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Is anyone here a good blackjack card counter? I've set myself a challenge of being able to card count in two years. Could anyone recommend a beginners book I can buy on the subject.

It's not so much an instructional book, but you should definitely read "Bringing Down The House" by Ben Mezrich. Fantastic piece of literature that I'd heartly recommend to anyone. I've read it 3 or 4 times since I got it for christmas.

The Memory Gym http://www.memorise.org/ has some very good lessons for learning all kinds of things, and online exercises too.

righ then. I would recomend if you are serious in learning this subject to look into Semyon Dukatch - buy his first dvd. That should have you busy for months on end - if memory serves me correctlyit is about £20.

When card counting odds are you will learn the basic hi-lo technique. Once learned and masdtered I would recomend loking into Semyon's 3 techniques - taught on his second dvd - thats more expensive though - more in the £60-70 range.

You can do extra reading if you want - the Ben Mezrich book recomended above is always an entertaining read, as is Breaking Vegas - same author, though about Semyon. Get a basic idea of the different systems on the net, but if you are truly interested in the art, take the advice above - it will serve you well. But, it wont come easy - you will have to learn how to cut an exact 52 cards using a cut card in a 6 deck stack...not an easy achievement

any more questions my friend, just ask. and other than that - good luck, and enjoy!

Do you want to know the very basics, by setting cards above 10 as 1 and crds below as 0 so u know whats roughly gonna come up. Or are you looking to count a 2-6 deck shew (which will be ridiculously difficult)>?

technically, a six deck shoe isn't difficult, there is just an extra part of maths involved dividing how many shoes there are left. A 2 and 6 shoe have the same difficulty, you just have to wait a tad longer before raising your money.

the hard part of card counting is keeping track of the other player's hands - especially if the table is full - without appearing to do so.

I would recomend learning with a 6 deck shoe, as that is how it is played in casinos

if you are just looking to play with your friends however, one deck would suffice

Citrus wrote:Do you want to know the very basics, by setting cards above 10 as 1 and crds below as 0 so u know whats roughly gonna come up. Or are you looking to count a 2-6 deck shew (which will be ridiculously difficult)>?

if you're counting each individual card it can be but if you group things and only care about numbers it can become not so difficult

i played blackjack quite a bit at a fun-money casino the other night, managed to go to the table a handful of times and win quite a large amount. i wonder if anyone clicked on (kinda hope they would have), maybe they just thought i was lucky. walked away from that casino with a job, so i was a winner!

To be honest I don't realy know much about it. My maths is strong (predicted A* in my Maths GCSE) I have a good maths mind, i know my memory will need improving. I will take a look at those DVDs and I'm also going to buy the book that someone mentioned - not that I will learn card counting techniques from it but just to gain an insight into the whole world of it. I'll let you know how I get on!

Oh and I think the age to start gambling in Vegas is 21, so I will have 5 years of practise! Don't worry I don't plan in taking casinos for everything they've got. I'll find my self with my fingers cut off in a back room of a casino!

The best thing you can do is get a basic grounding in basic strategy for backjack. I was actually talking to a mate about this at the pub tonight; now that we're all 18, everyone instantly thinks that they become an expert on gambling. I asked him, what would you do if you got a grand total of 13 from your two cards?

"I'd hit."

"Why?"

"To try and get 21."

"What's the entire aim of the game of blackjack?"

"To get your cards to add up to 21."

"No. The aim of blackjack is to BEAT THE DEALER."

So few people take this into account at all when playing blackjack. That's the very first place to start. Obviously when you've grasped this basic fact there's a lot more to it, but just the realisation of this can improve people's thinking so much. It amazes me how many people sit down at the table and start pissing their money away without even thinking about strategy.