Blackjack Card Counting Strategy

By far the best strategy to use at the Blackjack table is card counting. A skilled card counter will always know what cards are out of the game, and what cards are still in the deck. Knowing this is very important as it allows us to know when to bet big.

Blackjack counting strategy is based on the fact that there are more ten valued cards in the deck than any other value cards. This makes sense as 10's, Jacks, Queens and Kings are all ten valued cards. If we have this in mind we can keep track of how many high value cards and low value cards are left in the deck.

There are several card counting strategies out there. Here is a simple and easy to use one. Try this one at first just to familiarize yourself to this strategy.

When cards such as 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 6's, 7's and 8's are dealt out, then the player has the edge over the house.

When cards such as 9's, 10's and Aces are dealt out, the player loses his advantage. There is a very complicated mathematical theory behind this but we won't go into that. The simple explanation is that your chances of getting a natural Blackjack are greater when there are more high value cards in the deck such as Aces and ten valued cards.

Pay attention which cards are dealt out of the game. Then, when the deck is favorable for you, bet big. If you notice that the deck is favorable for the house, bet low.

When counting cards the first thing to know is that you must give every card in the deck a value. The values assigned to each card are:

• 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 have the value of +1;
• 7, 8 and 9 have the value 0;
• 10, Jacks, Queens, Kings and Aces have the value -1.

All you have to do now is add these values in your head. For example if an Ace, a Queen, a 3, a 10, an 8, a 9, an Ace and a King are dealt out, your score should be -3.

These are the amounts you should bet when counting cards:

• For a count of 1 or less (our -3 count from above would fall into this category) bet 1 unit.
• For a count of 2 or 3, bet 2 units.
• For a count of 4 or 5, bet 3 units.
• For a count of 6 or 7, bet 4 units.
• For a count of 8 or more, bet 5 units.

The card counting strategy is most efficient when only one deck of cards is used. The blackjack counting strategy that we have just shown you here is designed for a one deck game. For multiple deck games we must first find what the "true count" is. You can calculate the true count rather easily.

Just divide the running count to the number of decks in the game. The running count is simple math. As cards are dealt out of the deck just add the value attributed to them. For example if mostly small cards are dealt out, the running count is high. This means that the deck is favorable and you should bet high.