Techniques for Mastering True Count Conversion 

OMG you gotta really love blackjack to go through all this effort and training to play it!

I find that multiplication is easier to do in my head, so, i just memorize the fractions 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6, 1/7, and 1/8 as a percent and multiply the running count by that percent. Also has the added benefit of a little more precision in the true count.

You off by 3 cards. How dare you? Just kidding I'd say that's closer then most magic people try. Lol.

Thanks for these awesome videos.

I like to wait for the table to go through a few hands before I start glancing over at the discard tray. I also don't use the discard tray alone to gauge the decks remaining. I also estimate how many decks are left to be dealt in the shoe by glancing at the shoe itself, then compare my estimations between the discard tray and the shoe to see if I'm right. That has helped me estimate decks remaining by half decks in many instances.

Paid for the Blackjack Apprenticeship Course, & Its already paid for itself plus I've made $2300 on top of that, in 4 weeks lol. And Im still in "practice Mode"

I love the examples

One thing I do is, say it's hard to divide by a fractional amount of decks. What you can do is divide by what the TC might be then, divide that into the RC. Does it appear that the number of decks left is that number? If not then adjust the TC to get the number of decks left.

Your book is amazing! I never really read books but I'm on the last few chapters of yours!

Don't forget to point out it matters which type of cards you have at home - there are cheaper thinner cards and there are professional.. doesn't help to try with the thin ones. Also changes if you're using an online casino - to gauge their specific decks.

Colin Jones,in a 6 deck game and tou know they cut off a deck before play do you take that into consideration or always go by the discard tray?

Hey colin, I was wondering if you just use whole numbers when counting decks or do you divide it further. Lets say its a 6 deck game, running count is +9, and you estimate that there is 2 1/2 decks in discard. Would you divide 9 by 4 or 3.5. If you just use whole numbers are you concerned about the decimal point? So in my example if you divided by 4, would you just say the true count is 2 or 2.25.

Hey Colin! Thank for the tips. Just had one question. Well a couple. How does deck penetration affect the deck remaining? So if penetration is 70% would you start dividing by 1.4 decks? Or at 2? Since you're not gonna see 30% of those cards I thought you would start at 1.4. You're the expert though and I love to hear your input.

How do you feel about unbalanced counts Arnold Snyder's red seven with Tru edge conversion? Starting at -12 for 6 deck or 0 counting to 12 and when you hit 12 it would be 0 with a .5% advantage. When the running count goes above zero divide by 2x the number of decks to get the Tru edge + the .5% at the pivot point and making bets off your advantage 1%2%3% and Max bet at 4% with the deviations he recommends similar to the illustrious 18. This is what I'm comfortable and fast with is there any reason to switch? Also great videos your doing a service to us all

Hey Colin, as I've began my card counting run one of the biggest struggles has been being in the dark depressing environment of a casino with bad lifestyles, being alone in that for hours. How do you maintain a good mentality?

hey what abut machine that shafel the cards? today all casino use machine the deales just pot the card in the machine. so i can i know want the true count? i mean the deller dont witing until he finish all 6 dek ,he just the take one deck or some cards he have and pot it in the machine.

When is the app coming to android? I just changed my iPhone to Huawei and the only thing that made my decision hard was your app, it has helped a lot

Fucking love these videos Colin. Keep up the good work 👍

As always, top content, Colin! Now, do you sell equipment tools like discard tray (maybe you got some handy divisor-cards?) online, or do we have to become members? I believe the physical approach is a more accurate way to do deck-estimation-training. I have done some training with the Casino Verite, and its a bit confusing to transfer this to the real life tables, for me at least. As for counter-traps, dont you think that some casinos would use different sizes of discard trays, and also, what about the thickness of the cards? Can they produce them in different thickness to set off counters regarding deck estimation? Lastly, I would like to ask if you have experienced casinos using almost invisible cuttingcards? During my last visit at the strip, LV, I experienced that the cuttingcard had disappeared (!) after playing a few shoes HU, at a well-known property. I later noticed it, as the shoe progressed, and it turned out to be yellow, thus making it harder to spot, which kind of caught me off guard. Is this something you would consider a countermeasure against cardcounters? Oh, and by the way, your book is awesome, read it a few times already! A matter of time before I become member of BJA :) Thanks in advance! Greetings from Norway

What do you do when you have 2.7 decks left or something?

