Counting techniques (not systems)

Hi all,
I'm starting to practice my counting with an online live dealer table, and occasional 1-1 live table and I'd be grateful for opinions or tips to help me to keep up.
So far I can just about keep up on a live table using hi/low on 8 decks. But I cannot chat or get distracted without losing count. I've been adding or subtracting as the cards are dealt and can only just about manage. I 'think' 'm' for minus and 'nil' for zero, but daft as it sounds, where numbers have more than one syllable, such as 'm eleven' it actually takes me too long to mentally say that. I'm thinking of inventing and using my own names for some numbers between -15 and +15, such as maybe 'mel' for minus eleven. Has anyone else tried this? Also, do you think I would do better waiting till all hands are dealt and trying to scan them once as pairs of cards? I do find myself cancelling adjacent high and low cards against each-other, so I intuitively feel there is value in learning to think more visually.
I'm playing 6 or 8 decks with P of about 50% and wonging out at tc<0 betting double at TC>1 But TC>1 just seems so rare that much of the time I'm counting for no benefit. I know that gives me insignificant advantage, but this is just while I practice.
Any suggestions?

Start counting the round when players are being dealt their second card. Or rather, you can wait until all hands are dealt, and you can cancel hands with other hands (as opposed to just canceling cards with other cards).

Don't play games with shitty pen.

Quote: RS

Start counting the round when players are being dealt their second card. Or rather, you can wait until all hands are dealt, and you can cancel hands with other hands (as opposed to just canceling cards with other cards).

Don't play games with shitty pen.

Thanks,
I'll try that.
There are limits to what games are available to me in the UK distant from the major cities. So far just doing it for fun and practice.

Quote: RS

Start counting the round when players are being dealt their second card. Or rather, you can wait until all hands are dealt, and you can cancel hands with other hands (as opposed to just canceling cards with other cards).

Don't play games with shitty pen.

This is excellent advice for a novice counter. Do not count individual cards on the deal; they're much easier to group because a lot of them cancel each other out! Getting back to basics will help you count better. Get a single deck of cards, shuffle, remove 1 card, and run the deck down as fast as you can card by card (it's okay to go slow at first to get the hang of it). When you're done you should know the value (small, middle, large) of the 1 card you took out. After you can do this CONSISTENTLY *key word here* under 30 seconds then you can try a new technique... Do the same thing but instead of dealing the cards one after another when running the deck down, grab 2-4 cards at a time and flip them over together. This will also teach you to group/cancel them.

After you've become proficient at this then comes the practice practice practice with (my recommendation of) 6 or 8 decks. While you practice online, or by dealing real cards, you should try to distract yourself by half watching tv, having a conversation, actually betting chips, etc. If you can't do this right now then don't use any distractions to start. Just learn to count 6-8 shoes CONSISTENTLY, then move on to doing so with numerous distractions. I personally like dealing real decks to myself and at least 4-5 hands of "players." This will greatly help you gain proficiency in basic strategy as well. Plus you can control the speed at which you deal. If I practice at home now I deal 5 player hands and I deal as fast as humanly possible. I generally run through an 8 deck shoe (playing perfect BS, counting, using chips, and index plays) in 10-12 minutes. Typically, this is about half the time it would take at a casino, which is exactly the goal... Make your training harder than the casino and it'll be cake when you move to real live play.

Quote: Romes

This is excellent advice for a novice counter. Do not count individual cards on the deal; they're much easier to group because a lot of them cancel each other out!

Great advice thx. I switched to glancing the dealt hands in one sweep and then cancelling, I try to sort of use visual processing and do not 'think' the count value unless it changes. Thinking a number seems to take as long as saying it out loud but by using cancelling I only have to think the count after typically 6 cards. I'm actually finding that after a few weeks of intense practice at the somewhat slow online tables, i can almost look at the whole table and see what to increment or decrement by. With live dealer at a proper table, I have to pick the slower dealers, but I'm hopeful of improving.

