This video introduces you to the “True Count” and how it is used in beating the game of blackjack.
How to Calculate the True Count
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Section 5 - Beating Blackjack: Card Counting
Video Categories
- Video Categories
- Section 1 – Card Counting Concepts
- Section 2 – Understand the Game
- Section 3 – The Importance of Rules
- Section 4 – Beating Blackjack: Basic Stategy
- Section 5 – Beating Blackjack: Card Counting
- Section 6 – Beating Blackjack: Deviations
- Section 7A – Beyond the Basics
- Section 7B – Beyond the Basics – General
- Section 8A – Advanced Blackjack – Cover and Team Play
- Section 8B – Advanced Blackjack Play – Casino Relations
- Section 9 – Advanced Blackjack – Beating the Game
I had just one question about this video. What is the true count used for? I understand the running count, but what is the central idea for true count. What does it indicate?
All of your betting and deviation decisions will be based on the true count (because it is a more accurate idea of the count per deck than the running count). But the only way to GET to the true count is by keeping a running count. Then, whenever you need to make a bet decision or deviation decision, you convert the running count to the true count.
So the higher the true count the more you bet?
Yes. The higher the True Count the higher your advantage so the more money you bet. How much more is a topic to discuss elsewhere.
I have a question about the true count. Is the running count always divided only by the number number of whole decks left in play, or can it be divided by fractions of decks left in play. For example, I have a running count of 5 and there are 3 1/2 decks left in play, do I divide 5 by 3 1/2 or just divide 5 by 3, or would I round it up? I would assume I divide 5 by 3 1/2 but I would rather not make assumptions.
Thanks
It depends how accurate you want to be. Most people divide by whole decks or half decks, but some divide to the nearest 1/4 of a deck or even more accurate. It’d say start by dividing to the nearest deck, always rounding down. When that’s comfortable, work on being able to divide to the nearest 1/2 deck, always rounding down.
at what true count should you start raising your bet? i’ve read a bunch of different theories. at any TC of +7 and higher? what’s the general guideline between raising the bet and playing the minimum?
cheers.
With normal casino rules, the advantage shifts from the casino to the player right around a true 1. There’s more discussion about it on the forum, but a general rule of thumb is that you need a minimum of a 1-6 bet spread to expect to win any money (so your max bet needs to be at LEAST 6x what you are betting below a true 1). The bigger the bet spread, the more EV you can generate, but creating a good bet spread is a pretty involved process, and depends on many variables.
at What count, we should start betting more money.
Read my response above to the same question from Chris.
alright i have another question, about the running count.lets say i play a hand in blackjack and my running count ended up being 12 and my true count ended up being 4, for the next hand played is my running count still going to be 12 or would it be 4? i just needed to be clear, thanks for all your help
Seth, your running count needs to take into account EVERY card played. So the next hand the running count may be more, less, or the same, depending on what cards came out during that hand.
im really confused about amounts of decks.
firstly does the hi-lo system work on all amounts, 2,4,6,8
and which is best to play on?
secondly you said in one of your blogs “As soon as I sit down at my reserved table, the pit boss whispers something to the dealer, and the pen instantly goes from less than 1 deck to over 2 decks being cut off!”… what is the “pen” and how would this effect anything?
finally you said you tried to convince the dealer into giving you better pen on each shoe..
what does that mean?
p.s. all the videos are great and its awesome there free!
Yes, it works on all amounts of decks. That’s why you convert to the “true count”, or “count per deck”.
“Pen” = penetration. That’s the amount of cards they do NOT deal to the player. Typically, they’ll deal 4.5 of 6 decks to the players, before shuffling the cards. The more cards you play, the more accurate and profitable card counting is.
Better pen = more cards being dealt out.
Hope that clears things up!
one more question..
so does that mean you have to restart your count once they have
shuffled the cards?
and yeah it does thanks!
What is the best way to approximate the number of decks left in play?
I have a question…So it’s recommended to start your higher bet wen the true count is favorable, not the running count, no matter how high your running count is you should look at the remainder shoe-divide and determine based upon the true count not the running.
