Card Counting 101

We’ve learned basic strategy, we’ve learned the side bets, we’ve looked at betting strategies. It’s now time to bring it all together and dive deeper into the math of card counting.

In this series, we will teach you how to apply card counting. This strategy keeps track of the cards that have already been played to apply probabilities on what cards are left to play in the shoe, and what cards will potentially come out on the next few hands.

Card counting strategies come in several forms and can vary in difficulty. However, the format is the same: cards are assigned a certain value, and you need to keep a running count of all the cards in play.

As the running count increases, so does the player's advantage and vice versa.

Card counting will help guide you with your wagers as you will vary your bet size from 1 unit to 12 units on any given hand, based on your stack size and overall goal for the session.

As you better understand what cards are left in the deck, card counting will also help you make smarter moves in your blackjack games, and ultimately give you an edge over the casino.

Many players think card counting requires advanced mathematics but you just need a decent memory, an understanding of probability, and focus, not to mention the time to practice!

For instance, imagine if you have 100 rocks in a bag. Fifty of them are red, and 50 of them are blue. Let's say you pull out 20 rocks at random.

By chance, you pulled out five red rocks and 15 blue rocks. This tells you that there are 35 blue rocks and 45 red rocks left in the bag.

Based on that math, what are the chances that your next rock will be red? 56%. The basis of card counting works in a very similar way. Learn how to apply this simple strategy in your blackjack games, with our next video.