Hey Colin (or any other AP with more experience than me😀), I have a question on rounding and flooring during TC conversion. There are two processes of rounding involved: rounding the number of remaining decks (let's say to the nearest integer for simplicity) to find the denominator and rounding the quotient (RC/decks) to get an integer for the TC. The second step is explained in the video, you always round down (floor the quotient), i.e. with 3 decks remaining a RC of 8 gives a TC of 2 and a RC of -1 gives a TC of -1. But what about the other rounding process? Let's say the RC is 8 again. If there are 1.9 decks in the discard tray in a 6 deck shoe game, there are 4.1 decks left to play. Do you really round that up to 5 decks left or rather down to 4 decks left? In the video, you said something like "there aren't 2 decks in the discard tray yet, so you still divide by 5". Don't you want to get closest to the true TC, in this case 8/4.1=1.95, to choose betting size and playing deviations? If you work with 4 decks remaining, you would get 8/4=2, and with 5 decks remaining, you get 8/5=1 (after flooring), but the estimated 2 is closer to the true TC, so 4 decks remaining is the better estimate. In this case you would take a little more risk as the true TC is not yet exactly 2, but if you bet like you still hadn't the advantage (as a TC of 1) you may also lose some of the advantage/some EV. Basically, what I'm asking is: isn't it overly conservative to both floor the number of decks in the discard tray (=round up the number of remaining decks) and also floor the true count, as you are constantly underestimating the true TC? Also: what do you do if there are 4.5 decks in the discard tray/1.5 decks left, at a RC of say 6. Using half deck estimates you'd find a true TC of 4, but you can get estimates of 3 and 6, depending whether you round the number of remaining decks up to 2 or down to 1. So the way one rounds the denominator has huge influence on the playing decision. (In this example, you could argue that's why you should learn how to divide by half decks in the second half of the shoe, but I could then construct the question in a way that I ask whether to round your quarter decks up or down. The difference would be smaller, not TC= 3 or 6 like above, but the question is still there.)

what about the cards in the shoe behind the dis card, some cut shoe deep ?

Would it make sense to bet instead of one unit for each true count 2 units. So for a true count of 3 you would bet instead of 3 bet 6.

U don’t know how fast I clicked on this video haha. Was waiting so long for a new upload I actually ran into an odd scenario. I was playing a double deck. After the dealer placed the penetration card, he took about 10 cards from the bottom of the deck and placed them in the discard tray, then burned a card, then began to pitch How does the 10 cards he Placed in the tray affect my deck estimation? For example, since there are 10 cards in the discard tray already, After he deals 42 cards. Do I treat it like a full deck has been dealt? Or do I treat it like 42 cards dealt I’m asking. Cause I do half deck estimation, and those 10 cards gets me to half-deck fast. Sorry, if it’s not clear, I’m also a paid BJA member. I can email u more if u like.

Are these prices for the apprentice program in US dollars

Do they need to make the discard tray visible to the player ?

In the casino I go to, a maximum of one deck is used and then added back to the other decks. Does that mean in the end that card counting doesn't work there?

Hi Colin personally I think it's more important to see how far the casinos willing to let you do your betting spread more so than true Count conversion and the rules of the game as well however if you have a tough game with bad rules and no deck penetration then the true count is more important if you have a 6 and 8 that game obviously with a perfect true Count system you'll have far less betting opportunities with a perfect true count system when you're system finally calls for a big bet they're shuffling the deck with lack of penetration games it's very frustrating that's my point why it's good to have a game with deep penetration which I know it's very difficult to do these days.

It also depends on how your deviation chart is structured. I played against a single deck and divided by 1 at the half and divided by 2 at the top and multiplied by 2 at 3/4 through.

But when do you do the true count conversion. After how many decks?

Dear Colin, there is always a question on my mind.. I do play black jack in live casino but just wondering how do you count cards where you don't play all the decks fully? For example, I play 8 decks BJ. I notice normally the red card or known as cutting card always appear somewhere 4 to 4,1/2 decks have played and that shows it will be the last game of the shoe. The balance 4 more decks won't be played and dealer will reshuffle the whole shoe again. What if all the rich high cards are left at the remaining decks? Even your count is positively high at 4 decks you played earlier on but when the time you wanted to bet big, the cutting card appears. So i can't continue on to bet big as all the high cards are left behind. Also another thing what is the true count value consider high and it is good to bet big? True count 3? 4? or 5 and above? Until today, i still unable to figure out is card counting really works? Some even able to guess what is the next card going to appear. That is really mind blowing.

Hi Collin! Again, another great video! Loving your book too btw, I’m on the last 50 pages! I’m from Oregon and I’ve played at the Spirit Mountain Casino and I found it odd when they use 8 deck discard trays for a 6 deck shoe. Have you ever seen that sort of thing? The rules were horrible and deck penetration was 2+ decks! I’ll never play there again, but was curious on your take on that. Thanks again for always putting our quality things! Blessings to you!

