Blackjack Card Counting System History

The card counting theory has its roots back in 1956 when Baldwin, Cantey, Maisel, and McDermott published in the "Journal of the American Statistical Association" a paper in which they were giving out a set of suggestions for the play of the game. The suggestions published back then were pretty similar with today’s blackjack basic strategy.

One year later, the same authors publish a blackjack manual in which they present the same system of play. The book generated a modest interest among people until Edward O. Thorp, saw the first suggestions published in the paper and realized that there were parts of the game play that had been missed in the past. The things he discovered were that the composition of the deck changed with each card dealt and that several combinations of the remaining cards favored the house and others favored the players

In 1962, Dr. Edward Thorp published "Beat the Dealer" which I believe is already a famous book among all blackjack enthusiasts. The book presented a simple and profound message that the decks of cards have memory, having each hand dependent on the makeup of the deck and by focusing on the cards already played the player can almost guess what other cards will be appearing in the next deck.

Using a computer Dr. Thorp continued his study on the blackjack card counting subject and made a statistical analysis called the Monte Carlo simulation. With this simulation he observed that 10's and Aces remaining in the deck favor the player, while 5's and 6's being left in the deck favor the dealer. This was the real period when card counting theory was actually born.

If a player could know which cards were left in the deck he could then make a decision on how to play each hand. If the deck was left with lots of 10's and Aces, the player would make a smart decision to bet high and if in the deck remained many 5’s and 6’s it was best for the player to bet low.

The blackjack card counting theory advices players to take strategy decisions based on the ratio of high cards to low cards. Using a card counting system to determine their betting decisions, players can gain a mathematical advantage over the house.

To use card counting in blackjack it does not mean that you need to have an exceptional memory. To apply card counting in blackjack and count cards left in the deck, you need to learn a specific card counting system in which you assign a point score to each card you see and then track only the total score (the "count".)

Blackjack card counting systems give different point values to different cards and there are more blackjack card counting systems to use if you want to learn how to count cards. One of these card counting systems is called the Hi-Lo count. This is a “level one” system and is one of the easiest blackjack card counting systems and is the best choice for card counting beginners.

Applying this card counting system in blackjack players need to assign values +1 for cards numbered 2 through 6, all tens are assigned as -1 and cards numbered 7, 8, 9 are given a count of 0.

A "level two" counting systems assigns +2 and -2 values to certain cards and this is a more complicated blackjack card counting system in which any possible advantage gained by the increased accuracy is usually counteracted by a greater occurrence of errors because of the system's greater difficulty.

Another known blackjack card counting system used by card counters is the "K-O". This is an unstable card counting system derived from Arnold Snyder's unbalanced Red 7 count, published in 1981in which is eliminated the need to estimate remaining decks to be dealt, a common source of player error in card counting.

Though the card counting theory seems to be the great solution for great winnings at blackjack, land based and online casinos did their best to minimize card counters advantage by either offering reduced odds on blackjack hands from 3:2 to 6:5 on single deck games, or by shuffling the packs randomly before the end. So, using a card counting system in blackjack it is profitable but you should not expect to make a fortune by using it.