Beyond Basics: Advanced Blackjack Strategy Explained

Welcome to the Advanced Blackjack Strategy guide. Today we’re going into the very deep waters of the knowledgeable player.  

We’re going to go beyond the typical ‘Basic Strategy’ player and explore the outer reaches of advantage play, card counting systems, and which one is the best one for you to use, and quite a lot of in-depth information that you will find useful as you strive to become a better player.

And btw – if you want to learn how to be an expert blackjack player, you’re in the right place to learn all there is to know about the Basic Blackjack Strategy.

The object of this guide is to give you the tools you need to make you a formidable blackjack player – someone who really knows the details of blackjack advanced strategy play.

Once you learn the information in this guide, you will know a lot more than the average casino floor person, and probably more than the average casino shift manager, too.

Let’s get started!

Basic Strategy Vs. Advanced Strategy

Many beginning blackjack players learn about Basic Strategy when they decide they want to learn more about the game.  

And that is the correct move.

Basic Strategy is the correct way to play blackjack.  

It doesn’t matter how many decks are in use, it doesn’t matter what your hand is or what the dealer’s up card is – there is a mathematically proven correct way to play your hand, and it’s called Basic Strategy.

It’s been tested by mathematicians, gaming experts, astrophysicists, you name it and they all agree.  Basic Strategy is a fact.

Even though you may know Basic Strategy inside out, you’re still looking at a House Advantage that is always working against you of probably 0.5%, and possibly a lot more.

So how do you change that HA?

There is only one way to do that, that doesn’t involve cheating, and that is counting cards. (and just to be clear, counting cards is not cheating, and not illegal).

Card counting is an easy way to track the ratio of high to low cards in a blackjack shoe.  The reason this is important is because blackjack allows us to use the ratio between the number of high cards and the number of low cards remaining in the shoe to ascertain who has the advantage.  

For every +1 in the True Count, the house Advantage for the casino goes down by 0.5%.  

A +4 True Count means the House Advantage working against you is reduced by -2%.  

So if you’re playing a game with rules that mean the HA working against you is 0.5%, and now by counting you’ve got yourself into a +4 count, the HA is actually now 1.5% IN YOUR FAVOR!  

So today, we’re going to do a deep dive into card counting – what it is, what systems are the best and how they can help you win in the long term.

There is already an in-depth article with some great information about how to be a professional card counter in the Academy – go here for a link to that article. 

We also have many other articles in our Chipy Academy about the more popular casino table games including blackjack, roulette, baccarat and craps, and other casino-related information such as playing slots and some of the casino math involved in the casino games.  And they’re all free!

First, a couple of definitions that you need to know before we go any further.

Bet Spread is how much you’re willing to bet from the minimum to the maximum, in units.  

So for example, a 1 – 12 unit bet spread means you are willing to bet 1 unit when the count is +1 or more, and as the count goes up, you’re going to bet more.  

So a count of +2 means you bet 2 units, +3 means you bet 3 units and so on.  

And you decide ahead of time how much each unit is worth.  So if you’re using a 1 to 12 bet spread and your unit is $10, it means you’re going to bet between $10 and $120.

The Running Count is the total number of points a card-counting system assigns to the cards as they appear from the shoe.  It tracks the current state of the entire shoe.

The True Count is the count per deck remaining in the shoe, found by dividing the Running Count by the decks remaining to be played.

Effect of Removal (EOR): this means what is the effect of removing one card from the deck.  What happens to the player’s Expected Value (EV), expressed as a percentage, when a specific card is removed from the deck.

The Most Well-Known Card Counting Systems: almost all card counting systems are based on the composition of the cards remaining in the deck.  The ratio of high cards to low cards will let the player know whether the player or the casino has the advantage for the remainder of the shoe.

And once you know that, you know how much to bet.

Let’s start with the simplest systems to learn and use.

The Speed Count

This may be the simplest of all the counting systems.

The player starts their count at 27 on a 6-deck shoe, and at 30 on a double deck game, immediately after the shuffle on either game.

After each player completes their hand, you add one to your count for every low card you’ve seen during that player’s hand (so every 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 means +1). 

You keep adding one to the count for every low card you see for all the players’ hands, and the dealer’s hand. 

At the end of the round, you subtract the total number of hands from the count.

Once the Speed Count gets to 31 or higher after each round, the advantage is in the player’s favor, and you bet more.  

If it gets to 30 or below, the advantage is now with the casino, and the player should reduce their bet.  

