Card Counting Strategies

Besides just sitting down and staying at a table and counting cards for hours, there are a couple of other card counting strategies that can be used.

  • Back-counting

    • "Back-counting", also called "Wonging", consists of watching a blackjack game as a spectator and then jumping into the game and betting only when the count is in your favor. The idea of back-counting was first proposed by Stanford Wong, and the term "Wong" comes from his name. Since a player is only playing when they have an advantage, their odds of winning and total profits will be higher. The hard part about back-counting is that a player who jumps in and out of games will likely tip off the casino that he is counting cards. To neutralize the effect of back-counting, some casinos (especially in New Jersey) do not allow "mid-shoe entry".

  • Team play

    • Card counting can be used by teams of players to maximize their profits. In such a card counting team, some players called "counters" will play at a table and bet the table minimum, while keeping the count. When the count gets high enough, the counter will signal another player, known as the "big player", to sit down at the table and bet big. When the count goes bad or the shoes if shuffled (which resets the count to 0), the "counter" will signal the BP (big player) to leave the table and look for the counter that the team has stationed at other tables to signal him into those tables.

    Team play allows card counters to back-count multiple games at once while a single counter (even if they are back-counting) can only monitor one table at a time. This way, the counters are almost always playing while the count is in their favor. Team play also allows card counters to stay under the radar of casino security because the Big Player (the one who is actually making the money) is never actually doing any of the counting. If the "eye in the sky" is just watching the Big Player, it will appear as if he is just walking around and playing randomly.

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HPG ADMIN on May 8, 2013