Bro I don’t even gamble, don’t think I ever will be rich enough to, not even old enough to, but counting cards seems so fun and I’m trying to learn it for like no purpose at all

How do you compensate for the cards at the end of the deck where the cut card is? There is usually a half deck or so left at the end of the shoe.

Colin, your the best but, how about if casino does not show burn or card when dealers change. Should you just fugitabotit

Well how can u find out how many decks there is in total or remaining if the casinos deck holders aren’t clear like yours but steel instead?

A cool game you could play with us would be to say the rc is something like +21 and then at the end of the video, ask us again to see if we remember! Thanks bhud, your book is a great read so far.

done.

Do you take deck penetration into account when converting?

6:00 guess im bout to printout 4th grade division worksheets😂

Colin, what do you do when the casino uses an 8 deck discard tray on a 6 deck game?

I only recently started card counting and I not only dream about counting, I can't look at numbers in everyday life without "counting them" unconsciously. Has this happened to anyone else? Will it go away eventually? The dreaming especially is tiresome as I often feel stressed in my dreams that I've lost track of the count.

Why are there two extra high cards and how does he get to the 10?

Have you done a video to remind your viewers, in a shoe game, dealer usually cuts two decks out before racking his cards?

Yo that shirt is crazy

Idk if you have a video on this. But I’ve been playing blackjack for fun since I was 18 and am 23 now, I’ve learnt the game and I’m taking it real serious now and I’ve had a couple of great outings where I consistently turn $200-$600 into $2000 (this is by pressing on hands that I win) and I try to card count but never to the point where I know when to press big. I also play match the dealer a lot which I know is bad but I tend to only bet $15-25 sometimes $10 when I am low or don’t wanna impact my bank roll. I really think I have a future in card counting since I already play perfect strategy. My issue is not being able to walk away from the table with max profits I was up $1600 today and lost $800 of it before I walked away. I wanna know when is a good time to leave or take a break and move to a diff table

What if they play with a single deck or not even half a deck because I play with those electronic machines and every 2-3 rounds the cards in the discard tray go back into the machine... should I just consider the RUNNING count only?

I have a question unrelated to the video, but I couldn't find a good video to post it on. Is there any data online about how often the dealer will bust with different cards at different counts? A casino no too far from me allows you to bet that the dealer will bust whenever the dealer has a 2-6 showing. You are allowed to bet anything from $5 up to what you have as your main blackjack bet. I'm looking for data to say whether or not this could long term profitable at different counts. I've seen a lot of data about how often the dealer busts without knowing the count, but I can't find any data on counting and them busting. Thank you for your time!

I think card counting cannot be use in online casino , because they add margin card in the middle so the whole card cannot be use to play from the shoe , Just want to ask if this is also work in online casino?

Your training app calculates true count like a computer, not like a human. It seems to be doing some rounding, but it’s not anything I could do easily with head math. Myself I truncate, so Rc 7 / 4 decks = 1. The app seems to calculate that as 1.7 rounded up to 2. Not sure what is more correct but I’d want to be on the low side.

My issue is is that my casino I go to immediately dumps the cards into the table, there is no discard tray to help

Hi there been learning and watching you the past few weeks. Do you get your true count after one deck is disposed or after every round ? I thought it was after every deck or what we thought would be a full deck . Thanks for any help ! Keep up the good work :)

I understand the running count divided by the true count. If my running count is +9 and Vegas is using a six deck shoe, I noticed that three decks are in the tray, so three more decks are left. I divide 9 into 3, which gives me a 3. Do I continue counting from +3 or + 9 for my True Count? I'm confused on what number to use after the division. Do I continue counting from +9 or +3?

What do you do when you have any number of decks and a percentage of a deck. say deck and a half or 1.25 decks 1.66 or 1.75. etc . Do you round up or down? Say only 40 cards have been dealt. Do you still consider there to be 6 decks left or 5?

WHEN DO U START DA TRU COUNT….IS IT AFTER ERY HAND?

Not just division but also your times tables.

True count conversion isn't necessarily hard, but it is something else to constantly be thinking about and you can get almost exact same efficiency with KO and even REKO will get you about 99% efficiency at 6 decks and you won't have to make true count conversions.

Why isn’t the true count rounded to the closest integer? Wouldn’t rounding make it a more accurate representation?

I wouldn't go by empty space in the discard tray. There are different size discard trays. Look at the cards and estimate. It's not hard.

