Back-counting Card counting

1 back-counting

1.1 advantages
1.2 disadvantages
1.3 group counting

back-counting

back-counting, known wonging, consists of standing behind blackjack table other players playing on, , counting cards dealt. stanford wong first proposed idea of back-counting, , term wong comes name.

the player enter or wong in game when count reaches point @ player has advantage. player may raise his/her bets advantage increases, or lower bets advantage goes down. back-counters prefer flat-bet, , bet same amount once have entered game. players stay @ table until game shuffled, or may wong out or leave when count reaches level @ no longer have advantage.

back-counting done on shoe games, of 4, 6, or 8 decks, although can done on pitch games of 1 or 2 decks. reason count more stable in shoe game, player less sit down 1 or 2 hands , have up. in addition, many casinos not allow mid-shoe entry in single or double deck games makes wonging impossible. reason many casinos exhibit more effort thwart card counters on pitch games on shoe games, counter has smaller advantage on average shoe game in pitch game.

advantages

back-counting different traditional card-counting, in player not play every hand sees. offers several advantages. one, player not play hands @ not have statistical advantage. increases total advantage of player. advantage player not have change bet size much, or @ if choose. large variations in bet size 1 way casinos detect card counters, , eliminated back-counting.

disadvantages

there several disadvantages back-counting. 1 player not stay @ table long enough earn comps casino. disadvantage players may become irritated players enter in middle of game, , superstitiously believe interrupts flow of cards. lastly, player hops in , out of games may attract unwanted attention casino personnel, , may detected card-counter.

group counting

while single player can maintain own advantage back-counting, card counting used teams of players maximize advantage. in such team, players called spotters sit @ table , play game @ table minimum, while keeping count (basically doing counting ). when count high, spotter discreetly signal player, known big player, count high (the table hot ). big player wong in , wager vastly higher sums (up table maximum) while count high. when count cools off or shoe shuffled (resetting count), big player wong out , other counters signaling high count. system used mit blackjack team, story in turn inspiration canadian movie last casino later re-made hollywood version 21.

the main advantage of group play team can count several tables while single back-counting player can track 1 table. allows big players move table table, maintaining high-count advantage without being out of action long. allows redundancy while big player seated both counter , big player can keep count (as in movie 21, spotter can communicate count big player discreetly he/she sits down). disadvantages include requiring multiple spotters can keep accurate count, splitting take among members of team, requiring spotters play table regardless of count (using basic strategy, these players lose money long-term), , requiring signals, can alert pit bosses.

a simple variation removes loss of having spotters play; spotters watch table instead of playing , signal big players wong in , out normal. disadvantages of variation reduced ability of spotter , big player communicate, reduced comps spotters aren t sitting down, , vastly increased suspicion, blackjack not considered spectator sport in casinos except among playing (unlike craps, roulette , wheels of fortune have larger displays , tend attract more spectators).