I just got done watching an old episode of numb3rs from season 2 called, “Double Down.” You can download it on i-tunes if you haven’t seen it.

The episode features a card counting team that ends up getting shot down one by one (literally) and the police department investigates. If you know anything about this show it always involves some sort of high level math problems that end up solving the case. In this case, the math featured on the show is the math behind card counting.

The show does a pretty good job of showing what card counting really is and what team play looks like. The thing the show does that is ridiculous is it portrays card counting as really dangerous.

They show also investigates whether card counting is legal. The show accurately portrays how casinos will often lump card counters into the cheater category, where mathematicians understand that it is just using a mathematical system to beat a game fair and square.

Spoiler alert: it turns out that the team of card counters were not just card counting but also laundering money. Apparently, they also knew how to shuffle track the automatic shuffler through an algorithm leaked from the consultant who help make the Automatic Shuffling Machines (which is cheating…or stealing atleast). If they knew how to do this I have no idea why they were still counting cards. Anyways, you piss off some money launderers and steal secret algorithms then I guess that might get you shot. But counting cards is not as dangerous as the show portrays. In fact, I feel less safe getting a physical then counting cards.

Fellow Iphone users:
Follow these easy directions to turn your iphone into a blackjack
super computer:
1. Create an iphoto album called “bj” or “charts” or whatever
2. Drag the Basic Strategy chart into the album. If you don’t have it already download it here. You can drag the deviation chart in there too if you have a premium membership.
3. Plug in your iphone and under “info” command your iphone to sync
all of the pictures in the “bj” pics folder from iphoto
4. The charts will be under photos
5. For higher resolution images I recommend emailing the whole pdf file to
yourself. The two problems with this is that sometimes it takes a
while to download and these are also inaccessible if you do not have
edge network access.

There will be a lot of interest in card counting after the movie “21″ comes out on March 28th. How will this affect you if you if you count cards professionally. Here are a couple thoughts:

Positives:

1. As far as casinos should be concerned, the popularity of card counting is the best thing that ever happened for the game of blackjack. Since people know blackjack can be beaten there are more people who are drawn to play it with an unfounded confidence that they can beat it too, while there are very few people who actually learn what it really takes to beat the game. So the casinos get more people playing at their tables and more people handing them money.

2. Some casinos have really good rules and single deck or double deck games to seduce those type of players. If there is a jump in interest in beating blackjack more casinos may create better rules to compete for these kind of players. Real card counters will benefit from these better rules t00.

3. If there are more people playing blackjack at the tables who think they can beat the game this will add cover for those who are actually doing it. More cover means you will last longer. (I think the best cover any card counter could ask for is for the general blackjack player to spread there bet without a systematic counting system but on whether or not they just saw a string of high or low cards.)

Negatives:

1. Occasionally I have had dealers and pits spot me as a card counter because of my betting patterns, but generally (outside of Vegas) most people don’t know what to look for. After every pit boss, dealer, and security monitor in the country watches the movie will have card counting on the brain and they will understand better what to look for. This might mean less playing time.

If you haven’t seen it yet here is the trailer for the movie coming out next month called “21″

You hear every single type of superstition at the blackjack table. Lots of people like to think they understand the “flow of the cards”. I’ve sat next to a guy who was trying to teach me how to think the value of the dealer’s undercard into existence, stating quantum theories and abstract philosophies as proof that such powers do exist. Fellow gamblers don’t want you jumping in and out of shoes or changing the number of hands your playing because you will somehow screw up the cards. “Third base” often feels the pressure to stand on hands he or she should hit so to not steal the dealer’s bust card. Some people get mad at the dealer thinking he or she is somehow responsible for the cards that come out.

In order to be a successful blackjack player you have to realize that this is all nonsense. The cards are shuffled and everything is completely random. The cards have no mind of their own. I can’t think cards into existence, and just because you’ve noticed some sort of pattern or “flow of the cards” does not mean that the same pattern or flow will continue on the next hand. It is all random.

There is an near infinite sequence of cards that can come out of a six deck shoe and the only thing that you can be sure of is that mathematically the more you play blackjack the more you are going to loose because the casino has the edge. The only weapon a blackjack player has at his or her disposal is to use a system of counting to know which cards have come out of the shoe, and thus, which cards have a higher probabiliy of coming out next. If the shoe is saturated with high cards the advantage shifts to the player. So if you play basic strategy blackjack when there is a disproportionate amount of high cards left then you will win in the end.

Don’t try and pretend like you have a read on the cards, or a system, or an eye for patterns. These are just excuses to justify gambling. Learn a simple counting system like Hi-Lo and know when you have the advantage.

I personally have learned “The Halves Count” at one point.  My team has recently considered switching to a count called the “Hi-Lo Lite”.  Basically there’s two types of counts that differ from what we are using: ones that are more complicated and generate more EV and ones that are simpler and generate less. This may sound obvious to some of you, but it is what always lies at the root of this issue: the ones that are more complicated are generally much more complicated. The problem is that we have generally found that the increase in EV is so small that it is not worth the difficulty or complication. One thing that needs to be considered is that as the complexity goes up so do the mistakes. Especially in the actual counting systems, where often times people are pushed to the max in certain situations that require extreme multi-tasking. We have also considered counts that are simpler as far as deviations but the cost in EV was not worth it.

