Card Counting Live Online Blackjack
If you’re an avid blackjack player, at some point or another, have wondered about the concept of card-counting. You will find that many casino guides online, promote card counting as the all-elusive salvation to all your live blackjack woes.
Card counting has been hyped up so much in Hollywood movies, that plenty of blackjack players are looking to learn the art of card counting.
In essence, card counting is the tracking of cards that are dealt out in Live Blackjack, in a bid to determine the odds or predict cards that have not yet been dealt out. Sounds complicated? Well, it is, but does it work?
Read on to learn more about card-counting in Blackjack.
Online casinos in regulated states have both live dealer and software-based blackjack options. They also have a range of games with different rules and side bets. Add in the game variations based on the 21 concept — and you will find a wide array of choices. Advantage play through card counting is not possible at online casinos. Blackjack Card Counting at Live Casinos – Tips & Advice. Unfortunately, blackjack card counting is not an option while playing blackjack online. The online casino software randomly shuffles the deck(s) of cards with each new hand that is dealt. Blackjack card counting is a strategy that can only be applied to live casino blackjack. Assuming the conditions were perfect, live blackjack would be the best way to count cards. After all, you could sit at home and count without drawing as much suspicion from pit bosses and floor supervisors. Of course, online casinos aren’t dumb. They know their live tables are susceptible to being beaten through card counting.
What is card-counting in live Blackjack?
Card counting is a unique technique that lets blackjack players know when there is an advantage shift in their favour. When they know that this is occurring, they increase their bets substantially. On the other hand, when there’s a shift in the dealer’s favour, the player will make a bet on a smaller scale or no bets at all.
Players who are known to card-count lower the house edge by varying the bets they place. In general, it has been proven that high-value cards such as Aces and face cards are more beneficial to the player than to the dealer, while the low-value cards are more advantageous to the dealer.
Now that you understand how it works, we need to explain why card counting is not recommended. For starters, if you are trying to card-count at a brick-and-mortar casino and they notice, you are going to get banned. Your picture will be paraded around at other casinos as well. Casinos, in general, have 0 tolerance towards card counting in Blackjack.
Secondly, card counting when playing at the best online casinos doesn’t work for several reasons. If you are playing the generic table game version of Blackjack without the live dealer, then a hand is automatically generated by the software. Since it is generated after each round, the software picks cards from fresh decks of cards each time. Since casinos use Random Number Generators, there is no way to card-count when playing a table game version of Blackjack.
You can try to card-count, but it’s not even worth trying as it will prove fruitless. If anything, we recommend using your bankroll wisely and adopting a Blackjack strategy to help you make the right decisions, especially if you are starting out at the game of Blackjack.
Why live casinos are protected against card counting
How does card counting apply when you throw it in a live casino setting. The best casinos are transparent when it comes to card-shuffling. You will see shufflers ambling at the table shuffling openly on the camera.
You know when cards are being reshuffled. However, because reshuffling is done before all the cards in the shoe have been dealt out, it’s impossible to card count. Additionally, live casinos don’t reveal how many decks of cards they have in the shoe, so card counting in this case will be not only mind-numbingly boring and mentally exhausting, but also a pointless exercise.
You need to be aware the card counting takes a lot of training and it’s so mentally exhausting, that it is easy to make a mistake, making you lose focus on your blackjack strategy.
Even if you had to take up card counting as a side hobby, it requires stealth and patience for a minuscule profit and the risks that come with it are supremely high. If anything, we suggest you put your energy into a great betting strategy and to learn the rules of Blackjack properly to make the best possible decisions.
To sum it up, here are the reasons why card counting doesn’t work:
Live Blackjack is resistant to card counting
Many live blackjack games are played with eight decks of cards, and the shoe is changed with circa four decks of cards having been dealt. With many blackjack tables, there is auto shuffling to ensure that a new shoe is available for every had dealt.
Software keeps count
The live casino software is so sophisticated these days that it monitors and keeps count as the game is played out. Additionally, players who attempt to card-count are easily spotted and stopped if they appear to be taking advantage of the casino.
Players playing badly
Since there will be different types of blackjack players sitting at the table, you can expect a mixed blend of both experienced and inexperienced players at the table. The experienced players will be applying advanced techniques, while beginners will be fumbling throughout their gaming session. Since you will not be able to know who the good and bad players at the table are, this will have an impact on any potential card counting that you might aspire to the executive.
