Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

In my advisory class, Math Camp, we had to pick a math subject that we were interesting in learning more about. Then work on it for the entire class practicing the subject and getting good at it. We only met once a week on Mondays, we would give ourselves homework, or just use our class time to work on it. My subject is Card Counting, which is very popular when playing Blackjack aka 21. The point of the game is to get 21 in your hand to win, in casinos you are playing against whoever is at your table, and mainly the dealer. Card Counting is used to win the game, or have a better chance at winning, usually used to make sure you know what to bet when playing at casinos. This is related to math because in order to count the cards you need to be able to add and subtract very fast, it is very important to be able to remember things and adapt very quickly that is happening in the game. It is something that uses a lot of very simple math, but in such a fast pace that it can help you win a lot of money when you come out a casino. Hope you enjoy learning Card Counting and hopefully get good at yourself!

                                                                                                     

Now first thing you need to know to be good at Blackjack in general is basic strategy:

Blackjack Institute. "Basic Strategy." 2002

This chart shows you what you should and shouldn’t do when playing. This is an easy way to keep yourself ahead of the game. Now for counting cards it is very simple. Whenever a card is played you make sure you know how that affects the count. So I will tell what card does what.

• 2 through 6 = +1
• 7 through 9 = 0
• 10 through Ace = -1

Now that you know that when the deck is being played you just add or subtract numbers now. Say a 6, 5, 4, 7, ace, and 10 are played, the count would then be +1. This is because the 6, 5, and 4 made the count +3, but because the Ace and 10 were played it was dropped to +1. The count is very helpful in that it can tell you what to bet, and if you should go high or low. The main thing you should always know is that 10 has the most cards in a deck; you have the 10, Jack, Queen, and King. That is 16 cards out of 52 cards. Meaning they are the most likely to be played. You have always have to remember what is being played so you can also change your moves, because if a lot of 10 cards have been played then the chances of you getting another 10 are very low.

Lastly there is a thing called True Count, this is basically when you are playing a game with more than one deck. The way this works is, say your count currently in a game is +3, and there are 2 decks being played the true count would be +1.5. You divide the count by the amount of decks that are being played. This isn’t the easiest thing to do though because all casinos use a different amount of decks, and they have shuffle machines that can change everything in an instant. There is even a machine that keeping the true count is impossible because you can’t focus on how many decks are being played when it is constantly shuffling the cards.