If certain players are looking to increase EV, the absolute easiest thing is to add deviations. In the immediate sense they are not worth that much. To learn more about EV and about Deviations go to our video course.

I was sitting next to a guy at a double deck table last week who was on a streak. He was payed out 1000 dollars for his recent win doubling down on an 11 and drawing a 10. He grabbed the chips and held them up, “Thanks for the temporary money,” he said to the dealer.”Temporary money?” I asked.”Well, when I win big I just keep playing until I give it all back.”This guy understood that playing blackjack in a casino is a losing proposition. He knew that if he bet money at the table, it would be smart to think of it as ‘temporary money.’ It helps take the edge off the losing streaks.You know as well as anyone else that blackjack, in the long run, is a negative valuation game. The casino will beat you in the long run because they have the advantage (that is how they can afford those nice buildings). Even if you just went on a streak plan on giving that money back later or stop playing all together.A lot of people come up with a whole bunch of psychological mind tricks to ignore this fact. One of those mind tricks is “I know how to count cards.” But you don’t really know how to do it. You just know enough to think you know how to do it. Maybe you read a book or watched a video online showing you the plus-minus system.Most of the time, when I’m talking to someone who uses this mind trick to help them justify playing a game they can’t win, I find out they don’t even use basic strategy. They are playing with the odds against them and just hoping to get lucky and stay lucky. This is just mindless gambling.I urge you, if you find yourself playing blackjack consistently, learn how to beat the game. We have all of the training you will need at our site for free. You can learn the skills and take the edge away from the house. Don’t learn halfway. Don’t pretend like you know enough. Make this happen for yourself right now.

On this edition of the Blackjack Apprenticeship Podcast:

Ben, Colin, and Jon discuss how to find good conditions in casinos. Not all blackjack games are created equal. Learn what type of things to look for and how to make sure your session at a casino is positive.

To beat the game of Blackjack you have to know Basic Strategy and play it perfectly. A lot of people think they know Basic Strategy but really only know some of it.

Basic Strategy is an incredible aid to your Blackjack game and can bring you up to a .05% disadvantage to the house if used correctly. People who do not play Basic Strategy can easily have a 4-5% disadvantage.

The Basic Strategy Chart shows every hand possibilities between you and the dealer and the correct action for each hand. Actions include hitting, standing, splitting, doubling down. Below are a bunch of examples of Basic Strategy Charts. As you can see they all look different but give you the same information. I didn’t look these over to make sure there wasn’t any mistakes so don’t use them. Download ours here.

There are certain things Basic Strategy tells you to do that a lot of people don’t do, such as Hit a 16 verses a 10. When you have a 16 and the dealer is showing a 10 you know you have a bad hand, and it feels like the chances of busting are so high that you would rather chance it to just see if the Dealer has a bad under-card and busts instead of you. This is why a lot of people don’t hit their 16’s when they don’t “feel it”.

I was playing at a casino and hitting my 16’s and busting almost everytime. I chuckled to the dealer, “Well, you got to play Basic Strategy, right?”

The dealer disagreed. “Basic Strategy is based on a computer playing millions of hands. I know I’m not playing millions of hands so I have to adjust.”

The dealer was right about where Basic Strategy came from. During the advent of computers, we were able to find out statistically what the best action for any given hand was. To find this out the computer would simulate millions of hands and see which actions were best in the long run.

But the dealer was wrong in advocating to change Basic Strategy based on one session.

It is like if you had a ten sided dice and six sides were red and the remaining four were blue. Assuming the pay out was 1:1 on whether you bet on red or blue what would you bet on? You should always choose red. Even if the dice are on a “blue streak.” If you keep playing, and most people who go to a casino go back and play more, you will win in the end. This is the same for a 100 sided dice, where 51 sides are red and 49 sides are blue. It might seem like there is a very long blue streak but every time you make a bet you should bet red. This is how casinos operate and make their millions. This is how you should operate too.

You might find some discrepancies in Basic Strategy charts. This is due to the fact that some blackjack games have different rules and people change actions that are very, very close to begin with. Or it is due to the fact that someone recreated the chart and was sloppy. You can use our Basic Strategy chart, which is accurate and good for all H17 and S17 games. Download here.

People will make the craziest decisions playing blackjack and deviate from Basic Strategy left and right. Sometimes they get lucky and win their hand. But in the long run, those kind of deviations will loose you money. In order to be a successful blackjack player you have to think about the long term.

There are times to deviate from Basic Strategy, but to know precisely when those are you have to be counting cards. To go back to the 16 vs 10 example - if you are counting cards you will deviate from this action often since it is very close. As soon as the remaining decks becomes even a little “10″ heavy (anything over a running 0) you will stop hitting 16’s vs 10.

Don’t do this on a hunch or because you just saw a bunch of little cards. You need to be counting accurately to know when the deviation really occurs. With the example we have been using (a 16 vs a 10) the cost of making the wrong decision in the long run is only pennies even with a large bet. But other actions will be worth much more and every penny saved is a penny earned.