Dealers have no way of knowing
Don’t assume that the croupier knows something that you don’t. Croupiers see the cards at the same time you do, so there is no way for them to know when a winning hand is coming up. Croupiers won’t even get to see the card facing down until once the players have revealed their hand.
In conclusion
Having a basic blackjack strategy and managing your bankroll should be your main priority when playing at a live casino. Even if you somehow succeed in card counting, the wins are so small that it’s simply not worth it. The risks, on the other hand, are humongous.
Once you get caught, you will likely be banned. If you are playing online and the casino notices your card counting, you will be disconnected from the table with very little fuss. We can reassure you that the players who are indeed winning at Blackjack aren’t doing this by card counting, but rather by making the right decisions and knowing when to hit or stand.
If your main goal is to play with an advantage, there are more positive and legal ways to do so, without blackjack card counting.
Card counting is one of the most infamous strategies in blackjack, but it is also one of the least understood by the general public. Movies and television have portrayed card counting in blackjack to be a way to get rich quick. In films like Rain Man, we’re given the idea that card counters crush the casinos, winning hand after and hand and calling out exactly what cards will be coming. But of course, not just anyone can card count; it takes a mathematical genius who can calculate complex equations on the fly while keeping track of the positions of hundreds of different cards.
However, the truth behind card counting – for better and for worse – is very different. In truth, card counting doesn’t guarantee that a player will win big in the short run. Instead, the techniques used in card counting only serve to give the player the same sort of small edge usually held by the casino. On the other hand, there is good news; it doesn’t take a genius to count cards. Most people can learn simple card counting systems relatively quickly, and if you’re willing to put in the time, chances are that you’ll be able to learn more complex systems that promise the player a slightly bigger advantage over the house. However, it does take some hard work, and it’s certainly not an easy road to getting rich.
If you just want to jump straight in and get started, you can learn how to card count using our infographic here.
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How Card Counting Works
Typically, casino blackjack is dealt from a shoe of somewhere between six and eight decks. The cards are dealt until a certain amount of the shoe has been dealt – often, something like 75% of the shoe will be used before reshuffling. This means that by tracking which cards have come out of the shoe during play, we can have a pretty firm handle on which cards are still waiting to be dealt.
How can this information help the player? It turns out that having certain cards in the deck is great for the player, while other cards are better for the dealer. As a general rule, big cards favor the player, while small cards favor the dealer. More specifically, aces and tens are very good for the player, while fives and fours are great for the dealer.
This is mostly because aces and tens do a lot of things that the player can take advantage of with the options they are given. For instance, the player will get more blackjacks, which pay the player 3-2, while the dealer only “wins” the player’s bet if they make a blackjack. The player can also stand on hands below 17, while the dealer cannot, meaning that the dealer will bust quite often in shoes that are still rich in tens. Furthermore, the player will do better on double downs (when the player almost always will be happy with a ten and often with an ace), can start taking insurance if the deck is rich enough in tens, and can surrender more confidently in spots where the dealer is likely to have a very strong hand.
In short, everything the player can do works even better when the deck has plenty of tens and aces available to him. Conversely, small cards thwart these efforts. If many small cards have already come out of the shoe, the rest of the deck is very, very favorable to the player.
Card counters can take advantage of knowing how good the remaining deck is in several ways. As we said earlier, card counters will sometimes take insurance based on the remaining cards in the shoe, and on rare occasions, they might even deviate from basic strategy based on their counting. However, the biggest way that card counters pick up an advantage is by simply betting more money when the player has the advantage, and betting less (or avoiding playing altogether) when the odds swing too far in favor of the dealer.
Dangers and Challenges of Card Counting
Here’s the good news: contrary to popular belief, card counting is not illegal. As long as you’re not cheating or using a device to help you play, you’re welcome to play each hand however you want, including mentally keeping track of the cards that have been played and adjusting your play accordingly.
But that doesn’t mean that casinos can’t fight back against card counters. While you can try to count cards, casinos can also try to make the conditions for card counters difficult or impossible. For instance, a suspicious casino may start shuffling their cards more often to lower the deck penetration, thus making counting much less effective. If you’re a known counter, they may even bar you from playing blackjack entirely, as the casino has the ability to simply refuse to let you play at any time.
This means that one of the biggest challenges for a card counter is properly balancing taking advantage of the information they have with covering up the fact that they’re counting at all. If there was no danger of being caught, the player could simply bet the minimum until the odds were in the player’s favor, then switch to betting the table maximum. However, trying this strategy is a sure way to get yourself banned from playing blackjack! Instead, most blackjack systems rely on small, incremental changes that hope to keep the player from getting caught, while still doing enough to overcome the house edge.
