Card Counting and True Count in Blackjack

You think that you have learned everything about the card counting in blackjack, but there is still something more to learn about card counting. There are some situations in blackjack wherein card counting is more effective compared to others.

The most important thing to remember in card counting is that you must begin playing blackjack right after the shuffling of the cards. The main reason is that you will be able to count every drawn card from the deck and the more cards are drawn from the deck, the more accurate will be your card counting.

Let's take this as an example: You are in a gumball machine that contains 50 white gumballs and 50 green gumballs. Each gumball will cost you a quarter but if you get the green gumball, the quarter will be returned back to you or in other words, it is for free.

If you are doing counting for each gumball then you will know how many gumballs are left of each color in the machine. When most of the gumballs are taken and you have nibbled 35 green gumballs and paid for 22 white gumballs, then you will realize that the odds of getting a blue gumball again is no longer 50-50%.

This is also the same with card counting and the term that refers to this is penetration. When you have already pass through the good part of the entire deck, you have a greater advantage now in card counting. It is because you now have a better idea of what cards are left in the deck because you already know what are the cards that have been drawn out from the deck.

This is known as the true count in card counting. In order to determine the true count of the basic high/low card counting system, you need to take the balance of the card counting and divide that with the total number of remaining decks. If you are good in card counting then you should not be frightened by fractions.

This is an example of true count in card counting: If your balance in card counting is four and there are still four deck left in the game, then your true count is only one. But if your card counting balance is only two and only one-third of a deck remains, then your true count is six, which is actually a great advantage on your part.

It is essential in card counting that you understand how to figure out the true count for your own advantage in blackjack. Determining the true count is kind of simple to comprehend and you don't need complex card counting systems to do it.


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