The player may even flat bet the minimum until the shoe improves.

And yes, counting cards really is that simple!

The Hi-Lo Count

The most common card counting system, which is also one of the simplest to learn, is the Hi-Lo count.  Sometimes called the +/- count, I first saw it in Lawrence Revere’s excellent card counting book ‘Playing Blackjack as a Business’.  

Over the years, it has become the standard against which all card counting systems are judged.

Here’s how it works:

The low cards are 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and every time one of them is exposed, the counter adds one (+1) to the count.

The high cards are 10, J, Q, K, and Ace, and every time a high card is exposed, the counter subtracts (-1) from the count.

The other cards, the 7, 8, and 9, have zero value, and so aren’t included in the count.

When the count is positive, meaning the high cards outnumber the low cards in the remaining deck, the player increases the size of their bet.

When the count is negative, meaning the low cards outnumber the high cards in the remaining deck, the player reduces the size of their bet to the minimum units they’re willing to bet.

The Hi-Lo count is the basis for most card counting systems, and its simplicity makes it an attractive method to count the cards.

K-O Rookie Count

This count is an ‘unbalanced’ system – which means that when you’re counting down the deck, you won’t end up with a zero at the end of the deck.  

The way it becomes unbalanced is that it uses the same value numbers as the Hi-Lo count, except the 7 is a +1, not a zero. 

And that’s what makes the KO Rookie count easier to use – there is no division required to get from the Running Count to the True Count.  In fact, you don’t need the True Count at all.

Each unit represents the minimum bet.  

So on a $5 minimum table, the unit value would be $5.

On a $25 minimum table, the unit value would be $25.

The way it works is as follows:

Running Count	Double Deck	6 to 8-deck Shoe
0 or less	1 Unit	1 Unit
+1	2 Units	2 Units
+2	3 Units	4 Units
+3	4 Units	8 Units
+4	5 Units	10 Units
+5	6 Units	12 Units

If you’re playing a double deck, and the Running Count is +1, your bet should be 2 Units.  

So on a $5 minimum table, your bet would be $10.

If you were playing on a $25 minimum table, your bet on a double deck would be $50. 

The KO Rookie system is easy to learn, particularly if you already know how to use the Hi-Lo counting system.

Kiss Count 1

The KISS system is a simple system to learn as it removes the need to track 50% of the cards in the deck. 

Players count the face cards as -1, and the 4, 5, and 6 value cards as +1.  

They also count the black deuces as +1 (yes, that’s the 2 of spades and the 2 of clubs).  

All the other cards, including the red deuces count as zero.  

The KISS Count 1 starting Running Count on a 6-deck shoe is +10; on a double deck it’s 17.

When the Running Count gets to 19 or less, bet the minimum.

When the Running Count gets to 20 or more, bet more.

A good starting bet spread is 1 – 6 units on a double deck, and 1 – 12 units on a 6-deck shoe. 

Increasing your bet is done in conjunction with the count.  So a count of +1 would indicate an increase of 1 unit.  A count of +2 indicates an increase of 2 units and so on.

Ace/Five Count

I first came across the Ace/Five count when I was a Shift Manager at a downtown Las Vegas casino.  There is a detailed description of why this system works well in my article on Card Counting in the Academy. 

It’s a very simple technique and will introduce you to card counting 101.

If you keep track of just the Aces and the 5s, you’re following a ‘Card Counting Light’ strategy.  

It’s a great way to start learning how to count cards in a casino environment.  It’s simple, not too challenging and gives you a good indication of how you perform under pressure.

The Aces favor the players and the 5s favor the casino and all you need to do is subtract 1 every time an Ace is exposed and add 1 every time a 5 is exposed to give you an accurate Running Count.  

Converting that to a True Count comes next – how many decks are still to be dealt in the shoe?

Dividing the Running Count by the number of decks remaining in the shoe will give you the True Count.

And then you’re off to the races . . .

The Ace/10 Front of the Shoe Count

This is another simple count and if you’re a competent Basic Strategy player, this count will get you to where you have a slight mathematical advantage over the casino.

The first thing is to learn how to recognize two decks in the discard rack. Practice this at home so you can recognize with accuracy once the shoe has been depleted by two decks.

Then, at the table, track the 10s, face cards and Aces as you see them.  

For each one, subtract 1 from your count.

In a 6-deck shoe, there are 120 cards that you need to track.  And that means that in each deck there are 20 of those cards.

Sounds too difficult?

No it’s not!  All you’re doing is subtracting 1 every time you see one.

