Learning to Count and Bet Variations

At some point, a player should begin to practice the point-count method.

Simply turn through a deck of cards, exposing them one at a time, and count each card in succession. Remember: each x is counted as plus 1, and each 10 as minus 2.

Do this repeatedly until you can count the deck very rapidly without error. You will know that your final count is correct if the last card of the deck brings the point-count total to plus 4.

While you learn to play hands and keep the point count, it is just as well to begin to practice the bet variation that makes the system pay off.

With bet variation, the following are suggested to a player: when the deal begins from a full deck, bet one unit (one chip), however, you designate it.

For simplicity, try to bet with $1. Continue to bet one chip on each hand unless the count reaches plus 4 or above. When it does reach plus 4, bet two chips.

Return to betting once chip whenever the count falls below plus 4, or whenever the deck is depleted and must be reshuffled.

Also remember that whenever the deck is exhausted in the midst of the play of a hand, the discards from previous hands are shuffled, and the deal continues from these cards to complete the play of the hand in progress.

In this case, the count resumes from zero, and the subsequent count includes those cards that remain in play and those that are dealt from the newly shuffled partial deck.

With this method of practice, you eventually should win a modest amount.

If you fail to do so immediately, do not become discouraged; in the short run, Twenty-One is still a game of luck.

The purpose of the system is to make you lucky more often than you are unlucky--- in the long run. Of course, if you continue to lose with the method of practice, you should check the accuracy of your counting and your play of the basic strategy.

But do not expect miracles from this elementary method of practice.

Remember that you are just starting and also keep in mind that millions of people play in casinos with no mathematical chance whatever. You do have a winning system.

To test the system, you may wish to increase your bets greatly whenever the point count exceeds plus 4. Do so if you wish. If you are playing and counting properly, you will be reassured when you win, as you inevitably must.

However, for the card-counting player, the luxury of wild and precipitous changes in the size of bets is impractical in the casinos.

The entrepreneurs of these luxury palaces are sensitive to the fact that a limited number of experts have the skill to beat them at Twenty-One.

They don't mind too much when they lose to an occasional lucky fool; this is a hazard of the business, and the winner will probably be back to lose his bundle anyway. But they are annoyed by knowledgeable and calculating winners.