Quote Originally Posted by Freightman View Post
I don't know a whole lot about the insurance 10 count along with halves - I think it can be done, but it would almost certainly slow the game down. Think of it this way. At the same time you are keeping a perfect halves count (with 1 side of your brain), you are simultaneously, or almost so, counting exact number if cards dealt, also accounting for number of 10's dealt on the other side of your brain.

You need a short cut on the insurance count, keeping the integrity of the tag values. Try also INITIALLY counting faces as +1.

All Cards dealt X 1 - face cards x3 , enter the rest of your formula. Slight difference, same result, a tad shorter. Food for thought.
Well the way I originally did it was by using the joint lines on my fingers. Coincidentally each hand has 16 joint marks(4 joint marks per finger) so using two hands you would have 32, which is just what you need to compute when to take insurance on an 8 deck game, ie. 4*8(number of decks) = 32. Much better would be the six deck game as you can stop at 24 and anything at or above you insure.

The way I grouped the cards was use my main count until the end of the round and then count all the cards on the table and subtract two for every ten I saw. This was much easier heads up but I'm having a problem doing it with multiple players at the table and the dealer discards cards 'during' the round, as I would then have to make a mental note that a couple cards already left the table.