---
title: 'Screwing up the Running Count: 5 Common Mistakes'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=2Pihn0rYdaQ'
video_id: '2Pihn0rYdaQ'
date: 2026-07-07
duration_sec: 0
---

# Screwing up the Running Count: 5 Common Mistakes

> Source: [Screwing up the Running Count: 5 Common Mistakes](https://youtube.com/watch?v=2Pihn0rYdaQ)

## Summary

This video covers the five most common mistakes card counters make when keeping the running count, based on the trainer's 15+ years of experience and training hundreds of counters. Each mistake is explained with examples and solutions to help viewers avoid costly errors.

### Key Points

- **Forgetting to Count the Dealer's Card** [01:28] — Players often forget to count the dealer's up card, leading to an inaccurate running count. Every card must be counted once and only once.
- **Double Counting the Dealer's Up Card** [01:57] — Some players count the dealer's up card twice, especially when the dealer's procedure is unusual. This inflates the count.
- **Confusing Sixes and Nines** [03:40] — Players misread sixes and nines by looking at the bottom corner instead of the top corner. This simple fix solved the problem for one trainee.
- **Forgetting to Update Count During Hand** [04:08] — During splits and doubles, players stop updating the running count. The rule: update count before any other action (adding hand, making decisions, celebrating).
- **Replacing Running Count with True Count** [06:23] — A player mistakenly repeated the true count instead of the running count, causing bet and deviation errors. Always repeat the running count, pausing only to calculate true count.
- **Brain Farts and Missed Cards** [07:40] — Even experienced counters miss cards. Acceptable standard: off by no more than one per six-deck shoe. Train to high standards.

### Conclusion

Mastering the running count is essential for card counting success. By avoiding these five common mistakes and training to high accuracy standards, you can maintain a winning edge against the casino.