Kyle,
I count up by the half deck for the first half of the shoe (I can visualize what 1/2 deck, 1 deck, 1.5 decks, 2 decks, etc look like). Then, for the second half of the shoe, I count down from the top of the discard tray. But you have to know how full the discard tray looks when all the cards are in it.
I’ve also trained with a discard tray measurer to fine-tune my eye. We sell it as part of the training kits.
Carlos,
EXACTLY!
so then.. this might be a dumb question. how do you tell how many decks there are left to be delt? since you can’t see – the cards just come out of a dispencer
Aaron – watch the video course. you have to look at the discard tray.
how will i know the decks left? for example in BlackJack Madness in facebook, i don’t know the total decks there
Hey! Love all the free videos! I’ve learned a ton of stuff, Iam training all the time and iam trying it out this saturday. Iam excited as f*ck! One question.. how do you know how many decks the nightclub or casino is playing with? Should you ask them or does that seem weird? .. Thanks =)
lets say the deck is shuffled and i start at 0. then the running count goes up to 15. and the true count is 3. once that hand iscleared and the next hands are dealt do i continue my running count or i continue with the true count? Meaning do i continue from running count of 15 or from true count of 3?
lets say you have a true count of 7 or 8 and you are playing with a group. The counter signals the big player and the big player comes and sits down at a table. Now Does the big player need to know the count (If so does he need to know the true count or the running count). or should the big player just play his game and when the deck cools he is signaled to leave. does that how it works?
It doesn’t hurt to ask. Just say something like, “man that’s a lot of decks. How many is that? The place I usually play at only uses 2″ or something like that. It’s not uncommon to ask how many decks are being used.
marc, You can calculate the number of decks remaining by estimating the number of decks in the discard tray. If there are 1.5 decks in the discard tray, then that means there are 4.5 decks remaining to be dealt out (from a 6 deck shoe). We will teach you train your eye for calculating the number of decks/cards in the discard tray.
I have a question about the running/true count, and noticed that Tony had the same question but had no reply. Could someone please give a response to Tony’s question? Thanks for all that you do on this site.
Never mind, i found my answer. Tony, read the responses to deviation chart-pairs. Your answer is at the bottom. Thanks for everything Ben/Colin/Kinetic/Admin!
What if you just sit at a random table and they already started the game. Do you just start counting the deck from 0, because what if the discarded tray had all the face cards. How do you determine your count when you first sit down?
You always start counting from a fresh shoe, for exactly the reason you stated.
another ? where i play i know theirs 4 decks in the machine and it automatically shufflles the cards. after every game they put the cards strait back into the machine.
so does this mean i can always divide the running count by 4 everytime?
Benita – join our forum and we can discuss that in there. That is called a Continuous Shuffle Machine and shouldn’t be played (advantageously anyways).
You state
“It depends how accurate you want to be. Most people divide by whole decks or half decks, but some divide to the nearest 1/4 of a deck or even more accurate. It’d say start by dividing to the nearest deck, always rounding down. When that’s comfortable, work on being able to divide to the nearest 1/2 deck, always rounding down.”
My question. wanting to round nearest 1/2 deck. Do we have to divide the deck into 12 1/2 decks than dividing. Let’s say…
RC = +10 2.5 halve deck left means….
10/5=TC 2 !?
What does that mean for the index numbers.
“If there are 1.5 decks in the discard tray, then that means there are 4.5 decks remaining to be dealt out (from a 6 deck shoe). We will teach you train your eye for calculating the number of decks/cards in the discard tray”
This means………..rounding it down to 5 or dividing RC by 9 gives 5/9=0.55% that is the same as using true edge method.
Not quite, it means if you have a running count of 10, and 2.5 decks remaining, you divide by 2.5. So, 10/2.5=4. Then you base all playing decisions and betting decisions on that True Count number. Feel free to get some more help in our Forums: HERE.
I understand how to count the cards and the whole true count thing, its just i dont really understand what i would do with the true count or running count. Like how would it help me to win, or bet the right amount?
Watch the rest of the videos, and join in on the Forum discussions. We can help answer more specific questions there.
i understand everythink thats going on but just one questions with the true count. do i haft to figure out the true count after each hand?