One other danger in card counting is overestimating how big an edge you have over the house. Yes, in the long run, a good card counter does expect to come out ahead of the casino. However, your results will prove to be just as volatile as they are when simply playing basic strategy; it’s only in the long term that you’ll see your small advantage realized, while in the short term, you’ll see significant wins and losses.
Card Counting Systems
There are a number of different card counting systems available, including the following:
- Ace-Five Counting Systems – Easiest card counting system to learn
- Unbalanced Counting Systems
- The Knock-Out Count (and derivative systems)
- Revere Counts
- Wong Halves
These systems vary from very simple (Ace-Five and Hi-Lo) to devilishly complex (Wong Halves), but most of them share some common elements. For instance, different cards are given values that the player must keep track of during the course of a given shoe. Cards that are good for the player are given negative values (since we’d rather they stay in the shoe), while cards that are bad for the player are given positive values. In many systems, this number is then divided by the approximate number of remaining decks to get a true count, which tells the player how rich the remaining shoe is in good cards.
In most counting systems, the player will use this true count to decide how much to bet on a given hand, and whether or not to take insurance if the dealer is showing an ace. Occasionally, the count will also tell players when to abandon basic strategy and play a hand differently, based on the fact that the remaining composition of the deck has changed the odds in favor of an alternative play.
Some card counting systems also ask players to keep a separate side count of aces. This is because aces have a very different effect on the game than other cards. While players want to bet more when there are lots of aces available (thanks to the fact that they make blackjacks more common), they don’t have as much impact on how you should play hands as tens. Thus, more complex systems will keep an ace count independent of an overall count, in order to make this distinction.
This brings us to an important point: there is a tradeoff to make when choosing a card counting system. More complex systems offer bigger potential rewards, but also come with more risk. Players are much more likely to make mistakes when trying to keep track of extra information, and just a few mistakes can be enough to remove whatever advantage the player has gained. If there’s a choice between using a simpler system that you’ve mastered, or a more complex system that you’re unsure about, it’s almost always better to pick the simple system, even if the more complex system promises a bigger edge against the house.
Blackjack Card Counting Practice
Ace-Five Counting Systems
Perhaps the simplest card counting system around is the ace-five count. This is a name given to a variety of different card counting systems that share one thing in common: they only keep track of aces and fives, ignoring all the other cards in the deck. This is done because aces are the best card in the shoe for the player, while fives are the worst.
The basic idea is simple. Start with a count of zero. Each time you see a five, add one to your count. If you see an ace, subtract one from your count. Higher counts will be better for the player.
Where counting systems vary is in how you use this information to change how much you bet during play. Some will advise you to double you bet every time the count gets beyond a certain point, while others say to bet a certain number of units based on the given count. Many try to reduce your losses in bad shoes by having you quit at a certain negative count. However, the basics are the same; when the count gets high (at least +2 or higher), the player should bet more than the minimum. The higher the count goes, and/or the longer it stays high, the more the player should bet, up to a maximum amount that the player is comfortable betting on any single hand.
Ace-five counting systems usually don’t require changing the way you play; you should simply use basic strategy and rely on your bigger bets making you a winner when the shoe is good for the player. The advantage gained by the player using these systems isn’t big, but it usually gives the player a slight edge over the house – and combined with the comps and rewards players earn while playing, can turn blackjack into a game that’s more lucrative and more fun for the player.
Blackjack Card Counter Online
Final Thoughts on Blackjack Card Counting
Before learning a card counting system, it’s essential to first master basic strategy. The basis of any card counting system is playing perfect basic strategy, since making simple mistakes will undermine whatever advantage you hope to gain through counting. Even if you have to use a basic strategy chart to help you at the table to help you, always remember that you need to master the fundamentals before moving on to more advanced strategies if you want any hope of succeeding.
It’s also worth noting that there are a large number of blackjack games in which you won’t be able to effectively count cards at all. For instance, many casinos now use continuous shuffling machines, which essentially remove all deck penetration. This is also true in most online casinos. Some online casinos use a shoe made up of infinite decks, meaning that your odds of getting any given card are always exactly the same, no matter which cards you’ve seen. Other online casinos deal out of a regular (simulated) shoe, but shuffle the cards after each hand. This has the same effect of eliminating penetration, just as with a continuous shuffling machine, making card counting impossible.