Here, even if you’re just starting your Blackjack journey, you can learn how to play Blackjack through Blackjack tutorial.
How to go about Card Counting?
Card Counting becomes fairly easy if practised properly. The player should keep the following steps in mind while counting cards:
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Assign +1 to all the low value cards (2-6)
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Assign -1 to all the high value cards (10-A)
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Assign 0 to 7,8, and 9, considered as neutrals
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Start the count after the deck is shuffled
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If the running count after a round is positive then it means the remaining cards are high valued cards; increase your bet size
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If the running count after a round is negative then it means the remaining cards are low-value cards; place low bets/don’t increase current bet size
For e.g. this is how you shout assign the values to the cards
| Player 1 | Player 2 | Player 3 | Dealer |
Cards | K, 6 | 7, 3 | 4, 8 | 5 |
Count | -1, +1 | 0, +1 | +1, 0 | +1 |
As you can see, the running count in this round comes out to be positive. It suggests that there are high-value cards in the remaining deck which increases the chances of the dealer going bust. And that is why it is advised by many veteran players to increase the size of your bets in such cases. However, if the running count turns out to be negative then you have to be careful while placing bets as the dealer will have all the low valued cards for him which will make it easy for him to achieve a total closer to 21 without the risk of getting bust.
This is the simplest method of card counting, known as Hi-Lo system, among others like the True Count method in which the player tries to determine the number of decks in the shoe and then divide that number with the running count which will result into the true count. The card counter will decide accordingly from this true count, if it’s positive or negative. The same procedure will follow thereafter.
Card Counting Tips
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Choose the right card counting system
Hi-Lo is one of the easiest card counting system for beginners to experiment with. However, if you decide to get on with any other method, kindly keep in mind that you’re well versed with it and not attract any unwanted attention of other people.
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Be subtle and keep calm
Card counting is not illegal and thus there’s no point in freaking out. Stay calm and play the game swiftly as you would. After a few practices, you will become adept to the way the strategy needs to be applied in the game.
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Practice makes the man perfect
Practice more often and repeat it until you can pull it off flawlessly. With frequent number of practice sessions, perfection will follow.
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Online Blackjack helps you practice efficiently
You can practice your card counting skills by playing blackjack online since you won’t have to especially spend your real money.
We hope you must have learned a few things about card counting skills. Do you think you can pull off this skill nicely ? Why don’t you check out here?
Good luck!
Yes! I’ll be Card Counting Pro