# of secs. to count a deck ????

I am consistently around 20 secs w/ Hi-Lo, is that good enough ? I still need to work on my TC conversion and I18 , when I can do these the I will be ready !!

Anyone have any pointers on the TC conversion ? I can do it ,but very slow !

Quote: DonPedro

I am consistently around 20 secs w/ Hi-Lo, is that good enough ? I still need to work on my TC conversion and I18 , when I can do these the I will be ready !!

Anyone have any pointers on the TC conversion ? I can do it ,but very slow !

It's been years since I've timed myself counting down a deck of cards. What's important is that I can converse with the pit, dealer and fellow players while keeping a very accurate count. If I had to put a time on it, I would say that you should be able to count down six decks in 90 seconds. Be aware that doing this in the solace of your living room is quite different than live casino conditions.

Is your slowness on the TC conversion due to the difficulty of estimating the remaining decks or the division itself ? Get six decks of cards from a casino, get or make a discard tray and practice, practice, practice ! Mark the discard tray at one deck increments. Again get cards from the casino because they tend to be thinner than store bought cards and your estimates will be more accurate. The division is fairly simple- don't worry about half decks just round down. Conversion is never going to be exact because you're not including the cards on the table which could be as much as one quarter of a deck.

If you are still uncomfortable, there's always KO which has no TC conversion.

Quote: DonPedro

I am consistently around 20 secs w/ Hi-Lo, is that good enough ? I still need to work on my TC conversion and I18 , when I can do these the I will be ready !!

Anyone have any pointers on the TC conversion ? I can do it ,but very slow !

I consider 30 seconds to be good enough. I also think anything much faster than 20 seconds is a practical impossibility.

True counts should be estimated from a count of 1/2 decks played, so you will need to be pretty good at instantly recognizing the number of 1/2 decks in a discard pile. The easiest and simplest way to do this would be to get your own casino cards and practice estimating various numbers of 1/2 decks. However, I've found that's of limited use when you try to transfer the skill to the table. Back when I was learning to count, I would sit at a low-minimum table, betting the minimum and playing basic strategy, and not even bothering to count---I would just be keeping track of the number of decks dealt. I got quite a few funny looks from the dealers when they noticed I was staring at the discard pile so much :)