Yeah. It becomes one of the processes you run through after each hand… what we call “Running, Divisor, True”. What’s your running count, what’s the divisor (how many decks remain), then this will tell you the true count. So if your running count is 8, there are 2 decks remaning, then the true count is 4. Then, the next round, if the running count changed to 5, but there are still 2 decks left, then the true count is 2. After practicing it for a bit, it becomes second nature.
This question probably has an obvious answer, but to be sure…Does a true count just purely mean the probability of the next card in the deck(S) to be a ten value card (Ten, Jack, Queen, King)? I assume a positive count means its more likely to be drawn?
theres one concept i have trouble understanding. so when im counting through decks of cards and playing them out like it would in a game (not just one straight card over the other) i can never seem to reach a running count higher about 5. and i hear about running counts of 17 and those kinds of numbers. how do people get these numbers? i know im counting correctly too
The True count is the “count per deck”. So if your running count is 10 and there are 2 decks left, then there is an average of 5 extra high cards per deck (true count of 5). If there is a running count of 10 with 5 decks left, then there is only an average of 2 extra high cards per deck (true count of 2). So you can see that the value of a running 10 is HIGHLY relative to how many decks remain.
Another way of thinking of it… if you knew that the next card was going to be an Ace, you’d bet the farm! But if you knew one of the next 10 cards was going to be an Ace, you couldn’t EVERYTHING. You need to know the RELATIVE value of the running count.
Matt,
How many decks of cards are you dealing out? Are you shuffling 6 decks together randomly, then dealing it out? You can’t DO anything to get a running 17, but if you play long enough, you’ll see all sorts of positive and negative running counts. I once had a running positive 52 at an 8 deck game. But only once!
oh wow i should probably shuffle them all together right? yeah i was just taking six decks and playing one through after the other. and that will quite obviously affect it. thanks a bunch, now i realize it
Matt,
Yeah, definitely shuffle the 6 decks together, just like the casino does!
how do you know how many decks you have gone through at all times
You have to look at the discard tray. You should always be able to look over at it to see how many cards you’ve played through. You have to do the math between each round.
Hi! first of all Awesome Material. Now my questions…
1. What should you do if the dealer before starts dealing burn 5 cards face down, wouldn´t that affect your counting?
2. What should I do when all 6 decks are dealt and start to shuffle, does that mean i have to start my count at 0?
Thank You!
Gabriel,
1. if they burn 5 cards at the beginning, those are just 5 more cards you won’t see (just like all the cards behind the cut card). So you still start your count at 0.
2. Yeah, you always start a fresh shoe at 0.
How much does it really affect your count if you dont see the first burn card? I know you may not be able to answer that but where I have played today with some friends, my buddy asked to see the burn card and his request was denied due to house rules. so I guess what i am wondering is how would you view that place in the mind of an experienced counter. would you still play there?
Cody,
It just effects your penetration by 1 card… imagine the burn card is just one more card that ends up behind the cut card (along with the other 50-100 cards you won’t see. Every card is valuable information, but they casinos limit the amount of information you get due to the cards they DON’T show. So fight to see every exposed card, but the burn card is just one of the non-exposed cards you won’t get to see in the shoe.
how do you know when you should bet high and when you should bet low? do you just bet high whenever the true count is positive?
Nick,
This is the trickiest part of Card Counting. In general, you bet low when the count is low and higher as the count gets higher. Depending on the rules, etc, determine how much of an advantage you have. The more of an advantage you have, the more you can afford to bet (but this also depends on your bankroll size and how much risk you want to play with). This is stuff we cover in bootcamps and through Bankroll Coaching, but it’s not a cut and dry easy answer (hence, why you won’t find an easy answer anywhere on the internet).
But the general rule is that you bet less when the casino has the advantage (below a true 1) and more when you have the advantage (above a true 1).
Also.. when the true count is +4 and the running count is -3 or +3… what will the true count be after on the next round?
Do you still answer questions through this site? I’m confused where you’re finding the true count where the running count is -2 / 5 = -.4 I calculated it on the calculator and got the same answer but when I calculate it mentally I’m thinking it should be -2 R 1. Whats the proper way to come up with this equation? thanks
Clement,
I don’t think you’re understanding how the true count and running count are related to each other… the True Count is the running count divided by the number of decks remaining to be dealt. So if the running count is 10 and there are 5 decks still in the shoe, then the true count is 10/5 = 2. So you keep track of the running count continually, then whenever you need to make a decision (like for betting or deviations), you calculate the true count to make that decision.
