Smash Vegas

Before you start learning the Hi/Lo system I need to make one thing perfectly clear.  Unless you have learned basic strategy there is no point learning to count. We are working with relatively slim margins in terms of gaining an edge over the house and errors in basic strategy can easily destroy that edge.

With that said, let’s look at the Hi/Lo system for card counting.  It’s probably the oldest published system and although it’s perhaps not the easiest to use in practice, it is very illustrative of the principles.

The Hi/Lo system uses a running count which starts at zero.  Each time you see a 2,3,4,5 or 6 you add one to the count.  Each time you see a 10,J,Q,K or A you subtract one from the count.

Sounds easy right?

The trick is being able to do this accurately with many distractions around you (like still playing the game according to basic strategy).  This is known as a balanced count because there as many +1 cards as there are -1 cards.  So counting through a deck should return you to zero.  Co-incidentally this is an excellent way to practice.  Work through a shuffled deck and keep an accurate running count.  When you can get through a deck in 30 seconds you can start keeping a count while working through a deck two cards at a time (this is obviously a better approximation to playing blackjack).  Learn to notice when a pair of cards cancel each other out - e.g. A2, K6, etc.

Now that you can keep a running count you just need to know how to convert it into a usable figure.  The true count tells us how favourable the deck to come is.  To convert the running count to the true count you simply divide the running count by the number of decks yet to come.

True Count = Running Count / Number of Decks Remaining

This is the hard part of using the Hi/Lo system, for two reasons.  Firstly we may estimate that we are 1.5 decks through the shoe and thus have to be comfortable with dividing by fractions (e.g. 4.5).  Secondly we must be able to estimate with some accuracy the number of decks remaining.  This can be practiced at home with stacks of cards.

Once we have the true count, things couldn’t be simpler.  Whenever it is +1 or above we have an advantage over the house.  The higher the true count, the greater the advantage.  How do we use this?  Well there are a few strategy changes we can make depending on the true count but initially I would ignore those as the majority of the advantage you can gain is from changing the amount you bet.  We use a bet spread to bet more when we have an advantage.  A 1-5 bet spread would indicate that when you have an advantage you are betting 5 times more than your usual (or unit) bet.

Refining this slightly it is best to increase our bet size in proportion to our advantage.  This makes intuitive sense and is known mathematically as the Kelly Criterion.  Card counters often refer to this as ramping their bets.  The following is an example of ramping the bet sizes with a 1-5 spread;

Note that the change in bet size is one of the major ways casinos identify card counters (we’ll talk about ways to mitigate this in a later article).  So it’s best not to have too extreme a bet spread.

The only remaining thing to add is a note on game selection.  You need a game which offers a suitable bet spread and which also has good deck penetration.  Deck penetration is how far through the decks the dealer gets before they shuffle.  The better the deck penetration is, the more accurate counting becomes.  If a game has zero deck penetration then card counting will not work. Examples of this are continuous shuffling machines and online blackjack.

So now you know how to count and it’s just a question of practice.

Next time we’ll talk about a system I find a little easier to use.

If you want a downloadable guide then here’s my PDF.