My blackjack card counting rant

[JSTAT]

I blasted the card counting community in 1996 by defending an old school gambling expert John Scarne who was torched by the blackjack community, so I defended him. The JSTAT Count is similar and defended him fighting trolls since 1996.

John Scarne finally admitted that he had a card casing system in his book "Scarne's Complete Guide To Gambling"(1986). On page 370, Scarne explains his COUNTOWN SYSTEM. This method did not fit into computer programs and more importantly wins.

Scarne was the first counter to barred at Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo in the 40's. Subsequently, he was barred from all Las Vegas casinos. Scarne was rebuked by the casino sponsored gurus because he had the guts to reveal a valid winning blackjack method. This system is by far, the best single deck method ever devised.

In a nutshell, this system requires you to buy 20 additional chips to be used for the "countdown". Take four chips off this stack and place it next to the remaining 16 chips. The four chips represent aces while the 16 chips represent tens, jacks, queens and kings. As you go through the deck, take off the chips from these stacks as they are played. If, for example, 1/2 of a deck remains and 8 chips are left from the ten's pile and four chips remain on the aces pile. Since this situation has produced a 2-1 ratio from the normal 4-1 ratio of ten cards to aces, we will get blackjacks 9.6% of the time instead of 4.8% of the time. You will NEVER find and exploit this advantage with Stanford Wong's or Arnold Snyder's counts.

John Scarne was the ultimate insider who sought to reveal the truth of this great game. But as usual, you suckers will believe in people who can manipulate computer simulated outcomes better than they can handle cards.

John Scarne's "Countdown System" also works perfectly regarding insurance. While ALL the "recognized" experts can only offer approximations, Scarne's method will give you the EXACT percentage of the insurance bet. When the ratio of tens and aces is under 2-1, then it is favorable to take insurance. You can also do this with double- deck and beyond if you wish. In the double deck, just adjust your stacks of chips to 32 and 8, for tens and aces respectively. When over the 2-1 ratio, don't take insurance.

[JSTAT]

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[Sanlmar]

I took Scarne on Cards from the library when I was 12. Then all of Scarnes stuff. My friends and I would play for nickels and dimes over the summer vacation.

I distinctly remember his stories of playing in Havana and the fall of Cubs.

My life might have been quite a bit different if Harry Potter was available instead.

[JSTAT]

I took Scarne on Cards from the library when I was 12. Then all of Scarnes stuff. My friends and I would play for nickels and dimes over the summer vacation.

I distinctly remember his stories of playing in Havana and the fall of Cubs.

My life might have been quite a bit different if Harry Potter was available instead.

John Scarne card trick in “The Sting”. His hands are in place of Paul Newman during this scene.

[Sanlmar]

I took Scarne on Cards from the library when I was 12. Then all of Scarnes stuff. My friends and I would play for nickels and dimes over the summer vacation.

I distinctly remember his stories of playing in Havana and the fall of Cubs.

My life might have been quite a bit different if Harry Potter was available instead.

John Scarne card trick in “The Sting”. His hands are in place of Paul Newman during this scene.

Scarne was born in 1903 so those hands were almost 70 years old.

[mickeycrimm]

Thirty years ago I was a traveling low limit poker player and wanted to know how to calculate odds. But the problem was I didn't know the code language of math. Like X's, O's, exclamation points, brackets, all that gibberish. Still don't know it.

In those days I was hitting libraries all across the country studying everything gambling. Under the Dewey Decimal System the gambling books are found at 795 in the libraries. So whatever library I was in that's where I would go.

I didn't have any luck with gambling math until I stumbled across Scarne's Guide to Modern Poker on a library shelf.

Chapter 10 was "The mathematics of Poker." Scarne broke down a 52 card deck by the type of 5 card hands you could be dealt.

He started with the number of 5 card combinations in a 52 card deck and wrote it out long hand. When I saw that equation the big light bulb went off in my head. I knew it was the key to everything I wanted to learn. It looked like this:

(52 X 51 X 50 X 49 X 48)/(5 X 4 X 3 X 2 X 1) = 2,598,960 combinations.

He then proceeded to show how many combinations made each hand, RF, SF, 4K, FH, FL, ST, 3K, 2P, 1P, 0 Pair.

Take 5-card flush combinations for example.

Each suit has 13 cards.

(13 X 12 X 11 X 10 X 9)/(5 X 4 X 3 X 2 X 1) = 1287 combinations.

Then discount out the 10 combinations that make a SF or RF.

So 1277 combinations.

Then multiple by 4 because of the 4 suits, 5108

2,598,960/5108 means you will be dealt a 5-card flush every 509 deals.

The rest is logic. How many combinations in a 2-card Texas Holdem hand?

(52 X 51)/(2 X 1) = 1,326

How many of those combos make a pair of Aces?

(4 X 3)/(2 X 1) = 6 combos that make a Pair of Aces

1326/6 means you will be dealt Aces every 221 deals.

From Scarne I learned to do poker math on my own. It started with live poker. And when I moved into video poker 26 years ago there wasn't that much information out there on the game. So knowing the math came in real handy.

Thanks, John Scare