Blackjack Card Counting Help?

Question

I'm really new to card counting and i'm using the knockout method and was wondering if your using more than one deck in a casino how are u supposed to know how many decks are left in the shoe to figure out the true count. And is it true that u should make it your best interest to raise if the true count is above 1

Answer 1

If you practice, it won't take long at all before you can estimate the number of decks remaining simply by looking at card left in the shoe.

Buy about 8 decks and start practicing with them.  Deal some cards for a short while and then stop and estimate how many cards are remaining.  They actually stop and take the time to count them.  Log your results and record how close you are.  

Do this just several dozen times and you'll already be good at it.  Do it another hundred times or so and you'll amaze yourself at how accurate you are.

Yes, you can begin to raise your bet one unit once the true count is +1, but just be aware that at that count, your advantage is very, very low... almost non-existant.  You may wish to take a more conservative approach, depending upon your bet size and the size of your bankroll, to wait until the count (and your advantage) is slightly larger.