And that means that with an even distribution, you should have about 40 of the trackable cards gone in the first two decks of the shoe.

What if you have less – let’s say 30?  That means that the shoe is now rich in 10-value cards which favors you, the player.  

And remember, an increase of +1 in the count = a 0.5% increase in your favor.

So bet more, possibly even bet two hands, but find a way to get more money on the table. 

What about if there are more of the trackable cards out?  Let’s say 50?

Then it makes sense to either leave the table, or simply bet the minimum for the remainder of the shoe.

Using a 1 – 6 bet spread may realize some significant gains ‘if you play your cards right’ (did you see what I did there?).

Okay – so those are beginners’ systems.  What about the more advanced systems?

There are several systems that use the Hi-Lo count system.  That is for a face card, 10 or Ace, the player will subtract 1, and for 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, the player will add 1.

These are called balanced systems because the counter will have a zero at the end of the deck they’re counting down.

They are also called Level 1 systems.  

Effect of Removal (EOR)

This table shows the effect on the player’s ability to win when one card is removed from a single deck. 

And it refers to what happens when you take one card out of a deck and continue to play blackjack with the remainder of the deck.  

Cards	Effect of Removal
2	+0.38%
3	+0.44%
4	+0.56%
5	+0.71%
6	+0.41%
7	+0.29%
8	+0.01%
9	-0.17%
10	-0.51%
A	-0.59%

This table comes from Don Schlesinger’s book ‘Blackjack Attack – Play the Pros’ Way’ 

It is an excellent book that I recommend to you if you want to study the game more.

All the card counting systems typically have the low value cards assigned the same value, a +1.  

As you can see from this table, (and as an example), the 2 is less valuable than the 5, so when counting, the 5 should be assigned a greater value than the 2.  In the simpler systems, it isn’t. 

Many experts and mathematicians have run billions of hands in simulations and have determined that just removing one card from a deck has a significant effect on the way it changes the House Advantage when playing blackjack.

If you look at Table 2, you can see that certain cards have an effect on the player’s Expected Value (EV) from the hand.

Removing a 2 will increase the player’s EV on the game by 0.38%.  

But removing a 5 will increase the player’s EV by 0.71% - almost double the value of the 2 being removed.

Similarly, look at how much the loss of an Ace affects the player’s EV.  0.59% - so an Ace being gone is a big deal when considering your opportunity to win the hand. 

As you can see, the 5 is the most impactful of all the cards.

Why is that, and not the Ace?

Because the 5 is what allows the dealer to turn a stiff hand (12 through 16) into a made hand (17 through 21).

Removal of the small cards has a positive expectation for the players.

Removal of the big cards has a negative expectation for the players.

Please note that EOR is more pronounced in a single deck game than in a multi-deck game.  With 312 (6 decks) or 416 cards (8 decks), the effect of one card being removed is smaller than when there are only 52 cards.

But the principle is scalable – so be aware of how EOR affects the House Advantage.

Once Don Schlesinger had published this EOR chart, the Level 2 systems started to show up.  

They were more complex and gave a more incisive picture of what was going on in the shoe than the Level 1 systems, but of course there was the inevitable trade off.

And that is it’s more difficult to count using a Level 2 system than a Level 1 system. 

And then the Level 3 systems began to show up.  

Again, an improved count, but at the cost of requiring even more work from the counter. 

The more complex the system is, the more likely the counter is to make a mistake.  And the margins are very thin on a blackjack table, so mistakes, even one mistake, is a no-no.

Let’s take a look at some of the more highly regarded systems that are in place.

And please note: None of these following systems are for beginners.

Hi-Opt II

They have expanded and increased the tag numbers from Hi-Opt I which makes the system more efficient and accurate.  

The system also requires the counter to track the Aces separately.

To do this and maintain a balanced system, you don’t have to keep track of the 2s.

If you look below, you can see that now the Hi Opt II includes values of +2 and -2.

Card Values

Stanford’s Halves

Stanford Wong is a legendary name among card counters worldwide.  He is the author of several fine books, with ‘Professional Blackjack’ being regarded as a ‘must-have’ by advantage players the world over. 

It also made its way onto the bookshelves of casino managers and CEOs everywhere.  

His card counting system, ‘Halves’, is a highly detailed system that gets into the nitty-gritty of card counting by tagging the appropriate cards with a half a point score on those hands that justify it.

It is a Level 3 system, making it perhaps the most complex of the card counting systems, which in turn makes it more accurate and efficient.

