In many forms of gambling then your edge is directly linked to the standard deviation and with it your variance. You will begin a blackjack shoe with an average house edge of 0.5%. The true count needs to reach +1 for the player to be playing even with the house. I know some players who like to use +1 situations as a launch pad to enter the shoe with increased bets so that it makes it easier to ramp when higher true counts are reached.
But when you are wagering higher amounts of money in situations with no edge then the variance will increase and with it the swings to your bankroll. If you are the type of player that does not like swings or tries to reduce them the best way that they can then entering at greater true counts or increasing your bets at greater true counts may be better for you. When you enter into a shoe at a true count of +3 then your edge is 1%. The edge swings roughly by 0.5% for every one point true count increase.
So zero is a 0.5% house edge, -1 is a 1% house edge, +2 is a 0.5% player edge and so forth. Personally I do not like to wait until true counts reach higher numbers because you need to give the illusion of action. What you absolutely cannot do is look like the exact type of person who the casino staff expect to be a card counter. This means that you cannot bet minimums for ages only to then increase your bets accordingly. This is what happens in blackjack when you try to decrease variance in this way.
