Blackjack Freedom
By: Daniel Bailey
Copyright 2010 Daniel Bailey
ISBN 13:9781453809709
Published by MLR Publishers on Smashwords
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Chapter 4: Practices for Success
Congratulations. You’ve taken a pivotal step toward a new life. The mastery of the Blackjack Freedom system will soon enable you to count cards in any casino and become an advantage player as skilled as any of those in the game’s colorful history. What follows is a four-part lesson that will provide you with the tools to embark on a career as a professional Blackjack player and enjoy all of the freedom that comes with it.
Part 1 is an overview of what card counting is, specifically the Hi-Lo count, which Blackjack Freedom employs. If you are a novice to the game, this is required reading. If you are an experienced player and are already a skilled practitioner of Hi-Lo, you may find this a helpful review.
Part 2 is a mathematical and practical explanation of Blackjack Freedom itself, its key differences from other systems, and why these differences make it simpler yet no less powerful. Also in this section is a table derived from the Blackjack Freedom system. It provides Running Count sequences which correspond to a given number of decks that have been dealt from the shoe. The table must be memorized, but it is only eleven lines of information.
Part 3 is the strategy to use given specific counts per deck. In other words, it tells you when to draw, stand, split, double, surrender, or take insurance. It too must be committed to memory, but it and the table from Part 2 all fit neatly on a 2-sided 3 x 5 card. This is the same card that I use to this day.
Finally, Part 4 details everything I have learned playing Blackjack professionally since 2001, including what to expect starting out, how to stay calm, what rules variations to look for, tips to avoid detection by casino staff, what kind of bankroll you’ll require, and other essential pieces of information. I know you’re probably as eager to get started as I was when I first developed the system, so let’s begin.
Counting cards does not mean literally counting the number of cards dealt or what their face values are. It means that we assign specific values to each card that we see as it comes out of the shoe. Employing the Hi-Lo count, we assign a value of +1 to cards with face values 2 thru 6; -1 to 10’s, face cards, and Aces; and zero to 7’s, 8’s, and 9’s. Hi-Lo is a balanced count, which simply means that there are an equal number of positive and negative cards, so that when we count through an entire deck the ending count will be zero.
To illustrate, let’s assume that the following cards are dealt: J,4,8,6,A,K,10,7,5,3,2. Now let’s use Hi-Lo to determine our Running Count, or RC. When we assign the correct values to these cards, what we end up with is -1,1,0,1, -1, -1,-1,0,1,1,1, which gives us an RC of +1. In my mind, the inner monologue sounds like this when I see these cards: M1, 0, 0, 1, 0, M1, M2, M2, M1, 0, 1. I keep the RC in my head by adding or subtracting the value of each card as I see it, so that at the end of the cards in our example, I am left with an RC of 1. The “M” stands for minus, but of course you can substitute “N” for negative or anything else you prefer, just so long as it allows you to quickly differentiate positive cards from negative ones and maintain an accurate RC.
As you may already know, the significance of the RC is that it tells us how rich the remaining decks are in high cards versus low cards. Why is this so important? Because the rules of Blackjack are such that a shoe containing many more high cards than low ones is advantageous to the player. Why? Because the rules dictate that the dealer must always hit a hand of 16 or lower, so when the composition of the remaining decks is mostly high cards, the dealer will bust more often. Players do not have to hit when they might bust (although sometimes they should, which we’ll cover in Part 3), so they have the edge when the deck is rich in high cards (10’s, face cards, and Aces). Conversely, when the deck is rich in low cards, the house has the edge because now all those low cards help the dealer make a hand of 17-21 since he or she must hit 16 or lower. Therefore, logic dictates that we bet larger amounts when the count is high (many high cards remaining) and smaller amounts when the count is low or negative (many low cards remaining).
If you are not already an accomplished counter, start with a single deck of cards and count through each one using Hi-Lo. Forget about speed initially—accuracy is what you want. Your RC at the end of each deck should be zero. If you practice the Hi-Lo count for just thirty minutes each day, gradually increasing the number of decks to six, you will be surprised how quickly your speed increases. Your goal should be to accurately count down six decks in 4 minutes, or an average of 40 seconds per deck. I have read some books that say you need to average less than thirty seconds per deck, but I can tell you from experience playing with hundreds of different dealers over many years that if you can count six decks without error in 4 minutes then you can count comfortably with even the fastest dealers.
