Modern Blackjack nth Edition

The most famous color-dependent card counting system is Red7, but there are several. In Red7, you count the red sevens, but not the black sevens. The idea is to realize results that are closer to a level 2 strategy, without using a more complicated level 2 strategy. In a level 2 strategy, you would have to count the sevens as .5, or double all the tag values.

Of course, counting half the sevens is less efficient. Betting correlation theoretically drops from 98.4% to 97.2% and playing efficiency drops from 54% to 53%. But, does this matter? Well, first off, BC and PE don’t really relate well to unbalanced counts. And, PE assumes a large number of indexes, not normally used in Red7. So, in that sense, the loss in using a Red7 type of compromise is not as bad as it may seem. On the other hand, we introduce a new opportunity for error. We must now pay attention to color. And, counting of card–pairs, necessary for speed, is more complex and error prone. The question then becomes, is the opportunity for error, and the extra level of practice, worth using a color dependent card counting strategy as opposed to a simpler count or any gain in ease worth using this compromise over a level 2 count? The answer, as usual, is, it depends. Everyone’s mind works differently. Some people have no problem with the addition of this new factor.

Related is the question of indexes. Is it worth it to take into account the fact that you are counting half of the sevens instead of all of them as .5 when you generate indexes. In my opinion, the error introduced by color dependent tags is introduced during play, and cannot be reduced via indexes.