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Counting cards – True count

BlackJack strategy counting-cards True Count.

This page is a continuation on the pages: base explanation card counting and running count technique

With the analysis of the game Red Cat we’ve seen that the advantage for the player isn’t determined by the count(running count) itself, but because of the count divided by the remaining cards. For example if the running count is ten, then there in total ten more tens and aces than small cards. This tells us nothing about the composition of the cards in the pack. If the running count, after there has been only played a few cards, is 10, then there’re in the following 5 games 10 more large cards than small ones. Because we don’t know where they’re we assume that they’re equally divided in the 5 games. This means that average there’re 2 more large cards than small cards. But a running count of ten after there have been 5 games played tells us that there’re in the remaining game ten more large cards than there’re small cards. This last running count of 10 is five times as powerful as the first running count of 10. Therefore the term true count has been introduced.

 

 

Some examples:

– Running count: +12 Games in the deck: 2 True count: +6	+12   +6 +6
– Running count: +12 Games in the deck: 4 True count: +3	+12   +3 +3 +3 +3
– Running count: +3 Games in the deck: 1 True count: +3	+3     +3
– Running count: -6 Games in the deck: 3 True count: -2	-6   -2 -2 -2

It’s important to estimate the number of cards remaining in the pack. A good method to do this is to observe the pile of played cards. At the end of a pack the dealer puts all cards together, so you can see how high six games of cards are. When you’re sitting at box 1 or 2 you can also just look at the remaining cards.

Advantage
When you want to make a bet it’s important to know if there’s an advantage, and if there is one how big that one is. Both computer-simulations as calculations resulted in the following values: base-disadvantage: -0,5% Value true count-point = 0,5%. This results in the following formula:

 

 

(True count- 1)

Advantage (%) =

2

Or: lower the true-count-value with one and divide this with 2; this gives the players-advantage in percentage.

Advantage by the most important true counts

 

 

True count	Advantage (%)
-2	-1,5
-1	-1
0	-0,5
1	0
2	0,5
3	1
4	1,5
5	2

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So there is an advantage if the true count is 1 or higher. At lower values it’s enough to bet the minimum.
Advice: you’ve to be able to do the following conversions quick and flawless in your head:
– from running to true count.
– From true count to advantage.
Good luck with this BlackJack strategy.