Non-counting strategy

So this friend of mine wanted me to teach her Blackjack so she could make a second income so to speak. I told her the only way to win money is counting cards, and even then it's not worth it, because you have to have several hundred to a few thousand dollar bankroll and you're only winning $5-10/hr. But she didn't really get what I was saying, and would say, "well teach me the basics, cause I can keep track of the cards."

At first, it sounded like she was trying to keep track of tens and aces, just like counting. But she said she could keep track of ALL the values individually. I also told her to learn basic strategy, but she wouldn't do it. She would vary her hit/stay/split/double strategy based on what cards have come out. I told her this is a bad idea, and you're probably not keeping track as much as you think. But she won't let me explain things like this. She wants to fully explain her method and discuss why it's bad because it helps her learn apparently. This might be true for other things, but I maintain it's worse to hang out these bad ideas. To be fair she is very smart and it may be possible she really can keep track of all the cards that have come out.

But here's my real question. If a person could keep track of all the cards could you change the house edge AT ALL? Instinctually I would imagine best case scenario, you could cut the house edge in half, but never eliminate it, especially if you're not varying your bets at all.

If you could remember all the cards, you would then have to know what to do with the information. There would be too many variations to basic strategy and you still wouldn't know the sequence of the remaining cards. I doubt that it would be much help.

Your friend asks you to teach her the basics then tells you she doesn't want to learn basic strategy. Buy her a book on blackjack and wish her good luck.

"you would then have to know what to do with the information"

That's what I was thinking about. Knowing what's left probably doesn't mean much at all. I've told her to get a book. I'm not sure if she will or how serious she really is about playing.

I'm assuming she's talking about single deck, but 1BB is right. Even if she knew exactly what cards are left in the deck, she would have no way of knowing what order they were going to be coming out, much less which card(s) was/were burned, or anything after a cut card if such is used. Even so, I'd be interested in her results. I find it fascinating when I hear about someone's strategy at blackjack that doesn't involve counting. I was recently playing with someone whose system was, as he described it, "counting cards without counting cards". The annoying thing is that he proceeded to win quite a bit. Grr.

It won't work unless she learns basic strategy. Even marginal deviations from basic increase the HA substantially, and knowing what cards have come out will not make enough difference.

If you knew precisely what cards remain in the pack (the unused portion of the deck, including cards behind the shuffle card), then you would be able to determine (with a fast computer) the exact house edge (player advantage) of the game at that moment based on the cards effect or removal. As for strategy deviations, there would be several to consider. For instance, I would think this would have a significant impact on some pair-split decisions if you knew you would/wouldn't be able to/have to re-split, or that you were unlikely to get the benefit of DAS. But I don't know in any further detail.