How do you figure out the count mid shoe....if you sit down at a deck say half way gone

OK... 6 deck shoe has 312 cards. 120 high cards and 120 low cards. Could you just count the number of high cards coming out. Or vice Versa. Like there has to be an easier way than that hi lo system.

Ohhh....so you start raising your your bets when the last deck is left depending on the count.

How often do you do true count? Like after every deck?

dividing by 4.5 is doubling and then dividing by 9.

How do you know how many decks they are playing with like 6 or 8?

My thing is so 6 deck usually the deal cut with the yellow card one deck. So wouldn’t that make it a 5 deck ?

If you only get 4 decks of deck penetration because of the cut card, do you divide by 4 for true count because the other 2 decks are not in play ??

You forget to tell them about the deck that get cut off when the Shuffle happens

Are casino cards thicker than other cards? My Bicycle decks don't look as THICC.

1/4 deck left for double deck blackjack? I wish! Where I go they pretty much cut the deck at a 55/45% split. Doesn't matter if there are three players or just one. Really sucks.

Question: is Video blackjack worth it to play? Or I will lose most of the time. Because you can’t count cards on that thing

This feels like a stupid question and I feel like I'm missing something obvious here, but why does card counting work? On a good count isn't the dealer still getting the same high card rate that you are?

You don’t need to know conversion if you can tell how many decks are already used. Here is a simple solution. If you can tell how many decks are remaining...then all you need to count are high cards. 4 decks into a 6deck game, card counting 0 would be 80 high cards. Any number below 80 means there are that many high cards left above 0. You don’t have to be a true card counter if you just count high cards and remember 20 high cards are in each deck. So if you only counted 45 high cards 4 decks in, you know your high card heavy in the remainder cards not played yet. You can even divide the two numbers and get a percentage.

Holy cow - is division by whole numbers REALLY that hard for a lot of people? I keep running into this on channel after channel and it's just baffling to me. It's just the times table "undone."

One thing that could mess you up, is at some casinos the shoe does not take up the entire discard tray, there might be half a deck or more empty space.

Is this what they mean by "Big Deck Energy?"

How are the cards counted after the true count is calculated ?

What if the casino puts the cards in a machine after every game???

Where is the Android APP😭

In order to get a true count you literally have to be watching a new shoe from the start? So it is possible to go 3 decks in through 6-8 and still be low negative on count?

I'm surprised casinos still let you see how many cards have been played

How many decks do you think you can count? How many cards are left? I play two decks and the dealer only deals one.

I thought casinos shuffle the shoe when it's half way through

How do you know, how many decks do they use at the table ? Cuz its kinda sus to just ask...

Don’t they have a cut card to tell you when the current deck is finished?

What if the running count is +1 at a 2 deck table? When you divide 1 by 2 it results in .5 so is the true count 0 or still +1

There are only 4 decks in UK blackjack. Would you calculate the true count the same as 6 or 8 decks?

Surrender was not allowed and double down on 10 and 11 only with dealer hitting soft 17. Those were typical Northern Nevada rules and there were no multiple deck games at that times. Some casinos offered 25-1 for a 21 consisting of A123456. 5-1 for 777 and 5-1 for blackjack with AJ suites in spades. These were not side bets. They were in effect for every hand. So A123456 paid 25-1 on your original wager. I also played for a short time against double on any 2 cards and after splitting with dealer standing on soft 17. And also splitting and respliitting Aces drawing as many cards as you like to each Ace. Times have changed. You could play with almost no heat.

Im still confused as to how you can card count by sitting down at a table, do you have to wait until they refill the shoe? Because I feel like if you join an 8 deck shoe and say 3 are played, you dont know the previous running count

Is it me or is this that video he put out a year ago

Hahahah a little embarrassed off by 3 cards. Thats pretty amazing to me

what about counting numbers of cards , i use this way to know how many decks still !?

How do I get true count on a 2 deck

What if true count is 1 or 2? And there’s five decks left ?

What is the true count on 6 decks shoe when running count is +3?

I played professionally for 16 years and true count conversion is a waste of time and energy. You can play far longer without fatigue and errors using an unbalanced count like KO. You can make up any mathematical differences by just increasing your spread or wonging out more often. You can also improve KOs performance in early parts of the shoe with some easy adjustments. Ken Uston himself switched to his SS unbalanced count in the mid 1980s. That should tell you that true count was dead long ago.

I completely understand how the simple math works, but how do you not divide by 2 when there is 1 deck remaining? Doesn’t that make 2 (or a little less than 2) total?

So your count must always be 100% accurate, but a 15% rounding error when converting is totally fine. I don't get that.

So if I have a running an 11 and there is 3 decks left I have a 2.75 true count. So I round up or???

What does the true count do