If I was going to be a professional card counter, this is the system I would use.  

Having said that, it requires a lot of work and practice for the would-be card counter to use in a live casino environment.

I believe it is the most accurate system ever devised, but for my purposes, it just didn’t suit my needs.  As a casino shift manager in downtown Las Vegas, I just needed to know if someone was counting or not, and there are much simpler systems to use that tell me that quickly and accurately.

The most difficult part of the ‘Halves’ system is adding and subtracting across decimal points.

That way, you get a whole number value for all the cards.   

So much easier to work with when doing arithmetic in your head. 

I also like that the humble 5, the often overlooked, often maligned 5, attains its true worth with a solid +3.

Card Rank	Value
2	+0.5
3	+1
4	+1
5	+1.5
6	+1
7	+0.5
8	0
9	-0.5
10	-1
J	-1
Q	-1
K	-1
A	-1

Red Seven 

Let’s get back to the simpler systems here.

Red Sevens is a simple Hi-Lo system that follows the standard pattern of all the Level 1 systems.

The low cards (2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) are valued at -1, and the high cards (10, J, Q, K, and Ace) are all valued at +1.

The difference is that the Red Sevens (so the 7 of Diamonds and the 7 of Hearts) have a value of +1, and the black sevens have a value of 0.

It’s an unbalanced system, and the ‘red 7s’ are included to allow the system to be a fine-tuned part of the system.

What is it about a red 7 that it should be included in the count, vs the black 7s not being included in the count? 

The red 7s vs the black 7s – there is no advantage in blackjack either way.

Arnold Snyder, the inventor of this count, wanted to add the 7 to the count but only wanted to give it half weight and rather than include all the 7s with a 0.5 decimal value, which makes it more difficult to keep track of, he decided to count the red 7s, but not the black 7s 

By doing it that way, he made it very simple and less likely to cause the counter to make a mistake.  Very bright!

Zen Count

The Zen Count is a Level 2 system and Arnold Snyder has come up with a ‘next level’ counting system that some beginning counters may find particularly useful. 

If you’ve started learning to count cards using the Hi-Lo system, the Zen count will give you a more accurate picture of what’s happening in the remainder of the shoe without too much extra work.

Card Rank	Value
2	+1
3	+1
4	+2
5	+2
6	+2
7	+1
8	0
9	0
10	-2
J	-2
Q	-2
K	-2
A	-1

You will find the full details of this system in Arnold Snyder’s excellent book, ‘Blackbelt in Blackjack”.

Uston APC (Advanced Point Count)

Ken Uston may be the most famous of all the card counters.

He was recognized early on as a serious threat by the casinos, who immediately banned him from playing.

His Advanced Point Count system is perhaps the most challenging to learn.

It is a Level Three system, so has a wide variety of tags to consider as you can see.

It also requires the player to keep track of the Aces in a side count.

Card Values

It’s a difficult system to use, requiring a lot of concentration and expert knowledge, not just in tracking the cards but in how you manage the game around you.  

How you respond to the action in the casino, the distractions and so on while still maintaining the count and tracking the cards is a major challenge.

Is it worth it?  You decide!

Other Forms of Advanced Blackjack Strategy

There are a few other methods of trying to gain an advantage when playing blackjack.  Some of them are illegal, and over the years, the casinos have found ways to make them impossible to use any more.

Composition-Dependent vs. Total-Dependent Strategy

Sometimes you may make a decision about how to play your hand based on the cards in your hand.  

For example, on a single deck, if you have a King and a 2, a hard 12, against a dealer 4, you should hit because of the cards remaining in the deck.  

But if your hard 12 consists of 6, 2, 2, and 2, you should stand because of the small cards you have already removed from the deck in your hand.   

This is called ‘composition-dependent strategy’.  

Go here for a breakdown of how that strategy is played, complete with charts to assist you in deciding how to play your hand based on what cards you have in your hand.

Shuffle Tracking 

While playing, the player looks for a few hands that have a lot of high-value cards in them.  They form a chunk of cards that is rich in 10s and Aces as they go into the discard a rack.  

In the ‘good old days’, that chunk may have been tracked through the inefficient hand shuffle in place and when offered to the player for the cut, the player could cut that slug of cards into the front of the shoe.  The player would then know that the first few hands would favor him and bet accordingly.

Nowadays, most casinos use a shuffle machine, so you can’t see the cards being shuffled. 