Shiv,
5/-2 is -2 R 1 (or -2.5). -2/5 is 0 R -2 (or -.4). But in this case, until the true count is -1, you would still consider it ZERO. Or if the running count was +2, 5 decks remaining, you would keep it at ZERO until the true count was OVER 1.
When calculating the true count, do you include the cards that are after the cut card in the shoe in your denominator or only those cards that will be dealt in that shoe?
Matthew,
Great question. Yes, you include the cards behind the cut card as well. Because you are calculating the running count relative to ALL the cards remaining. Even though you won’t see the last deck or so, you still have to include them in the number of decks remaining.
Example, if you’re 1 deck into a 6 deck shoe, then divide by 5. If you’re 3 decks into a 6 deck shoe, divide by 3.
when I want 2 join a table should I wait till they reload the shoe to begin counting? or it doesn’t have any affect?
Gilher,
Yes! You always wait until a new shoe to start counting. Otherwise, you’re missing out on lots of valuable information from the cards that you missed.
tnx great website btw!
Hey if im looking at the shoe and it looks like about 5 decks and a half would I just divide the running count by 5 or 6? And could you explain what “penetration” is and how it affects my game?
Joe,
Great questions.
1. Personally, I divide by the closes 1/2 deck. But initially, I divided by the closest deck. I always round down. So if dividing by full decks, until there is a full deck in the discard tray, I’m dividing by 6. Then, until there are 2 full decks in the discard tray, I’m dividing by 5. By half decks, it’s the same thing… if there is more than 2.5 decks but less than 3 in the discard tray, I still divide by 3.5 decks remaining.
2. Penetration is how many cards the dealer cuts off. The fewer cards the better (ideally, if they dealt the entire shoe, your count would be incredibly accurate at the end of the shoe). The fewer cards they cut off, the higher your EV, the lower your risk, and the shorter time it will take to overcome “luck” (what we call reaching the “longrun”). Standard pen is 1 to 2 decks cut off of a 6 or 8deck shoe. I watch dealers, and if one dealer is more inclined to cut fewer cards off, I play with them over another dealer that cuts more cards off.
hope that helps!
2.
When deciding on the $ amount of the bet placed based on the card count, one book I read suggested splitting the discard tray in thirds and factoring the running card count by 1, 2, 3 or various combinations based on your band roll.
I found using the width of my fingers as a good “rule of thumb”, so to speak. Each deck is 1.5 cm in width. My idex finger is ~ the width of one deck. The first 1/3 of a 8 deck shoe is less then the width of my index, middle, and 2/3′s of my ring fingers held together. The 2nd third of an 8 deck shoe is the width of my thumb, index, middle, and half of my ring finger held together.
The finger breath is an easy and reliable visual aid to help judge the number of decks in a discard tray. I never saw it mentioned in other references and I thought I would share it.
When at a casino do I have an option to choose what table I want to play at based on the amount of decks? How many decks do you recommend I play at?
What is the easiest way to calculate a true count and how come a true count is better then a betting count when it comes to betting?
Rob,
A true count (or count per deck) is the only way to make betting (and deviation) decisions with Hi-Lo. It tells you when (and how much) of an advantage you have over the casino so you can make your betting decisions. The running count gives you the overall count for the shoe, but must be translated to the count per deck (aka True count) to know what the running count means relative to how many decks are left.
Hope that helps!
John,
It depends on the casino. Most casinos offer a shoe game (like 6 decks) and a double deck game. But not all. In general, fewer decks is better, but you have to be careful of the different rules they offer, because poor rules on a single or double deck game can make it worse than good rules at a 6 deck game.
So when your counting at a casino by yourself and you are doing exactly what your videos have been saying and i am winning money it looks very suspicious wont they know that im counting cards, how do i keep myself under the radar, and how do i not get kicked out.Thanks
We talk about all those things in the video course (and on the forum).
Wow, you have a lot of patience. I would of told them to buy the course at question #2.