Cutting Edge Blackjack — Card counting cannot beat 6 deck games

In doing public events these past 13 years from coast to coast, I get to find out what misconceptions players have about blackjack and the various methods that are out there.

One of the bill of goods they’ve been sold is that the old school methods are the correct way to play. Yet Edward Thorp, in 1961’s Beat The Dealer, introduced the world to basic strategy, admitted it gave players a disadvantage of about 1 percent with the “most adverse” casino practices, such as when they shuffle up before dealing all the cards in the deck (the game we play today). And in Thorp’s day it was just a single deck game.

By 1980, another book based upon data from IBM’s Julian Braun, The World’s Greatest Blackjack Book, told you should expect to “almost break even” in the long run with basic strategy. That book was written for the common 4-deck games of its day. In other words, another admission that basic strategy is a losing method.

That book also revealed something extremely interesting about the old school card counting methods, long touted as the be-all-and-end-all for keeping track of the cards. This came from Braun, whose computer simulated data was used by scores of old school writers. He announced in this book that he’d tested all the best card counting systems (including the Hi-Lo system invented in 1963 by Harvey Dubner and later used by the MIT blackjack teams) and found that none of them was sufficient in beating 6-deck games. In fact, the book told you flat out not to play those games (see below, from page 63):

(By the way, you won’t likely get 4.5 decks dealt to you by any of today’s casinos.)

In fact, there was another striking revelation. Braun’s research showed a striking deficiency in card counting’s ability to handle even 4-deck and 1-deck games. This is from page 245:

I mention this because I’ve met players who, when asked their skill level, say they’re “advanced,” and many of them say they’re using the Hi-Lo system. And many of these players are playing 6-deck games.

They apparently didn’t read the fine print.

I don’t blame the players for thinking the old school methods are effective. I blame the writers who sold the players on that concept.

But, actually, as you can see, if you read the most honest old school books carefully enough, they admitted how poorly their methods fare.

You need a state-of-the-art winning system to beat the house. Come to my seminar in Denver on Nov. 13 to learn the ins and outs. Tickets are available at http://www.blackjacktoday.com.

Richard Harvey is a world-renowned blackjack researcher and innovator, expert player, blackjack coach and professor, columnist and bestselling author of Blackjack The SMART Way (the NEW Gold Edition), Cutting Edge Blackjack (the NEW Third Edition), NEW Ways To Win MORE at Blackjack and the audio book Richard Harvey’s Blackjack PowerPrep Session. Have blackjack questions? Send them to rharvey2121@netscape.net. For more info see http://www.blackjacktoday.com.