Card Counting Tutorial, Day 2

Keep concentrating. You have to be so good at this, you won't makes mistakes, even when real money is on the line.

I didn’t get any answers to the questions I asked along the way yesterday so I’ll hold off on the answers another day. Here they were:

1. If you aren’t allowed to touch the cards, why do they hide the dealer’s hole card under her up card?

2. Is hitting on soft 17 a help to the player or the casino? Why?]

Day 2

To review:

Card values:

An Ace can count as 1 or 11, your choice.

Cards 2 through 10 equal the face value of the card.

Jacks, Queens, and Kings count 10 each.

What is the value of this hand as dealt to you, starting with the Ace? A, 4, 6, 2, 3? Question 3) Why would this never happen in a real game?

To review:

Operations:

You have the choice to Hit or Stand, Double Down on hard totals, Double Down on soft totals. (When you count your Ace as 11, your total is referred to as a “Soft Total”. When it’s counted as 1, the total is referred to as a “Hard Total”). You can Split Pairs. You can Surrender (get half of your money back after the initial deal). You can Buy Insurance against the dealer having BJ (including her hole card) when she’s showing her up-card only. Insurance pays 2 to 1. By the way, when you get Blackjack on your first two cards. It pays 3 to 2 , so she’ll pay you 1.5 times your wager before anyone plays (slap that grin off your face…)

** VERY IMPORTANT!**: After you complete Day 2, please tell me whether you would like me to teach you Hi Opt-1 or Hi Opt-2. 1 is slightly simpler but not quite as powerful as 2 . They are very close on both counts. Please vote tonight by PM to my email (Rsheftall@gmail.com) or in the comments. I will teach the one with the most votes.

Let’s play another hand!

We’re going to go through all four players.

Player 1:

He is at the dealer’s far left so he will be “dealt” with first (sorry about that!). First of all, we know the dealer doesn’t have a 10-valued card hiding under her Ace (Question 4: How do we know that?). He has a pair of 8s and decides to split them. According to the rules, he must put another wager out there equal to the original and play his two hands in succession.

He got an Ace on the first 8 for a total of 9 or 19 and stood on 19 (he could have doubled down on 9, by the way…) and a jack on the second 8 and stood (two great hits…lucky son-of-a-gun…). (Question 4: What might have been a good choice if he had gotten a 3 on one of the 8s? (or even a 2).

Player 2:

She hits that 12 and…

busts with 22.

Player 3:

She has a total of 8. She hits and gets a 5 for a total of 13 and hits again. She gets a 4 for a total of 17 and stands

Player 4 (That’s you!)

You’ve got 14 against a dealer’s up card of Ace. What do you want to do? You’re going to have to hit that 14 unless the count is huge positive but we’re not counting yet so…

Ouch! You got a 9 and busted. It happens.

Here’s what the table looks like after everyone has played

Players 2 and 4 (you) would have had their chips and cards taken away as they busted, leaving this:

Now it’s the dealers turn to play. She flips over her hole card to reveal

It is an 8 for a dealer total of 19. Player 3 loses and she’ll take her blue and white chips. Player 1 loses on his total of 18 and she takes the green chip on his left. His right hand is a push. She’ll signify this by bumping her wrist on the felt table in front of his two cards and will leave his other green chip alone. By the way, that thing in the upper left corner of the photo is where the played cards go. In the upper right hand corner of the picture is the shoe where the new cards come from.( Question 5: What was the white chip on the border of the better square doing there in front of player 3?)

END of Day 2.