anonymous: Need advice re: how long it takes me to count a deck

[anonymous]

Most literature I've read states that, at a minimum, you need to be able to count down a deck in under 30 seconds in order to count accurately at a casino, and that you really need to be under 25 seconds. Well, when I was learning to count, I never tried to get my time under 30 seconds when counting one card at a time. Once I was able to count down a deck accurately several times in a row, I immediately graduated to counting two cards at a time. Once I was able to do that accurately, I started focusing on getting faster at doing it. I can now count down a deck in 20 seconds when using two cards at a time, but it takes me 35 seconds if using one card at a time. Is that normal, or am I abnormal? Is it acceptable? I welcome all advice and criticism.

[Nomad]

> Most literature I've read states that, at a minimum,
> you need to be able to count down a deck in under 30
> seconds in order to count accurately at a casino, and
> that you really need to be under 25 seconds. Well,
> when I was learning to count, I never tried to get my
> time under 30 seconds when counting one card at a
> time. Once I was able to count down a deck accurately
> several times in a row, I immediately graduated to
> counting two cards at a time. Once I was able to do
> that accurately, I started focusing on getting faster
> at doing it. I can now count down a deck in 20 seconds
> when using two cards at a time, but it takes me 35
> seconds if using one card at a time. Is that normal,
> or am I abnormal?

It's not really a question of normal vs. abnormal. It's a question of either achieving the desired time goals for both the one card and the two card cases via continual practice. You're well on your way, but there's always room for improvement.

> Is it acceptable?

Yes, in the sense that you can find dealers that deal slower tham your current max counting rate. At the same
time, not acceptable, in that you might want to keep plugging away at those last 5 secs in case you end up head to head with a really fast dealer.

>I welcome all
> advice and criticism.

When you practice, do your couting drills with *both* one card and two cards passes, not just one or the other.

Might even be time for you to start on three cards at a time...

Nomad

[Don Schlesinger]

> Most literature I've read states that, at a minimum,
> you need to be able to count down a deck in under 30
> seconds in order to count accurately at a casino, and
> that you really need to be under 25 seconds. Well,
> when I was learning to count, I never tried to get my
> time under 30 seconds when counting one card at a
> time. Once I was able to count down a deck accurately
> several times in a row, I immediately graduated to
> counting two cards at a time. Once I was able to do
> that accurately, I started focusing on getting faster
> at doing it. I can now count down a deck in 20 seconds
> when using two cards at a time, but it takes me 35
> seconds if using one card at a time. Is that normal,
> or am I abnormal? Is it acceptable? I welcome all
> advice and criticism.

When you read that it should take under 25 seconds "to count down a deck," what made you think that the author meant one card at a time? I doubt that he expressly stated that, because, in fact, that's very hard to do and is completely unnecessary. You should always count pairs, because that's the way you count at a table. And, after a while, your eye just scans the whole table -- you never count one card at time, except hit cards.

Don

[Nomad]

> When you read that it should take under 25 seconds
> "to count down a deck," what made you think
> that the author meant one card at a time? I doubt that
> he expressly stated that, because, in fact, that's
> very hard to do and is completely unnecessary. You
> should always count pairs, because that's the way you
> count at a table. And, after a while, your eye just
> scans the whole table -- you never count one card at
> time, except hit cards.

> Don

Don,

The authors are all over the place with this. To reference
three of them...

Blackwood p60 talks about sub-25 secs counting two cards at
a time.

But...

Carlson p68 says "When you are good enough to count down a double deck, one card at a time, in less than a minute, and two cards at a time in less than 35 seconds, your counting skills are ready for actual casino play."

and

Bootlegger p106 says "...count the cards in the deck one card at a time... Keep practicing this excercise until you can count the deck in thirty seconds of less."

It always seemed to me that, while overkill, 30 secs for
one deck, one card at a time was a worthy goal.

As to the overkill nature of practicing with 1 card at a time, even though we'll never see hit cards coming at us at the 30secs for 52 card rate, I've always thought that the idea was to overtrain in all aspects, counting one card at a time being but one.

Nomad

[Trapper]

I don't think that the original poster needs to spend more time counting down decks by single cards. I almost never do. Spending too much time practicing counting down single cards might even be detrimental to the speed of counting in a live casino. You want to move past adding and subtracting point values as soon as possible and start thinking in terms of cancelling and combining hands. The ultimate goal, as Don wrote, is to be able to scan a whole table and come up with an accurate count.

[Don Schlesinger]

I agree. Counting one at a time is a waste of time, once you know all the values and can count pairs.

Don

[Sun Runner]

If playing with more than one other player I many times look around as if I'm watching this thing or that. I try not to let the action on the table get to far out of focus less I miss something important, but when I scan back across the table focusing on updating my count I can't say for certain if I'm 'counting' one card, two cards, three or four; the count just usually registers from the visual images I see.

[Illusion]

Count in pairs as the others have stated. With out counting flip over 2 cards at a time and go through the whole deck, add a couple seconds and now you have goal time. You can't expect to count down the deck faster then you can flip them over. This should give you some perspective as to how fast you are.

When you can do that, no dealer will be able to deal faster then you can count.