## Transcript

But, if you can't accurately keep the count every round, you have no chance of count every round, you have no chance of gaining the edge against the casino. know my story, I've been a card counter for over 15 years. I've personally won
over 600,000 as a card counter. I've run teams responsible for winning close to Apprenticeship, we've trained more successful card counters than anybody. count cards. If you spent any amount of time practicing card counting, you know
that the skill doesn't happen overnight. Sometimes, your running count is wrong, and if you don't know why it's wrong, you can't address it. And so, what's same mistake over and over again? I still remember the first person I ever
trained to count cards. It was my buddy CJ, and he was a smart guy. He picked it sometimes be wrong and wouldn't know why. And my teammates and I were not going to send him out with our money into the casinos if he couldn't keep his
frustrating. He was frustrated, I was frustrated, and then we finally figured out what he was doing wrong. We fixed it, and the problem was solved. Over the years, as I've trained card counters, there've been the same handful of things
I want to share them with you guys so that you can be aware of these issues, making these same mistakes. Well, the first thing I would say is when you would say more often than not, when someone gets messed up on the running
card. And there are a few different ways this happens. Let me show you what I forgetting to count the dealer's card. So, imagine we have this scenario, and we're counting. We say 1 2 1 0,
still 0, and then start playing your hand out. Sometimes, I see players just is you have to have a system that takes every card into account once and only once, flawlessly, without exception. So, the second scenario would be double
counting the dealer's up cards. We're in the same situation. We've got 1 2 1 0. running one, and then we play it out, and we're saying we're still one, and then this guy's got a blackjack, and this guy stays, and then 0 1 0. So, if
counted this three twice. And so, actually, what the count should have been was it was one, and then it would be 0 D1 or -1 or -1 or
need to make sure that you're counting the dealer's up card once and only once. There's a couple reasons this might happen. One is if you just count it twice, but the other is following the dealer's procedure. So, let's back this
up. And when the dealer plays out their hand, what they do 99% of the time is they slide the up card over to the player's left, then the whole card goes to the player's right, and then any hits happen over here again
to the player's left. So, then you know that the player's card is always the second from the player's right. But occasionally, you get a dealer that does something like this, and then, if you're not paying attention, you think that
then you count these, which cancel each other, but that's not actually correct. If you get these flipped in your head, you got to be paying attention which was the dealer's going to follow procedure 100% of the time. So, you got to be
aware of what the dealer's up card is, and make sure you don't count that card actually what was happening with my buddy CJ, and it seems so simple, almost couple different card counters, and that's that they got the sixes and the
nines confused. So, let me show you what I mean. If you look at the bottom corner six." Then you're you're mistaken, because that's a nine. Or in this situation, if you look at the bottom corner, you say, "Oh, it's a nine." No,
actually that's a six. And same with this right here. And so, all he had to do was become aware of not looking at the bottom corner for a six or a nine, but actually the top corner for those cards. Once we figure that out, problem
solved, he never screwed up on the running count again. So, third problem I see is when players forget to update the running count as they're playing out their hand. And this is a big one. And I can usually tell when it's happening and
it looks something like this. So, let's say we have a hand like this and our running count right now would be three and then you got to make a play decision, you split, you double,
you double, you hit, you got to split again, whoops, you double, you double, you got to double again,
busts and you're really excited and I ask, "What's the running count?" and you say, "I have no idea. I stopped counting a long time ago." This happens all the time. We're not at the casino to play blackjack. We're at the casino to
generate EV or more specifically positive EV. If we're not updating the count with every card that comes out of the shoe, then we're not going to be wasting our time at the tables or worse yet, we're just gambling. So, when
you're training at home, remember the first thing you do with every card that running count. Before you add up your hand, you update the running count. strategy decision, you update the running count. Before you high-five the
other players at the table because the dealer just busted with your top bet out Then you high-five the other players at the table because the dealer busted with your top bet out there. The point is, you update the running count with every
anything else. Let's redo that hand, but we'll do it properly now. You've got a running three and you say, "I'm going to split." Still three. I'm going to double. Two.
Two. Three. I'm going to split. Still three. I'm going to double. Still three. I'm going to double. Still three. Two.
And bust. Running one, and we're repeating one, one, one. That's the way you need to play every hand. All right, the fourth mistake I see people make, and this one is really scary, is when a player changes their true count to their
on our blackjack team, and unfortunately, he wasn't winning trying to figure out what what might be going on here. We test him out. We tested all our players regularly. And in this situation, let's say we've got
about five decks left, and he had a running 20. So, he has to figure out his running 20. So, he has to figure out his bet, and so we'd say, "20 / 5 decks left means we have a true four." And we say, "What's your running count?" Which
should have been 20, and he says, "Four." So, instead of saying the running count, he'd replaced that with the true count of four. And so, then he four with every card that came out, rather than adding to the number 20.
This is a huge mistake. That means that your bets are going to be way off. Your playing deviations are going to be way off. You cannot afford to make this mistake. How do you avoid doing this? Well, what you have to do is the number
that's repeating in your brain over and over is that running count. So, you'd be saying 20, 20, 20. And you're going to have to pause it for a split second to have to pause it for a split second to say, "20 / 5 is a true four." And then
you go back to 20, 20, 20. You don't say, "20 / 5 is four, four, four, four." where you're not going to make this mistake. So, this last mistake that I
see people make is I'm just going to call it a brain fart. And the reality is that as a card counter, sometimes you miss a card. So, what do we do about that? Well, the first thing is you have to have very high standards. You have to
train to a point where these mistakes are incredibly low. Secondly, you have to have a standard that is still going to give you a very strong winning edge. standards we've had for every team I've ever run. For our teams, what we
considered acceptable is that in a six-deck shoe, if I were to test you out or watch you play in a casino, you would not get off on the running count by more than one per shoe. So, you can have your running count
wrong at most by running one for an entire six-deck shoe. That means you can't get your running count wrong by one multiple times in a shoe. You can't ever have your running count off by two or three or or more. Train to those
standards, and I would say that's within what's acceptable for a shoe game. For double deck, I'd say you want to be even more accurate, because your running quickly in double deck or single deck. So, until then, keep grinding, put in
the work, and for weekly stories, updates, and advice for card counters, notifications turned on, and you can learn it more at learn it more at blackjackapprenticeship.com.