Hi All,
Relatively novice player here looking for a card counting strategy to begin with and the KO system seems like a good starting point. What is the consensus view of this counting system? Is this a good starting point for a novice? Any suggestions on resources to master this system?
Thanks in advance for the input.
Knock out Blackjack, Blackbelt in BJ i believe are good KO resources. Well, i'll start with a little bit of something. KO is a fine starting point if your goal is simplicity and efficiency. Search for the true count theorem, and read up on this. You will NOT be doing this for KO unless you learn KO first and then learn TKO, and this impacts how you bet-- in another "balanced" system (which is where at the end of the deck, the card values total to 0) you will be taking the true count and betting/playing by it. KO, to me, seems like an opportunity to learn both, which you may not get by learning Hi-Lo alone. However, many would recommend hi-lo as a starting point i imagine, so you could better understand some of the theory behind counting, as well as being able to avoid learning the "pivot point" and the "key count", which may confuse you if you're going for too much at once. You should probably start with REKO-F, IMHO. Once you get that down, get The Color of Blackjack book so you can play the first half of the shoe more accurately. (KO is best as you reach the latter end of a shoe game). Everyone will advise something different. If you're planning to do this for the long run, learn a lvl 2+ system, especially if you're going away from shoes. Remember to use CVCX Online under BJ resources tab, and look at how your games compare by different systems. Keep in mind that hourly $ is only one statistic, so try your best to learn about SCORE, DI, Certainty Equivalent, N0. I'm still learning them too. Cheers. Remember on your first trip, beginners luck can mess with your head, so if you can't keep up with the table, opt out. You may earn an extra 60$ like me when they switch tables from a dealer made of stone to a dealer made of lightning, but you will most definitely feel like an idiot even when you do. :] Also, learn more about what it means to be in "the long run". I still haven't fully fleshed it out, but assume it means playing with a gently inflated bank at a very very low risk of ruin to slowly profit by using... a higher/lower unit? not sure here. But I got back here to edit just to add, that BJ isn't how you think of it in terms of chasing your losses, so PLEASE do not think that you're putting a specific unit amount out there to be won and lost, because you aren't. Even when high counts call, you must realize that your max bet X 4 has to be on the table, and comfortably, for you to keep your playing advantage. Nothing more disastrous than going into it not realizing this, and keeping that aspect of gambling for APing. This is what the casinos are banking on you doing, so LEARN TO ACCEPT LOSING (sometime :])!
Last edited by NaLaAa; 06-15-2013 at 02:46 PM.
Thanks so much for the detailed response NaLaAa,
You touched on the REKO-F being a good starting point, is this a derivation of the KO system? If I decided to go with the REKO-F system would "Knock-Out Blackjack" and "Blackbelt in Blackjack" still be good starting resources?
Start with Norms free-ebook , http://www.qfit.com/book/index.htm
The first book I read on BlackJack was : "Knock-out Blackjack"
The nice thing about KO and REKO is the ability to adjust your Initial Running Count (IRC) to avoid negative numbers.
I found I was having a problem with negative numbers when I started counting.
I adjusted my IRC, my key count (KC), and my pivot point (PP) to avoid negative running counts.
KO and REKO are not difficult and they free your mind for other tasks like your comportment at the tables.
Life is short so hit it hard!
Blackbelt is a wonderful starting resource, but will not give you information on KO. Blackbelt will give information on the Red 7 unbalanced count (and also the Zen count, level 2 and balanced). Modern Blackjack, the free book on this site, will give you information on the ReKO count, which is a simplification/steamlining of the already simple KO system, to answer your question, and is another wonderful starting resource. You'd do well to read them both to start with.Originally Posted by pokertito
If you do decide to go with an unbalanced count, then KO and Color of Blackjack would be two more excellent reads, even if you didn't go specifically with KO, as they will increase your understanding of unbalanced strategies.
Although the debate between level 1 vs level 2 system recommendations will always rage on, with both sides making valid points, I do believe that in either case, starting with an unbalanced count (KO/KISS/Red7 as examples for level 1 and UBZ2/BRH-Systems as examples for level 2) is a wonderful plan for the new counter. It allows one to start slow, gain confidence, get the feet wet, and avoid errors a novice will be prone to make, all with the option of adopting true-counting as part of the game plan in the future when they are ready for it.
And once the player has some seasoning at the tables, and if they decide to start TCing their unbalanced count, which is as easy to do as with a balanced one, they will now be armed with a strategy that will outperform their balanced counterparts in many-to-most games AND will have a pivot point that helps mitigate errors - a difficult to quantify benefit that will contribute towards our goal of precision play.
"I did it for me..... I liked it. I was good at it...and I was...really...I was alive..."
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