Does the 10 count work?

I am a fairly new card counter and found a man online saying that the Hi Lo count is not accurate and that the 10 count is the way to go. In the 10 count you count the 10s as -2 and the aces separate and everything else (2-9) is a +1. He says this is the way the original author of beat the dealer released in 1962 says is the winning method. Apparantly another book was published after that stating the Hi Lo system (counting the 7,8,9s as 0 and so on) is the way to go. Then the new author admitted he made a mistake in that Hi Lo system in which there were too many 7,8,9s he didnt take into account which then goes back to the 10 count being the best. I found him on youtube at "blackjack high-low card count shattered". Please check this out and let me know your thoughts. I would love to know if anyone has had luck using the 10 count. Thanks!

Didn't you already write this in another thread?

I wrote it on a blog and you said to write it as a forum. I got your response and Im not sure we are talking about the same thing. Could you look at the youtube reference I made and check this guy out. He seems to have relevant points to the matter. Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

Well card counting doesn't have one method of counting. There are many ways of card counting like Hi-Lo, Omaha, KO, 10. Hi-Lo is a good method of counting for the players who are new to this counting thing as it is easy to master in Hi-Lo, so that the player gets the an initial knowledge of counting. After that he can switch to the other more and vast methods of counting. These counting methods can be used both in land based blackjack and online blackjack. So it would be helpful for you in both online casinos and land based casinos.

Counting indices come down to the effect of card removal. Plotting the effect on a bar graph makes it clear why certain cards are given different indices, depending on the level (difficulty) of the count. Ultimately, it makes a VERY small difference which count you use (at the same difficulty level), as long as you are counting something!

Wong come up with a 'level 2' or 'level 3' count that used halves, an incredibly accurate representation of the effect of card removal. I think 9s are -.5, 8s are 0 and 7s are +.5, among other adjustments. But, after some practice with the method, he found he was making more mistakes and getting tired faster, for little gain. He dropped the halves and went back to hi-lo.

The different competing counts are all effective, and pretty much run together in terms of efficacy in determining your bet size, insurance decision and play decisions. Don't worry about picking the best count, just pick one and stick to it. practice practice practice.

There's a lot of information out there on this, but the short answer is that yes, it does work. How well a particular count system "works" has two components: betting efficiency and playing efficiency. The ten-count is also fairly difficult to learn and implement.

Quote: diggitydust

I am a fairly new card counter and found a man online saying that the Hi Lo count is not accurate and that the 10 count is the way to go. In the 10 count you count the 10s as -2 and the aces separate and everything else (2-9) is a +1. He says this is the way the original author of beat the dealer released in 1962 says is the winning method. Apparantly another book was published after that stating the Hi Lo system (counting the 7,8,9s as 0 and so on) is the way to go. Then the new author admitted he made a mistake in that Hi Lo system in which there were too many 7,8,9s he didnt take into account which then goes back to the 10 count being the best. I found him on youtube at "blackjack high-low card count shattered". Please check this out and let me know your thoughts. I would love to know if anyone has had luck using the 10 count. Thanks!

Dr. Thorp's original ten count assigned -9 for 10's and +4 for all other cards, which is the insurance count that the Wizard referred to in your blog. I watched the Youtube video and have no idea where the man got this system. Perhaps if we sober him up we can ask him. I would be surprised if you found anyone using the 10 count today.

Does the 10 count work? Yes. Is it the best, easiest, or the most profitable? NO, NO, and NO!

Go to Casino Verite and click on counting strategies for honest and accurate information on a couple of dozen counting systems.