Blackjack is one of the casino games that many players want to try their hand at whether it be at a web-based casino or land-based casino. It is also an easy table game to play and has rules that are easy to understand. However, there will be questions they would want to be answered about the game to understand it better. What Is Considered A Blackjack the most popular online casinos out there. Almost all gambling companies offer new customer a first casino deposit What Is Considered A Blackjack bonus. These bonuses are handed out to new customers making a first deposit in the casino section.

Good Blackjack Rules or Penetration – Greater Impact on Card Counting?

Contents

• Good Blackjack Rules or Penetration – Greater Impact on Card Counting?

There are many conditions in blackjack that make a game more or less profitable for card counting. Two of the most important conditions are the blackjack rules of the table and what is referred to by card counters as the dealer penetration. When counting cards you’re looking for the best combination of the two in order to maximize the expected value of your play.

Let’s start by defining what we mean when we talk about “good blackjack rules” and “good dealer penetration”. I will then go through a quick analysis of which condition is more important in maximizing your profit potential. As always, my main focus in blackjack is increasing profits.

Good Blackjack Rules

H17 or S17 – This refers to the dealer hitting or standing on Soft 17. We prefer the dealer to stand.

DAS – This refers to a player’s ability to double after splitting. If you split your 8’s and get a 3 to make 11, you want to be able to double down on the 11.

RSA – This refers to the player’s ability to resplit aces after an initial splitting of aces. If you split a pair of aces and get a third ace, you want to be able to split that into a third hand.

LS – This refers to a player’s ability to surrender. Surrendering allows you to forfeit your hand and get half of your bet back without playing out the hand. This is commonly used when on a player’s 16 versus a dealer showing a 10.

These are the main blackjack rule variations you will encounter, but it’s certainly not all of them. We’re going to assume you’re getting the full 3:2 payment on blackjack and you can double any two initial cards dealt.

Preferred Rules: To get the best of these rules, you want the dealer standing on Soft 17 and you want to have the DAS, RSA and LS options available to you.

Good Dealer Penetration

“Dealer penetration” is blackjack terminology used for describing how deep a dealer will deal into a deck (or multiple decks) before reshuffling. This is a critical concept in card counting. Penetration is determined by where the dealer places the cut card and it varies from casino to casino. A deeply placed cut card will show you a higher percentage of the cards in a shoe, therefore giving you more information to work with when tracking the count. It also causes high counts to occur more frequently and last longer. For basic strategy players, penetration really doesn’t matter. For card counters, the deeper the penetration, the more profitable the game will be.

Preferred Penetration: Typically a 6-deck game that deals 4 out of 6 decks is considered to have “poor penetration”. Dealing 4.5 decks out of 6 before shuffling would be “average penetration”. A casino that shows 5 full decks out of 6 before hitting the shuffle card has “good penetration”.

Therefore if Casino A is dealing 4 out of 6 decks before shuffling and Casino B is dealing 5 out of 6 decks before shuffling, Casino B is going to be a much more profitable game for card counting assuming the rules of the tables are similar.

Greater Impact: Rules or Penetration?

Often the choice comes down to this… Do you go play at a casino that has all the best rules but poor penetration, or do you go for unfavorable rules with good penetration? Although you want the best of both, what if you have to decide between the two? Let’s take a closer look at the relative performance under different rules and penetration levels.

Blackjack Dealer Penetration

Here we see the relative profitability of three different sets of rules at four different depths of penetration. For this example I’ve kept the parameters simple and consistent. I’m using a 6-deck game with a Hi-Lo card counting system, 70 hands played per hour, 4 players at the table and an optimal betting ramp from 1-10 units with no back counting or backing out of negative counts. Manipulating any of these parameters will obviously change the chart somewhat. This chart would also look different if we analyzed a single deck, double deck or 8-deck game instead of this 6-deck game.

Conclusion: You can see that if you have terrible rules on a game, you better have good dealer penetration if you want to make money. If you have great rules you can be a little more forgiving when it comes to the shuffle point. Then there’s the middle ground of semi-decent rules and average penetration. The lesson to be learned here is that to be a successful card counter you really need to know how to analyze the quality of a game. There are also many other blackjack conditions to consider such as the level of casino heat you will get at different betting levels with different betting ramps. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to cover some of these other issues in a future post. For now I hope this helps to clarify the decision between good rules and good penetration. Now go hit the tables and make some money!

Card Counting

Card counting is really just an extension of the basic strategy. It doesn't require a photographic memory or a degree in mathematics. Although the first card-counting systems were developed and published in statistical journals by mathematicians, the actual counting isn't that hard. The hard part is keeping from getting thrown out of the casino.

Counting cards is not cheating. The casinos tried to get laws passed that would make counting a crime, but the courts declared that counting is simply a skillful use of the information available to the player. Which means it's okay to count, right?

Advertisement

Advertisement

Not so fast. Casinos are private property. They can throw you off their property for any reason at all, including playing a game so well that they start to lose money. And once you've been kicked out, returning can result in a trespassing charge. We'll explain how to avoid getting caught in a minute, but first you need to learn how to count.

The basic strategy is based on odds that take into account all the cards in the deck. There's a slight flaw with that strategy, however: After a hand is played, the dealer puts the used cards in the discard tray, and deals the next hand with the remainder of that same deck. Approximately half to three-quarters of a deck might be used before the dealer reshuffles. That means that there are a lot of cards in the discard tray that a basic strategy is still accounting for. Card counting systems calculate the odds of a 10-value card being drawn based only on the cards still in the deck.

Define Blackjack

One common card-counting system assigns a value to certain cards in the deck:

• Twos through Sixes are given a +1 value.
• Tens through Aces are given a -1 value
• Sevens, Eights, and Nines are valued at zero.

As the player sees the cards being played (and subsequently discarded), he adds those values together. From a starting point of zero, this 'running count' fluctuates between negative and positive values. If the first hand dealt from a deck has a Two (+1), a Nine (0), a King (-1), an Ace (-1), a Ten (-1), and a Jack (-1), the running count is -3.

In Blackjack What Is Considered A Soft 14

The higher the running count, the more low-value cards have gone into the discard tray. That means there is a higher percentage of high-value cards still in the deck. Why is that important? Recall how the basic strategy is based on the assumption that the next card will be a 10-value card. If you know that there is a greater percentage of 10-value cards in the deck than usual, that assumption -- and therefore the overall basic strategy -- becomes that much stronger.

What Is A Blackjack Club

So how does card counting change the rules of the basic strategy? It doesn't. What it does change is how much you bet.

A typical 'system' player (someone who uses a card-counting system) will bet the table minimum when the deck is fresh. When the running count hits a certain level, such as +4 or higher, the player then makes a much larger bet or doubles down aggressively. The higher the count, the bigger the bet. The system player uses these beneficial odds to make a big win or two while the deck is 'hot.' If the count drops below zero or the deck is shuffled, he returns to the minimum bet.

How To Use A Blackjack

In the next section, we'll explain how the casinos try to stop the counters and how the counters try to hide their advantage.