bwin – the world's biggest online gaming platform

It isn’t just roulette where cheating takes place inside a casino, it is on all games. Blackjack is certainly no different and there are many cheating moves available even though in the UK, the players cannot physically touch the cards. In many situations, the lethargy and the indifference of gaming staff make many moves possible.

The way that the dealer deals the game opens up many moves. One such move is to spot the next card out of the shoe on the next round of play. Quite often this is accidentally revealed by certain dealers who apply too much pressure to the centre of the card.

Fast dealers tend to do this or male dealers who are far too rough with the cards. It is difficult to see certain types of cards because of the white surfaces but picture cards can be visible sometimes. But taking advantage of this move is not cheating in any way shape or form. It is no different to a poker player who accidentally reveals his hand to a fellow player.

The player who has glimpsed those cards certainly has no duty to inform the player that they are revealing their cards. It is exactly the same with blackjack. Also, this is something that the inspector cannot spot from their position so they cannot inform the dealer to correct it anyway.

Plus,at the end of the day….inspectors are nothing more than promoted dealers so they suffer from the same indifference and lethargy that the dealers do. Plus they are elevated and looking down on the table either from an elevated chair or from a standing position so they simply cannot see this. In fact the punters cannot see this either except one of them…..the player who is active on first base or first box.

Most dealers do not expose cards in this way but if you find one that does then you can create very profitable opportunities here. When you factor in that the knowledge that when your first card will be a ten value card then the edge to the player of around 13%

Now that’s why these moves can be so damn good,

see you soon

Carl “The Dean” Sampson – author of Princes of Darkness : The World of Highstakes Blackjack

There has been a long ongoing debate about the merits of particular card counting systems down the years. The easiest ones to use are the level one systems along with some unbalanced systems like Fuchs and Vancura’s KO counting system for example.

In fact the KO system is one that I would recommend to any novice counter as a starter system. I have never used it personally for the simple reason being that balanced counts are better for shuffle tracking. My own personal favourite was the most well known of them all and that was the high/low. This simple system managed to grab most of the betting opportunities that were presented but its simplicity allowed you to do other things.

Like interact with casino staff like a real punter and not have to act like some emotionless android from the planet x. It also allowed you to shuffle track as well and to also watch for suspected heat. In short then it game you one very importantand valuable thing as a blackjack player……time.

This was just what many blackjack players simply didn’t get when they read my book Princes of Darkness : The World of Highstakes Blackjack, sophisticated counting systems are very tiring when done for hour after hour, simple systems are far better and this gets back to the concept of time once again only this time, you are creating longer playing time.

In fact I dare say that there were few people who properly understood my position as in many instances I was approaching things from a direction purely based on what I knew about the internal structure of casinos and how they operated. So my answer to this question is that I wouldn’t touch sophisticated level three and level four systems with a barge pole for the simple reason that you would spend so much mental energy keeping the count that you would miss the crucial other aspects of advantage play blackjack that contribute towards getting you a meaningful edge and not something that was very marginal.

Personally I have never much fancied playing blackjack for an edge somewhere inbetween 0.5% and 1.0% and all of the assorted variance that comes with it.

Anyway….take care and see you soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson – author of Princes of Darkness : The World of Highstakes Blackjack

Play blackjack online at bwin.com!

Most people who come into blackjack tend to think that there is only one counting system….the high/low. This is the most common counting system and counts low cards 2-6 as +1, cards 7,8,9 as Zero and tens and aces as -1. Just like to point out here that low cards are plus and high cards are minus. This tends to confuse a lot of people as high cards are obviously advantageous to the player.

But remember that you are calculating the effect of cards that are left IN THE SHOE and not cards that have been dealt. If the first twenty cards that have been dealt have been aces and tens then that can hardly be a positive for the player seeing as they have now gone and the player cannot use them to form an advantage….perhaps now you will be able to see why low cards are plus.

I have often been asked which counting system is the best. Years ago of course there were massive debates about this. Some very fine mathematicians argued this point aggressively. I am not a mathematician (far from it), but I do know how to make money (there is a difference).

The actual efficiencies with regards playing and betting were hotly debated until it was found that betting efficiency was by far the most important concept of the two. This was why they best systems were basically on a par with each other from a betting efficiency of around .97 for the high/low. Only four counting systems were proven to be superior and they were the KO system, The Wong Halves, The Red 7 and Lawrence Revere’s count.

Some of the other systems with ace side counts came close but the four that were clearly better were only showing .98 and .99 efficiency. But the true genius of the high/low was that it was so simple to operate that you could do other things like shuffle track and interact.

At one stage though we even used the level four system of Revere’s in the belief that we were doing something smart. This count used the following numbers

2…… +2

3…… +3

4…… +3

5…… +4

6…… +3

7…… +2

8……  0

9…… -1

10…. -3

A…… -4

Now try keeping that count for even one round of play under actual casino conditions

Seriously though, the high/low does a great job and for anyone who wants to play blackjack then I recommend using this over any other system. This is especially the case with recreational players.

see you soon and take care