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Advanced Blackjack Strategy

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Advanced Blackjack Strategy – Card Counting and Shuffle Tracking

Advanced blackjack strategy predicts the nature of the blackjack cards that are likely to be dealt next using card counting and shuffle tracking.

Basic and intermediate blackjack strategies assume that any card has equal probability of being dealt. But this is not so in casino playing conditions. Two common advanced blackjack strategies are

• Card Counting
• Shuffle Tracking

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Card Counting

As deals are completed the used cards are placed in the discard tray and the next deal proceeds. Reduced number of cards is available for the next deal. If a player can keep track of the cards that have been discarded then he can have a fair idea of the cards that are left in play and this can give him an added advantage. This is known as card counting. Card counting can be exploited in the following situations.

• If there are a larger proportion of high cards left then the player has an advantage because the chances of getting a blackjack. Therefore card counters can place larger wagers in such situations and expect larger returns.
• The decision to hit or stand can be affected by the nature of the remaining cards. If there is a larger proportion of smaller cards left in the deck then hitting with a hand value of sixteen or seventeen would be a viable option.

Card counting does not involve keeping track of individual cards. The idea is to estimate the relative proportion of the high value and the low value cards. Most card counting systems give high value cards a negative score and low value cards a positive score. As cards are dealt a running score is maintained. The higher the positive running score is the greater will be the proportion of high value cards left in the deck. Similarly the higher the negative running score is the greater will be the proportion of low value cards left in the deck.

Some of the better-known card counting systems are

• Hi Lo
• KO (Knockout)
• Hi-Opt I
• Hi-Opt II
• The Red Seven Count
• Zen Count
• Omega II
• Uston Advanced Point Count
• Revere Advanced Point Count
• Ed Thorp's Ten-Count

Whereas mental card counting is legal in most U.S. casinos the use of electronic devices to count cards is illegal. Card counting becomes more useful as the decks near completion. Therefore casino operators resort to early shuffling to negate card counting.

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Shuffle Tracking

When cards are shuffled through the casino shuffling machines they are rearranged in a predetermined manner. Hence if the location of certain cards is known prior to shuffling, the post shuffling location can be estimated. This is the principle of shuffle tracking. As cards are consigned to the discard tray the shuffle trackers memorize the position of that group. Usually such groups, also known as slugs or clumps, contain concentrations of high value or low value cards. After shuffling the tracker is able to place the slug in the new deck. When cards are to be dealt from the slug the shuffle tracker can cash in on the knowledge. The advantages gained by shuffle tracking are similar to the advantages gained by card counting.

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