Hole Carding

When I first moved to Las Vegas, I used to live in a neighborhood near Siegfried and Roy’s house.  They had the big show with the white tigers and lions live on stage at The Mirage, on the Strip.

You could hear the lions bellowing and coughing at night.

These days, I would be concerned about one of them escaping, but back then?  

Nah, it’s VEGAS, baby!

Anyway, I would cash my paycheck at Arizona Charlie’s every week.  I was dealing blackjack, roulette and craps downtown on swing shift, and Arizona Charlie’s was (kind of) on my way home.

There was this dealer on graveyard shift (let’s call him Charles – not his real name) whose single deck I liked to play.  Charles was an older gentleman, perhaps 60 or so.  

Approximately 6’ 7” tall, skinny, and stooped over.  

And if you were playing anywhere near third base, you would have a free view of his hole card as he buried it.  

He was so bad you could have a free view of it from anywhere near the parking lot.

I liked playing on Charles’ table a lot.

Anyway, hole carding means being able to see the dealer’s hole card.  It’s not illegal to use the information, as it’s public information available to all at the table.

And as you can imagine, it gives you an edge of about 10% over the casino.

Yes, I sure do miss Charles these days!

Ace or Card Location Play

Sometimes when the dealer is not very proficient, the shuffle is a bit messy.  And you can see the whereabouts of cards within the shuffled decks.

If it’s an Ace, or a face card, you can cut the cards to make sure it is dealt out to the players.  If it is a small card, you try to put the cut card in where you steer it to the dealer. 

Tips for Advanced Strategy Blackjack

Here are some thoughts on Advanced Blackjack Strategy.  

1. Physically counting cards is easy to do.  

What’s hard about it is the discipline it takes to be good at it.  
I watched quite a lot of people play who I immediately thought ‘possible advantage player’.  

Sometimes it was as easy to spot as them moving their money from $25 to two hands at $100 each. 

Sometimes it was them playing a ‘seam’, or giveaway hand quickly without thinking about it.  

Like the guy at Beau Rivage shortly after we opened, who stood with a pair of 9s against a dealer up card of 7. Up until then, he was just a regular Joe, playing good basic strategy, betting $25 green cheques.  It’s the right play, but the attitude with which he made the decision told me, ‘Oh, maybe he’s a much smarter player than I thought’. 

And he was.

Or the pretty young girl who bought in for $40 right at shift change at the Lady Luck.  I was the incoming shift manager, and I was assigning the dealers to their games. 
I okayed her buy-in because I happened to be standing by her table when she did it.  Half an hour later I walked into the pit where she was playing, and she had more than $200 in front of her.  

This is the sort of thing that makes you go, ‘Hmmm, that’s interesting’ – because a small buy-in of $40 usually means a $5 flat bet or something similar, and now she had $200+. 

So I watched her play from a distance (using the mirrors on the ceiling) and OMG! 
She’s moving her money with the count.  

I loved it. She made my day - because it was a lesson for me to learn.  

Just because they don’t look dangerous, doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.  

2. Generally, most of the players who tried weren’t good at it because they weren’t disciplined and made zero attempts to camouflage what they were doing.  

They simply hadn’t done the work to get good.

3. Deciding on which count system to use is daunting if you don’t know much about how it works.  

If I was starting today, I would get any two of these three books:

Stanford Wong’s ‘Professional Blackjack’, Arnold Snyder’s ‘Blackbelt in Blackjack’, and Don Schlesinger’s ‘Blackjack Attack – Play the Pros’ Way’ and read them cover to cover.  

And then read them again.

4. I would learn a simple Hi-Lo +/- count system.  

I would practice and practice and then practice some more. Find out how to learn and practice counting cards.

5. Go out to a casino and practice counting the cards by watching the video poker guys play.

I’m in the environment – it’s noisy, smoky perhaps, slot machines going off everywhere, beverage servers moving around.

But I’m not watching the poker – no, just counting the cards as they come out on the video poker machine because they look like they do on an actual blackjack table.  

They come at you fast, and usually two or three at a time. 

Good luck.

Expert Advice / Tips

Many of the old school advantage plays have been removed by the casino.  It’s an ongoing move/counter move between the casinos and the wannabe advantage players.

The players find a way to gain a small advantage or cheat, and the casinos find a way to remove or stop it.

Shuffle tracking?  Now most casinos use shuffle machines. 

Hole carding?  Now most casinos use card peekers.

Dealer warps – don’t bend the cards to check the hole card, use the peeker.

And the beat goes on . . .