A Brief History of Card Counting
Lawrence Revere stated in his book, Playing Blackjack as a Business,
that he developed his first Blackjack Strategy in 1954. If so, it would
have been the first known system developed, and predates Thorp by
about eight years. Revere stated it was a plus-minus system which
counted the nines, tens and Aces as minus one, eights as zero, and the
rest as plus one. Later he developed a count identical to the Hi-Low or
the point count. By 1959 he was playing a Ten count strategy. Again,
this predates the Thorp Ten Count by three years. He also had
developed a Five count strategy similar to the Thorp Five Count.
In 1962 Dr. Ed Thorp published his famous work, Beat the Dealer,
which published some of the first research in the effects of removing
and adding cards to a deck. It also included the above Five Count and
Ten Count systems. The Ten Count was different from Revere’s Ten
count in the way they were counted. Revere counted forward the tens
and others, where Thorp counted backward. The five counts were
similar.
A year later, Harvey Dubner introduced his Hi-Low Count. It was based
on the research of Dr. Thorp and Julian Braun. This was the first
plus/minus system to be published. In the second edition of Beat the
Dealer, 1966, Thorp included his version of the Hi-Low called the Point
Count. Braun also published a version of the same count which he
called the Plus-Minus. This Hi-Low Count is the prototype for every
counting system that has followed. It remains the gold standard to
which all other systems are compared. In 1977, Stanford Wong
developed full playing indices for the Hi-Low, which he called High-Low,
in his book, Professional Blackjack.
In the same publication Wong presented the Wong Halves. This was
the first Level Three system. It gave a value of 1 ½ to the fives, and
only ½ to the 2’s, 7’s’ and - ½ to the 9’s. Since the value of the
highest to the lowest was 3:1, this makes it a Level Three system.
In 1983 Arnold Snyder published Blackbelt in Blackjack, and introduced
the unbalanced Red Seven count. In this count, Snyder counted 2
through 6 as plus one, the red sevens as plus one, the black sevens as
0, eight and nine as 0, and ten’s and Aces as minus one. This meant
that if you start counting at zero and count through a complete deck,
your ending count would be plus two. Hence, it was unbalanced. The
purpose of the unbalanced count is to eliminate the need to estimate
the number of decks remaining to be played. By doing this, a site of
potential error was eliminated- estimation of decks remaining. It also
eliminates the conversion of the running count to a true count. There
will be more about this later when the Red Seven is covered in more
detail.
The rest of counting history involves variations on the themes of Ten
Counts, Level One counts, Level Two and greater counts, and different
unbalanced counting systems. It seems we are searching for two
things, greater accuracy and simplicity. These seem to be mutually
exclusive. Each simplification leads to loss in accuracy. Each attempt to
become perfectly accurate makes for a more complex counting system.
Increasing complexity can lead to errors which offset the gains from the
increase in complexity. That is the Catch 21.
Lawrence Revere stated in his book, Playing Blackjack as a Business,
that he developed his first Blackjack Strategy in 1954. If so, it would
have been the first known system developed, and predates Thorp by
about eight years. Revere stated it was a plus-minus system which
counted the nines, tens and Aces as minus one, eights as zero, and the
rest as plus one. Later he developed a count identical to the Hi-Low or
the point count. By 1959 he was playing a Ten count strategy. Again,
this predates the Thorp Ten Count by three years. He also had
developed a Five count strategy similar to the Thorp Five Count.
In 1962 Dr. Ed Thorp published his famous work, Beat the Dealer,
which published some of the first research in the effects of removing
and adding cards to a deck. It also included the above Five Count and
Ten Count systems. The Ten Count was different from Revere’s Ten
count in the way they were counted. Revere counted forward the tens
and others, where Thorp counted backward. The five counts were
similar.
A year later, Harvey Dubner introduced his Hi-Low Count. It was based
on the research of Dr. Thorp and Julian Braun. This was the first
plus/minus system to be published. In the second edition of Beat the
Dealer, 1966, Thorp included his version of the Hi-Low called the Point
Count. Braun also published a version of the same count which he
called the Plus-Minus. This Hi-Low Count is the prototype for every
counting system that has followed. It remains the gold standard to
which all other systems are compared. In 1977, Stanford Wong
developed full playing indices for the Hi-Low, which he called High-Low,
in his book, Professional Blackjack.
In the same publication Wong presented the Wong Halves. This was
the first Level Three system. It gave a value of 1 ½ to the fives, and
only ½ to the 2’s, 7’s’ and - ½ to the 9’s. Since the value of the
highest to the lowest was 3:1, this makes it a Level Three system.
In 1983 Arnold Snyder published Blackbelt in Blackjack, and introduced
the unbalanced Red Seven count. In this count, Snyder counted 2
through 6 as plus one, the red sevens as plus one, the black sevens as
0, eight and nine as 0, and ten’s and Aces as minus one. This meant
that if you start counting at zero and count through a complete deck,
your ending count would be plus two. Hence, it was unbalanced. The
purpose of the unbalanced count is to eliminate the need to estimate
the number of decks remaining to be played. By doing this, a site of
potential error was eliminated- estimation of decks remaining. It also
eliminates the conversion of the running count to a true count. There
will be more about this later when the Red Seven is covered in more
detail.
The rest of counting history involves variations on the themes of Ten
Counts, Level One counts, Level Two and greater counts, and different
unbalanced counting systems. It seems we are searching for two
things, greater accuracy and simplicity. These seem to be mutually
exclusive. Each simplification leads to loss in accuracy. Each attempt to
become perfectly accurate makes for a more complex counting system.
Increasing complexity can lead to errors which offset the gains from the
increase in complexity. That is the Catch 21.
