• Effect of hands on results between 12-16
• Setting up hands, allocation of points
• Counting hands
• Basic idea of the strategy
• Determination of RC and TC
• Betting strategy
• Best-known card counting strategies
• Psyhology of Blackjack

BETTING STRATEGY AND BANKROLL

The betting strategy is in close connection with the card counting strategy. The card counting strategy does not work without betting strategy and even the effectiveness of your play is determined by the betting strategy.
Two important decisions are guided by the results of card counting. The first is the optimum decision of the player in a given situation. The second is the unit number of betting. From this point of view the essence of card counting can be defined as watching the movements of the 50-50 % odds between dealer and player. With other words, the player can judge by this whether he/she has an advantage or disadvantage over the bank. The betting strategy is based on this and its essence is increasing or decreasing the unit number, directed by the exact situation (TC). If the odds arising from the situation are advantageous for the player then he/she has to increase, otherwise to decrease the bet or to play unit bet. In the betting system unit bets of same value and multiples of these are used. The value of the unit bet is determined by the player himself/herself according to his/her gambling knowledge and financial means.
The figures of the next illustration speak for themselves and make understandable the operation principle and logic of the betting system.

Demonstration of the betting system of one deck (52 cards).

Further discussing the subject of connections between strategy and bet increase we have to face a major but resoluble problem, which can cause failures to many players. This is the relation of strategy and betting system to the increasing number of decks.
The values in the table represent the results of one deck. The problem is that there are only a few casinos in the world playing single deck games. And it is not for nothing. The most widespread is the shoe, when the game is played with 312 cards i.e. 6 decks. If somebody wants to be a professional card-player he/she must face this and achieve a level of gambling knowledge by that this special rule set up by the casinos does not create any difficulties.
This problem is followed by two consequences. The first is an exact, mathematical one while the second can cause psychical concerns.
The mathematical problem arises from the fact that in case of increasing number of decks the RC, TC distributions and the connected advantage/disadvantage will change and the positive - negative (winning/losing) series will be longer. Thus the player needs more knowledge to develop an effective game strategy, betting system and playing tactics, which is a major factor of the result in playing against six decks (312 cards).
The psychical problem can be caused by the slowing down the rate of the game and changes of RC values and longer time is needed to achieve the requested results. So it is more difficult for the player to experience the effectiveness of the strategy and this situation tries his/her patience to a greater extent. But an impatient player works against himself/herself and sooner or later he/she will lose.
All the solutions to these problems can be found in full in the simulator BJ777. The construction of the simulator enables the survey of these important values from one deck to infinite number of cards.

The best-known betting strategies:

• Fixed size betting: Bets are the unit bet and its multiples. During the play the unit bet is not changed. So it can be easily used and played with little experience. But it is not the optimum from the viewpoint of the growing rate of the bankroll, because the bankroll can increase/decrease linearly only.
• Bankroll-proportional system: the unit bet changes according to the momentary bankroll. For instance, the unit bet is 2 % of the bankroll. This will be re-calculated after every round. In practice it is difficult to use, as the result of the calculation is generally not a whole number and it should be converted into bets accepted at the table. In return of this you get an optimum bankroll-growing rate.
• Kelly's optimum bet multipliers: By this method you can get optimum values of bet multipliers for a given situation (TC). The increase of the bet must be proportional to the percentile advantage at the situation and to the variance quotient referring to the unit bet. As promised in the introduction we disregard mathematics, so it is enough to say that obviously major bet increase is to be done in case of major advantages.

Similar statements from financial point of view:
The fixed size betting corresponds to a bank account where the interests are not added to the base (no capitalization).
In the case of the bankroll-proportional system (variable size betting) interests are added daily to the base with the difference that interests are sometimes negative.
Based on practical considerations you can use the following reasonable system:
You play basically fixed size betting but sometimes increasing your bankroll by the amount won and adjusting the unit bet to that. So you can make the "complicated" calculations at home, on paper and you do not need to deal with this in the casino.
From the human point of view there is no reason for following the optimum bet multiplier system. Generally speaking you do not play like a machine and there are often periods of the game where the optimum system fails and only the player's experience ("professionalism") helps to survive, and not to mention the aggressive player-watching system of casinos. Because of this players often have to deviate from the "optimum" betting systems and they need to use cover or diverting bets not to be recognized as professional card counter.
On the other hand also mathematicians did not find up to now an absolute optimum money management system. Based on certain criteria you can declare that one or another strategy is the best, but it is true based on the given criteria only. Finally you make the point that everybody can set up a money managing strategy and if there were no mistakes his/her system will also work.

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