Blackjack Expert Explains How Card Counting Works | WIRED

[00:02] perfect basic strategy keeping accurate track of the running count converting that running count into a true Count based on the number of decks remaining and then sizing my bet proportionally based on the true

[00:17] Count what makes Blackjack different from all the other games is that it's based on dependent events which means that the past actually affects the probability of what's going to happen next now the car counting system that I

[00:30] recommend is called the high low count system we have the high cards tjack queen king and Ace and these are good for the player but they have a count

[00:42] value of minus one each because as high cards are depleted from the game player Advantage goes down the next group of cards is the low cards 2 3 4 5 and six

[00:55] and these cards are good for the dealer so naturally these are going to each have a count value of plus one because as these low cards are depleted that means there's fewer of them that can hurt you in future play and the third

[01:08] and final group of cards is a neutral cards 78 and n and these cards don't have account value at all because they don't favor the house or the player if we were to look at these three cards the count of these is minus one cuz we have

[01:24] two high cards and one low card for these three cards they have a count of plus two so we have two low cards which each have a count Value Plus One and the neutral card has no count [Music]

[01:39] value now what most people would do once they learn the high low count values is to adjust the count one by one so for example they would think -1 + 1 -1 + 1

[01:52] example they would think -1 + 1 -1 + 1 -1 -1 -1 + one and so the net of all that work would be - 2 so that required adjusting the count eight times but if you use a technique called meaningful pairs you're going to

[02:07] reduce your workload and improve your speed dramatically so looking at this speed dramatically so looking at this first hand we have a cancel H low another high low combination another cancel so no work required here we're

[02:19] going to have two high cards so we're going to go minus two and once again another cancel and a neutral card doesn't mean anything with regard to the count so using the pairs we only have to

[02:33] adjust to count one time now once the hands are actually played out and players are hitting and doubling down we will count them one at a time so we're at minus 2 we take a hit that brings us to

[02:47] minus1 another hit Min -3 back to -2 and we end around at Min -3 so the

[02:59] running count is very important there's one more step you need to convert that running count into what we call the true Count so this right here is about one

[03:12] deck of cards the true Count is simply the running count divided by the number of decks remaining rounded to the nearest half deck so for example if you have a running count of plus 9 and there's 4 and 1/2 decks remaining well 9

[03:28] over 4 and 1/2 gives you a true Count of plus two and as true Count increases player Advantage increases so the general idea is to bet little or nothing when you don't have the advantage and then bet proportionally more as your

[03:43] advantage increases so as far as how we would size our bets we would bet true Count minus one betting units so for example if you were had to have a betting unit of $25 and the true Count is+ two 2 - 1 is

[04:00] 1 so you should bet $25 so let's say the running count is + 20 as you can see we have one deck that has come out meaning that there's five decks remaining so that gives us a true Count of 20 divided by five decks

[04:15] remaining true Count of plus 4 we're going to subtract one to get the optimal bet of three units and let's use a betting unit of $100 so running count of

[04:27] betting unit of $100 so running count of 20 so we're going to play this out now we have to play basic strategy as we're keeping track to the

[04:44] count now the count has moved down a bit to plus 17 so we have a plus 17 count divided by about 4 and 1 half decks remaining so we're still at about a true Count of plus4 so we can keep the same bet

[05:09] running count has increase to 23 so 23 with four decks remaining about gives us a true Count of plus six so how much should we bet well five units so now you get a sense of everything that you have to do you have to play perfect

[05:22] basic strategy keep track of the running count convert that into the proper true Count based on the decks remaining and and then hopefully have enough leeway to be able to interact with other players and pay attention to what's going on