Card Counting strategies

There is a casino that offers a 2-deck face up blackjack game with 5 or 7 players on the game. my question is 1) is this game more advantageous to a card counter and 2) what would be the optimum counting strategy to use (i.e. hi/low, KO, zen, omega, hi-opt II) and what kind of bet spread should be used. Here are the rules it follows... BJ's pay 3 to 2, double any 2 cards, split up to 3 hands except aces, double after splitting allowed, no surrender... the table limits are actually low on this, usually 5 to 15 minimum and 300 max....

If the dealer hits soft 17, then it's about .38% house edge. If the dealer stands soft 17 (unlikely, but stranger things have happened), then it's about .18% house edge. Face up deal doesn't generally help much over face down deal, except in some extreme situations (like lots of low cards dealt all at once, which boosts your count in a hurry, which lets you change your strategy on the fly). In fact, El Cortez has a game very similar to this (double deck, dealt face up, similar rules, $3 minimum).

Quote: mting77

There is a casino that offers a 2-deck face up blackjack game with 5 or 7 players on the game. my question is 1) is this game more advantageous to a card counter and 2) what would be the optimum counting strategy to use (i.e. hi/low, KO, zen, omega, hi-opt II) and what kind of bet spread should be used. Here are the rules it follows... BJ's pay 3 to 2, double any 2 cards, split up to 3 hands except aces, double after splitting allowed, no surrender... the table limits are actually low on this, usually 5 to 15 minimum and 300 max....

I think you're overthinking it. My guess is you have not started to learn to count. The question you should be asking yourself is what strategy to learn. You only need to know one. The most popular are the hi-lo and KO. Personally I use the hi-lo, but if I had it to do over again I would probably go with the KO. A little less powerful, but a lot easier to use.

sorry about forgetting that dealer does stand on soft 17

i use the hi/low counting now... i was just wondering if there would be any advantage to using a little more involved counting system under these playing conditions...