Bone: I’ve counted for pocket money since about 1980, but around 1993 I decided to go ‘full time’. I played blackjack for about six months, during which I discovered that poker was more profitable at the limits I played, and you didn’t have to skulk around the casino. So I played poker for a couple of years before finally getting bored with it and going back to work. I thought I had found the perfect job, but it was amazing how rapidly I got tired of just sitting at a smoky table playing cards.
I still play blackjack occasionally, and poker more often, but I’m happy actually creating stuff for a living again.
bordelond: The ‘tens count’ you use no doubt reduces the house edge, but probably not enough to make you a winning player. You might be close to breakeven with the house, though.
For shoe games, a highly effective count is the simple plus-minus count. Here’s how you do it - count the 2-6 cards as +1, face cards and Aces as -1. The 7,8,9 are neutral. So all you have to keep in your head is one number.
For ease in counting, learn to count in pairs. For instance, if the dealer deals out a 2T, you should recognize instantly that that pair has a count of zero because they cancel out. Hands like KQ have a count of -2, and a hand like 23 would have a count of 2. Practice with a deck of cards, flipping over cards two at a time and counting the pair. Eventually, it should be pretty much instant. When I was practicing, I could glance at a 7-player table and count all the face-up cards in a second or two while maintaining a conversation with a pit boss and not having him realize I could do it. It’s really not that hard.
So now that you’re keeping a count, there’s one more step you need to do when deciding how to use the information: You want to divide your ‘running count’ by the number of decks still left to play, to give you a ‘true count’. So if you’re playing a 4-deck shoe, and roughly one deck has been dealt out, there are three left. Now let’s say the hands you can see are 2T, 23, 55, 4A, AQ, 44, 68, and the dealer is showing a six. What’s the running count? Start at zero, and count the pairs and keep the sum only in your head, like this: 0, 2, 4, 4, 2, 4, 5, 6. You should be pretty much saying that in your head. So you have a running count of six. But you look in the discard, and estimate that one deck has gone by. So there are three decks left, and the true count is 6/3, or +2.
Depending on the rules, a true count of +2 to +3 is the dividing line where the odds shift in favor of the player. So what you want to do is bet the house minimum whenever the count is below that, and the table limit when the count goes over that value. But that’s pretty easy to spot, so you might want to double up at +3, and double up again on the next hand if the count stays high, and do it again. After all, losing gamblers often ‘let it ride’, so it’s not necessarily suspicious.
The other half of a counting system is learning to vary your playing strategy based on the count. For example, you should stand on 16 vs a dealer’s ten at any positive count, and hit at any negative count. You should always take insurance at counts greater than +3, and never take it below that number. There are 18 basic strategy changes that you should memorize - after that, the return for memorizing the more obscure runs into diminishing returns.
Really, that’s all there is to counting. It’s not hard. I could teach anyone how to count cards in a weekend. Poker is much, much harder.
That’s not to say that there aren’t a lot of things outside of the counting system to learn to make you a successful counter. You need to learn how to recognize good and bad games. You need to learn how to calculate your bet sizes based on your bankroll size and the Kelly criterion. You need to learn how to hide the fact that you’re counting. You need to learn the discipline of never deviating from the math. But none of this is difficult.