8 deck online isn't really worth the effort, because I can watch all night before TC goes even as far as 3. but great for practice.
6 deck at my live casino doesn't lend itself very well to wonging, only big spreading, which I get away with so far. I'm making myself known for frequent pee breaks and pauses to drink :)

https://wizardofvegas.com/forum/gambling/blackjack/14249-things-i-did-to-improve-my-game/

Quote: RS

Start counting the round when players are being dealt their second card. Or rather, you can wait until all hands are dealt, and you can cancel hands with other hands (as opposed to just canceling cards with other cards).

Don't play games with shitty pen.

I don't normally play 6-8 deck games where the cards are dealt face up, but when I do, that is how I do it. In my normal two deck game, I don't try to count anything at first - not even my own hand. If someone busts, then I will count their cards right then because I know they're about to be taken up. But everyone else who is still in the game when the dealer draws, I count their cards when the dealer turns them over at the end.

How i count a table typically depends on where i'm sitting at the table. What you obviously want to avoid doing is looking from one hand to the next to the next and then down to yours. You also want to avoid going from your hand to another persons hand and back to yours. It's best to be looking in one direction at a time with transitions between. Even if you're not moving your head to do this, a pit boss or floor manager behind the dealer will spot you. My favorite spot on a 4 base table is 2nd base. What i do is not start counting until i see my first card. Then i count that, then the card of the guy on my right, then his second card, and my second card. Then i react appropriately to the table or the dealer about my hand (excited with a AQ, bummed at a 9,7, poke innocent fun at the dealer, like "your going to bust, i can feel it") and then i move back down to concentrate on my hand, leaving me open to count the other half of the table. This allows a lot of variation as to the order i can count. I can flip it so i count the left half first, or wait until i see my second card to start counting others hands, and anything really you can think of because you are splitting up what you count, and never actually looking at the other cards. Also the fact that i can make a note of my cards or a gesture or something while cards are being dealt makes it seem like i haven't even seen the other peoples cards. If i'm at either end of the table, i usually count half the cards at a time. I'll start counting after i see both my cards, (purposely not paying attention the the other cards coming out) and then let the rest of the cards come out, and only pay attention to what's going on with first and third, ignoring the second spot until the third spot's cards start coming out. If i do this, i also try to comment appropriately on either the first or third hand, making it believable that i'm paying attention to the card totals and not the cards themselves. This gives the illusion, again, that i'm not paying attention to the cards coming out, and not paying attention to all of the tables hands. Above all, if it comes down to getting the count before having to tell the dealer what you want to do, and having the whole count before then, in order to make the most accurate decision, have a decision ready. Nothing is more of a giveaway than looking at someone elses hand while the dealer is asking you what you want to do. This is why it's so important to have your decision strategies down cold. You should be able to just glimpse your hand and make a decision.

Regardless, it helps to be able to count two at a time. If you can find someone to sit across from you, and get them to turn over cards at the same pace as you, you can learn to count 2 cards at a time really quick. The fast dealers seem to go a lot slower after you've trained a lot counting two at a time. You find yourself waiting on the next card as apposed to violently rushing your eyes back and forth, which gives you more time to skip cards and count them later for better cover. Lastly, i don't know about others, but after enough practice, cards that count for 0 don't even register with me anymore, forget about spending mental time saying "zero" or "plus zero" or "nil". That's time spent counting other cards. To fix this, you can work on speed counting a deck of cards. A lot of people say your ability to speed count cards is less important than the ability to accurately count a deck, but if you can speed count accurately, it makes counting more slowly in a casino much easier. To start, go just faster than you can get right a majority of the time. You should aim to mis-count the deck about 60% of the time. You'll soon realize that you don't have time to think certain things, and even your designations for positive and negative numbers disappears. I used to have the same problem you do. Once I got to positive double digit numbers, i would falter a little. Then i'd fall behind, and rush to catch up, and second guess my count. For the most part, now, the numbers come to mind more like images than thoughts or sounds, or numbers.

You're making this way too complicated. Keep practicing.

What is a 4 base table?

The Wizard of Odds has a BJ app that has a good card counting training feature

Quote: 1BB

What is a 4 base table?

What else do i call it? A table with 4 people at it is what i mean. Typically you talk about the three bases, the corners and the middle, but i just think of all of them as bases. There can be between 4 and 8 spots at a table, but i was imagining a 7 spot table with 3 other people between the first 5 spots.