|
|
 |
| |
| |
| |
Blackjack Card Counting and Strategy
Blackjack strategy is vital to playing good and successful games of blackjack. Blackjack is also the perfect game for implementing advanced strategies since the basic blackjack strategy provides very minimal house advantages and thus when playing real money blackjack games and using some form of improvement over basic blackjack strategy you actually stand a chance of tipping the odds in your favor. It is thus a very good idea to research ways to improve your blackjack strategy beyond the basic strategy. It is because of this that blackjack card counting is so important to understand.
The Concept of Blackjack Card Counting
The statistics and decisions of basic blackjack strategy are based on the mathematical model of an infinite deck of cards. This is of course not the case in most real money blackjack games. Paying attention to all the cards being played and deriving mathematical decisions based on this very precise knowledge can theoretically tilt the odds in favor of the player. Of course, such precision is practically impossible to achieve from a human standpoint and remains completely theoretical as far as blackjack strategy is concerned. What you can do is count the high cards of blackjack - these are the tens and ten valued cards. That is usually sufficient information in order to shift the odds in favor of the player and is significantly less difficult to achieve. Such blackjack card counting has already been described in various books, films and documentaries. As a rule, blackjack card counting is something casinos do not like and have implemented various strategies in order to prevent since such blackjack card counting can adversely affect the house advantage of real money blackjack. The most effective of these preventive measures is simply reshuffling the blackjack deck often enough that blackjack card counting ceases to be effective.
Real Money Blackjack Card Counting
Despite what has been previously written regarding the effect of reshuffling on card counting there are still instances where blackjack card counting skills can well serve the real money blackjack player. One of these is when multiple players are playing against a single dealer (as is often the case in real money blackjack). Under such circumstances, viewing the other players cards already deployed can occasionally provide the blackjack card counting player with just the information he needs in order to tip the scales in his direction and modify the basic blackjack strategy appropriately. For example, if many 10 valued cards have been dealt other players in a given hand, the chance of turning up another one is thus somewhat decreased. Of course, such information benefits the player who is last to play far more than his fellow gamers. Another instance where real money blackjack actually encourages blackjack card counting is the case of the blackjack tournaments. In blackjack tournaments the objective is to do better than your opponents at blackjack. The prize is predetermined and is related to the number of tournament participants thus the casino could not care less if blackjack card counting is deployed and indeed, such a practice is even encouraged. In real money blackjack tournaments, blackjack card counting is an appreciated skill.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
