Variations in Counting Systems
In talking about the history of card counting, we touched on this area. Counting fives is a thing of the past. There were a few early attempts at counting fives or fives and Aces, and they are in this book primarily for their historical significance. We can group counting systems into the following groups:
1) Psuedo-Counting Systems
2) Five and Ten Counts
3) Plus-Minus System Level One Counts
4) Plus-Minus System Level Two Counts
5) Plus-Minus System Level Three and up Counts
6) Plus-Minus System Unbalanced Counts
Pseudo-Counting Systems are those which scan the table to give the player an idea of which cards might be “due”. This information may be used for playing decisions or may be carried forward like a running count. Five counts were actually the first counts. Ten Counts are variations of the original Thorp Ten Count. These include improved ways of counting by counting forward, by estimating decks played and deriving a count, or by approximating a count based on Tens to Hands ratio. More modern variations include counting Aces with the tens, or Aces and nines with the tens. These attempt to give a better picture of the large to small card ratio, not just the tens to others.
The true counting systems are the plus-minus systems. They come in simple to complex to impossible forms. They come in balanced and unbalanced forms as well. What they have in common is assigning a value to opposing groups of cards in the deck. Level One balanced systems have all values at +1, -1, or 0. Also they have the same number of pluses to minuses.
A Level Two count has card values at two levels. Most often these are at +/- 1 and +/- 2. One could have a system with values of +/- ½ and +/- 1, and still have a Level Two system. Fortunately no-one has done so to my knowledge. The other systems just go higher in values to try and reflect the effect of removal values more accurately.
Level Three systems have a plus or minus three value card, perhaps for the five denomination cards, and level four systems have a card with a value of four. The higher the level, the more complex the system becomes, but theoretically the more accurate they become as well.
Unbalanced systems are different from balanced systems because the sum of the card values does not equal zero. A Level One unbalanced counting system also uses +1, -1, and 0, but they do not total up to zero. There are usually a greater number of pluses than minuses, so these may start with a negative count and end at zero, or start at zero and end with a plus count. For example, the Red Seven Count has two more plus cards than minus, and the K-O Counting System has four more. The user does not have to estimate the number of decks remaining to be played and calculate the true count.
