The deck is stacked against you when you play blackjack in a casino.
If it seems like the deck is stacked against you when you play casino blackjack, you are right, from a statistical standpoint.
"The house's initial advantage in any given game is calculated to be about half a per cent," says Olaf Vancura, co-author of Knock-Out Blackjack: The Easiest Card-Counting System Ever Devised. "It's [in] that half a per cent where counting cards comes in."
Follow these strategies, and simple math can turn you from a card guppy into a card shark.
What blackjack is
In this card game, players place their bets and the dealer gives two cards to each player and then to herself. One of the dealer's cards is face up, the other face down. Each player can "stand" (stay with the hand they've got) or "hit" (ask for another card). The object is to get a higher hand than the dealer without going over 21. The ultimate score is, of course, 21.
In a hand-dealt game, the cards are dealt face down and players can pick them up. In a shoe game - in which multiple decks are dealt from a tray-like device - the cards are face up and players can't touch them.
Learn the values
Every card you see tells you what remains in the deck. "It turns out that a deck rich in low cards favours the house and, conversely, a deck that is rich in high cards - 10s and aces in particular - favours the player," says Dr. Vancura, who has a doctorate in physics from Johns Hopkins University.
In his knock-out system, cards numbered 2 through 7 have a value of plus 1.. Tens, jacks, queens, kings and aces are counted as minus 1. (8s and 9s have a value of zero.) "If somebody has a 3, 7 and 8 [totalling 18] that would be plus 2," he says. Let's say it's just you and the dealer. "The dealer has a 6 up, turns over a 10, then hits with a 9 [totalling 25]and busts. The dealer's net total was zero, yours was plus 2."
A plus-4 advantage ups the player's edge to 1.5 per cent - three times the standard house edge.
Why count?
In Dr. Vancura's system, you assign a value to each card and keep a running total in your mind as cards appear. This lets you make a bet that's proportional to your advantage (or lack thereof).
"I'll give you a simple analogy," he explains. "Imagine a gumball machine that contains 10 blue balls and 10 red balls. If the ball that comes out is blue, you lose a dollar, and if it's red, you win a dollar. So you count the balls coming out: plus 1 for blue and minus 1 for red. If I get a count of plus 3, I have a pretty good advantage because there are three more red balls in there than blue."
Your running count resets only when the deck is shuffled.
Use the advantage
Profits here come more from smart betting than from winning. That's because while the dealer must play according to house rules, the player can use opportunities to make more money.
"For example, the player's given an extra bonus if he gets what we call a 'natural,' " Dr. Vancura says.
A natural is a two-card 21 - an ace and a 10 - that pays the player three-to-two (or one-and-a-half times the bet). And since the odds of getting a natural depend on what's left in the deck, if you want to rake in the dough you've got to keep track.
And don't do this … Lose track of the running total. You have to remember it despite the distractions around you.
Special to The Globe and Mail