The cards are dealt. Your three options are HIT, STAND or DOUBLE. You have a forth option of SPLITTING if you have two of the same value card which we’ll get into later. IMPORTANT: Always assume the dealer’s card that is facing down has a point value of 10. If you have 17 or higher, you have GOOD BASIS and can ignore the Ace. You want to concentrate on what the dealer has NOT done, which is the RED card.

You will want to rely on your skill of knowing if the dealer has a 10 in the hole. We can’t assume that the Ace is always a ten because sometimes Ace’s are not. However, we do know that the closer a card is to 10 the better the odds are that the dealer has a 10.

oke any number = If you have 11 take even money shots. If you have 12 and the dealer has a 8 or a 9 showing, you can assume they have a better hand and are probably going to bust. If you have 15 and the dealer shows 10 or 9 you can get away with stealing the pot there and then, but make sure you have enough money in your stack to make it a profitable situation.We can’t assume that the dealer is always going to have a 10 in the hole, more often there are other cards that can give the impression the dealer has a strong hand.

What we’re talking about here is a known statistical fact: The cards that are normally worth 10 or 11 are less likely to be dealt than any other card.

Statistic and common sense both say that in the long run the dealer is not going to have a high percentage of 10s, jacks, queens or kings in the hole. When the game is on and playing smart, you will in the long run outnumber the hands the dealer does steal.

References to odds. When the dealer has a 2 showing, there is a statistically proven method that we win money over the long term. The odds are 2:1, meaning we win 2:1 over time. Unless the dealer has an ace, there is no other reason to chase a straight.

If you’re trying to bust the pokerbo, you only have a 2:1 chance with a 10 showing. The odds say we will bust when we have either a 2 or a 10 in the hole.

If you have a 16 and the dealer has a 9 showing, the odds say we have a 18% chance. The dealer has an 18% or an 18% chance of busting with an Ace showing. Some people play Arkansas Hold ‘Em and some of the time you will see a dealer push with a soft 17. Why? Mostly because antivine cards like a 10d, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. These cards have the highest possibility of being dislodged by the reshuffle, but the same mathematically goes with any cards that have been played with a frequency of less than 5%

Types of Card Counting

First we’ll discuss the generally recommended and popular plus-minus method of card counting. With this method you are giving yourself a positive number in your positive count, so you minus it to avoid getting a negative number. This is usually done for starting a counting session.

The plus-minus method of counting does give you a basis to strategize with, but lacks in practice in many situations. First, you must convert your running count to a true count. I personally like to use the boxed numbers method.

The advantage of the plus-minus method is that you keep a running count without depending on whether the deck has more cards with a plus or a minus sign, and without needing to make a difficult decision when starting a count.

In practice, however, the true count seldom needs to be estimated. In the event that you know the number of decks remaining, you can simply divide the number by the number of decks remaining. The true count is the indicator without a doubt.