It should be noted that there are more advanced counting systems available; meaning that mastery of these systems would give the player a greater edge over the house. However, these systems require significantly more “brainpower” and practice time. Because of their complexity, players are prone to far more errors than with a Hi-Lo count, thereby reducing their accuracy and consequently the player’s edge over the house. The strength of a Hi-Lo based system is in the combination of its ease, which results in very few errors, and its edge, which can be increased with count-dependent strategy and bet variations (covered in Part 3). As you build playing stamina, you will find that using a Hi-Lo count, along with tools you’ll learn from Blackjack Freedom, will enable you to count and play for many hours with a high degree of accuracy. Almost all gambling experts will agree that this is preferable to a system with a greater edge.
With regard to your expected edge, there are many factors which will determine this number, including the rules where you play, the accuracy of your count, how effectively you adjust your bet size, how well you vary your strategy with the count, and how much of the deck is dealt. All of these topics will be covered in detail in Parts 3 and 4.
That is all you need to know about the mechanics of card counting to integrate Blackjack Freedom into your playing arsenal. Remember, we’re learning to drive, not how to build the car. There is much more that I could write about card counting, but none of it would enhance your ability or increase your edge. Don’t worry about dazzling people with your technique; master the simple lesson outlined above along with those to follow and you will be playing Blackjack professionally and winning money within a few weeks.
With other Blackjack systems, you are required to take the Running Count, which we learned above, and convert that into what is known as the True Count, or TC, in order to determine what your strategy and bet amounts will be. The TC is also known as the count per deck, because in order to calculate it one must divide the RC by the number of half-decks remaining in the shoe. That in itself requires another mental calculation because to know the number of decks remaining you must take the number of decks you see in the discard tray and subtract that from the number originally in the shoe. I will always assume that we start with a six-deck shoe, simply because that is what you will encounter in most casinos. So let’s say your RC is 5 and you’ve got 4 ½ decks in the discard tray. Quick—what’s your TC? To get it, you must calculate 5/(6 - 4 ½) = 3.33 instantly in your head. Despite an accounting background and an above average facility with numbers, I cannot do that, at least not quickly enough while playing. To me, it’s no wonder that professional card counting has long been the dominion of math wizards.
For fifteen years I made many unsuccessful attempts at trying to master other systems, all of which required the same mathematical processes to arrive at a True Count. In 2001, I gave up and concentrated instead on modifying and simplifying the required mental calculations. The result is Blackjack Freedom, and it’s so simple that I’m honestly shocked that no one else thought of it first.
What we are going to do is eliminate the need for TC calculations altogether. We still need to know the TC because that determines our bet size, but we are going to derive it from the RC and the number of decks dealt, DD in the table below. Here’s how it works.
The top row of numbers, 10, 25, 50, 75, and 100 are the bet amounts that we will be using for our discussion. This bet multiple, or spread, is ten because the high bet is ten times greater than the low bet. The greater your spread, the greater your edge becomes because the more accurately you increase or decrease your bet size relative to the count, the higher your expected profit will be. But casinos know that you know this, so you must be careful not to draw unwanted attention by conspicuously raising your bet when pit bosses or other casino personnel are watching you.
In our table, the left column, DD, is the number of decks that have been dealt, which we can see simply by glancing at the discard tray. All of the other numbers in the table are Running Counts. Rather than go through all of the steps to calculate decks remaining and the True Count, we simply match up our RC with the number of decks dealt to determine our optimal bet amount. For example, if our RC is 12 and DD is 3 ½ then the table tells us that we should be betting our maximum of $100. If our RC is 6 and DD is 2 then our optimal bet is $25. Whenever the RC is negative, our optimal bet is our minimum, or $10 in this case.
What do I mean by “optimal bet”? Your bet size is directly proportional to the edge that you have over the house. When your RC is very high and most of the shoe has been dealt, you have a significant edge and will be betting your maximum. If your RC becomes high but it’s still early in the shoe you’ll only be betting $25 or $50 because the count per deck, or TC, isn’t very high. The whole idea behind card counting is to minimize your risk when the count and edge are low and maximize your gain when your count and edge are high. Memorizing the RC sequence for each half-deck count in the table allows you to always bet the optimal amount. Let’s walk through an example.
As I’m playing and keeping the RC in my head, the only other thing I have to do to determine my bet size is glance at the discard tray. If my RC is 11 and there are three decks discarded, I know from memorizing the table that my next bet should be $100. As I continue to play and my RC decreases to 5 and my DD increases to 4 ½, I know I must bet $75. We never increase to the next higher bet amount until the RC in the table corresponding to that DD and bet amount has been reached. In other words, if your DD is 1 ½ and your RC is 12, you should only bet $50 because with 1 ½ decks dealt you shouldn’t bet $75 until your RC reaches between 14 and 17.