Card Counting

[luckykaa]

Thought I'd learn casino card counting.  It could come in useful for LARP. 

It's harder than it seems. 

Assigning each card a value and adding or subtracting isn't so hard.  Gets a bit tricky that you have to keep track while actually playing the game.  And also keep track of the true count (which is based on how much of the deck remains).

A while ago I downloaded a rather good blackjack simulator.  I think I still have it.  Unfortunately it requires 16 bit windows compatibility.

Comments

[ingaborg.livejournal.com]

Are you doing the simplified system where you just add or subtract 1? THat was good enough that it got banned...

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

No. That apparently doesn't give a lot of confidence unless the count goes quite high.

The system I'm using is +1 for 2's and 7's, +2 for 3, 4, 5, and 6 and -2 for 10's and aces. Bet high when the count goes high.

In principle it's not too hard. A lot of the time the plusses and minusses cancel out. I honestly think that with practice I could keep track of the total number of each value remaining, the main problem being that I'd have a little trouble finding space to do mental arithmetic on top of that.

[blue-sun-scribe.livejournal.com]

I just watched an episode of Numb3rs about this and it does seem like you need to be handy and doing mental arithmetic and keeping running totals in your head.

Besides it still counts as cheating to establishments.
Are you going to use this or is just for maths fun?

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping it will be useful in a LARP setting.

The establishments consider it cheating but most of the regulating authorities actually don't. In Nevada, for example, an establishment can bar you from their casino (or just the blackjack tables) for it but they can do that pretty much on a whim for whatever reason they want. The casinos have tried to sue people for this but as long as the gamblers don't use tools, the courts have concluded that they're simply very good at the game, so have won legitimately.